The Pastor’s Piece, Pastor Kevin Cernek – FCFI Chaplain

FCFI

April 13, 2025

When I think about my childhood and all the Sundays I sat in church with my family, (from age 0 to 18 that would be approximately 936 times) – there are many memorable moments in those pews. We always sat in the third row from the front on the left side. If we were ever late for church, that pew was automatically saved for us – no reservations required. During the opening hymn, we’d all file in one by one and take our seats. Mom and dad always sat right in the middle of us kids. If we acted up, their arms were long enough to reach us and let us know our behavior was not acceptable. If for some reason they couldn’t reach (like if one of them was holding a baby), there was always someone in the row behind us to help them out. We were never allowed to go sit somewhere else in the sanctuary with our cousins or friends. Dad said they were welcome to join us in our row, but we were going to sit together as a family. And that’s just what we did.

Out of all those 936 sermons I heard growing up, the ones that stick out in my mind are the Palm Sunday and Easter messages. I remember the choir singing Hosanna In The Highest with all its glorious musical parts. I remember the moms wearing their fancy dresses, some even wore flowery hats. I remember us kids polishing our shoes and being all spiffed up in our Sunday best – complete with white shirt and tie and jacket. And I remember the Pastor preaching about the Triumphal Entry and the Resurrection. I’m sure bits and pieces from the other sermons stuck too, but Palm Sunday and Easter I remember specifically.

After church on Sunday, we would go to our grandma and grandpa’s house where grandma, who was wheelchair-bound, would hide Easter baskets around the house. Each basket had a name on it so as to make sure we got the right one. That was important to Grandma because, God bless her, she favored the older grandkids and they always had cooler stuff in their baskets than us younger ones. Just the same though, it was fun to search for your basket and a thrill to finally find it.

After we found our baskets with the sweet candies and green plastic grass, we would set them aside and enjoy a delicious ham dinner complete with all the fixings. My brother loved sweet potatoes. Not me. But grandma made them every year anyway – just for him. The rule in our family was that you had to take a little bit from every dish that was on the table. We weren’t allowed to show dislike for anything. So every year, I managed to choke down a spoonful of grandma’s overly sweet sweet potatoes. The best way to do it was to take a bite and since they were already soft, no chewing was necessary. If I acted quickly enough, I could take a gulp of milk before the sweet potatoes hit the taste buds and wash the whole thing down without any damage done. Then I could move on and enjoy the good food.

Holy week is the most wonderful week of all time as we remember the passion of our Lord Jesus Christ. This is a great and glorious week for us to celebrate. The heart and soul of the gospel is the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and the events surrounding those events. And since these are the main events, they occur in all four gospels. None of the writers left this out because it is so vitally important.

Those childhood services with the choir singing Hosanna and the pastor preaching on the Triumphal Entry and then of course the empty tomb, really had an impact on me as a child. When I became a pastor myself some 20 years later, I put into practice what I had learned from my childhood. Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday are probably the two most important Sundays on the Christian calendar. This coming Sunday we at Martintown Community Church will be celebrating the resurrection of our Lord with a sunrise service planned for 6:30 a.m. at a local farm, where we will re-enact that first Resurrection morning by reading the story from John 20 with a cast of characters playing the parts of angels, disciples, Mary, and Jesus. The farmer has cut out a tomb in the hillside to resemble what Jesus’ tomb may have looked like. It is all very life-like. On April 20, as the sun rises across the eastern sky, we will be giving praise to our Redeemer and Lord. Visit our website at martintowncommunitychurch.org for directions and details. We’d love to see you there in the pre-dawn light. It’s one of the highlights of our year.

He is not here, He is risen. He is risen indeed. 

 (Kevin Cernek is Lead Pastor of Martintown Community Church in Martintown, Wisconsin).