Dare We Go? - Easter Sunday

On this morning long ago, a small group of dedicated disciples huddled together anxiously awaiting the Passover Sabbath to end. They yearned to go tend to the dead body of their beloved friend, Jesus. The one who saved their lives could not or did not save his own, nor could they prevent his death. Jesus was dead. 

This impossible truth mutates into something more gruesome when one realizes the accessories to Jesus’ death. He was betrayed by beloved friends, tortured by “good, religious folk,” and executed by the law and order of the state. The cruel forces of the world crushed his life, and in the process sideswiped the lives of a small band of followers. 

On this morning long ago, those disciples, mostly women, hid away. Their reality felt broken. Their lives appeared hollow. So, they clutched onto each other, heartbroken, unmoored, yet determined to compassionately care for Jesus’ body. What a challenge it must have been to take the first step out the door from their bleak homes toward his tomb. 

Before the events of the last twelve months — global pandemic, racial reckoning, economic hardships, divisive election cycle, attempted coup, and countless personal struggles — were we collectively in a place to identify with the grief and loss of those brave women and men? Probably not, but now we wait like them — not sure of what the sunrise brings.

On this morning, this day, this time, we are to be strong like Mary and the other women. We are to run like Peter and the disciple whom Jesus loved. For God’s creative, life-giving, and life-saving love is not locked in the past. We always wait on the edge of Resurrection. Dare we go with the disciples to look into the tomb? 

The Rev. Seth Olson

To Faith - Holy Saturday

Old Testament: Job 14:1-14
or Lamentations 3:1-9, 19-24
New Testament: 1 Peter 4:1-8
Gospel: Matthew 27:57-66
or John 19:38-42
Psalm 31:1-4, 15-16

In English, faith is a noun. My New Testament professor who, according to legend, was fluent in at least thirteen languages, often lamented that there is no English verb, “to faith.” Greek has such a verb, and when we translate it, most often as “to believe,” we are improvising. 

On Holy Saturday in the year of Saint Matthew, we are taken before the borrowed tomb in which the abused corpse of Jesus has been wrapped in a clean linen cloth and laid on one of the carved ledges. In Matthew, we stand before a sealed tomb with a small contingent of armed troops, set by order of Pontius Pilate, to keep Jesus’ followers from taking the body away. The words of Rowan Willams in The Wound of Knowledge come immediately to mind: 

“Christianity ... is born from men and women faced with the paradox of God's purpose made flesh in a dead and condemned man.” 

On this particular Holy Saturday, the complaint of Job that he is “A human, born of woman, few of days and full of trouble,” takes on particular meaning. We are in the company of Father Paneloux in Camus’ The Plague, who was profoundly aware of the suffering of the victims of the plague, and “was well aware that at any moment death might claim him too.” In the light of the “high and fearful vision” emerging from innocent suffering, his faith was transformed into affirmation—the classic meaning of faith, articulated by St. Paul in the Lesson for the Burial of the Dead:

I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

The Rev. Dr. Roy Wells

Today is a Day of Hope - Good Friday

In preparing to write this meditation, I read sections of three writings: the Book of Job, Second Corinthians and a book titled Hope for the Flowers.

The opposite of hope is despair, a state of life that many people live in all of the time. Hope is both a spiritual feeling and a state of life when we are changed by strength from a higher power.

In the first book to the Corinthians, Paul writes of hope as a spiritual value that goes along with faith and love. In fact, there can be no hope at all without faith and love being experienced.

Reflect on Job’s story -— without his faith in the invisible God and without his love of others, Job would have long given up any hope for further life.

As I began reflecting a central theme to share on Good Friday, I went to a book long kept in my home library. The title of the book is Hope for the Flowers. It is a story about a caterpillar who one day thought that “there must be something more to life than just eating and getting bigger.”  He was seeking more but nothing satisfied him. One day as he started climbing he joined with other caterpillars, but it was still not enough. Then he met another caterpillar and they began to climb together. Finally, they found out that they should hang upside down to become a butterfly, which feeds the world by carrying seeds of love from one plant to another.

Today is the day when a hope of resurrection rules the day with seeds of love.

Today is the day of hope.

The Rev. Bill King

Love, Hope, and Faith - Maundy Thursday

After Jesus had spoken these words, he looked up to heaven and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you,  since you have given him authority over all people,[a] to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.”  John 17:1-3

Who is this Son of God? … this King of Glory? This is the One who knelt in the dust to wash the feet of his disciples. This is the One who taught that love is the sum of the Law… the greatest commandment. He offered himself up as example… as sacrifice… as the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. What are we to do with this mandatum… this new commandment to love one another as Christ has loved us? This is not a fleeting love…a passing affection… rather it is the heart-wrenching knowledge that this is love unto death. In this love is all hope in the possibility of change for the better. In this love is all faith in the unconditional devotion of God in whom all love is founded.

The love of God in Christ Jesus is not a feeling but a power… the power of light that pushes back the darkness… the power of compassion that binds us together in mutual affection and understanding…. the power of fidelity… for this love is forever. All truth is rooted in this love… all good grows from this root…by its fruit we will be known.

In our modern world where everything is made a commodity love remains the one constant… it cannot be bought or sold… only given and received. When the powers that be have lost their authority and the structures humanity has created have crumbled to dust, love will remain. In this everlasting love is the glory of God as revealed in Jesus Christ. In this love we find our identity as the followers of Jesus… In this love we find our purpose… in this love we find our hope for eternal life in Christ.

The Rev. Robyn Arnold