Many of you have been passionately observing the Lenten Season. You have committed yourselves to a certain discipline that has brought you to church for additional worship services.  You have perhaps engaged in the sacrificial tradition of giving something up for the season.  Perhaps what you gave up was something as difficult as fasting one meal each day; or something as easy as chocolate or sweets for the season.  For many of us the forty days of Lent is a time for additional Bible Study, and hopefully a time when all of us make the time to reflect upon what we will celebrate and proclaim at the conclusion of Lent: Jesus Christ is Risen.  He has conquered sin, death and the devil, and as he is raised from the dead, we are given the promise of forgiveness and eternal life.