Easter Sunday

Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24   •   Jeremiah 31:1-6   •   Colossians 3:1-4   •   John 20:1-18

 “Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciples . . .  and said to them, ‘they have taken the Lord out of the tomb and we do not know where they have laid him.’”  For Mary Magdalene the day begins in darkness, confusion, sorrow, fear, suspicion and flight. The other two disciples confirm her story and then simply return home. But Mary Magdalene stays by the empty tomb weeping. There in that empty, barren place of death she is met by Jesus . . . not resuscitated to his former life but raised to new life, and he speaks to her words of reassurance, words of new life.

As citizens living in a world of technological marvels that make time and distance trifles to be overcome, we are uncertain what to make of Mary Magdalene’s experience. We are uncertain what, if any, place this narrative can have in our own life of faith.

It is a narrative of new life overcoming places of death, and it is a summons to each of us to take part in it here and now. All around us are places of darkness and death, of fear and confusion. All around us are places where hunger, sickness, homelessness, violence, prejudice, and neglect entomb us in darkness. Just as for Mary Magdalene, as disciples we are called to do more than weep helplessly.  This Easter morning and every morning is our invitation to bring God’s healing, empowering life into every dark corner of death. The Alleluias we sing today are our promise to accept that vocation, to become disciples, to help God’s light and life overcome the darkness of our world. Alleluia, Christ, the light of the world, is risen.

 — The Rev. Paula Kettlewell

Holy Saturday

Psalm 31   •   Job 14:1-14   •   1 Peter 4:1-8   •   John 19:38-42

The celebration of Palm Sunday is long gone.  The bittersweet sharing in breaking of bread and drinking of wine has passed. The intimacy of foot washing has faded. The agony of the Garden and the desolation of betrayal linger in memory. The last breath is no more. The torturous death on Golgotha is over. The weight of dying has been released. The lifeless body lies in the tomb. Quiet descends with the sun.   

In the stillness God is, but God is not still. God has descended to the grave, trampling down death by death. As day dawns, the quiet breaks, first with a few sounds, then crescendoing as the sun rises into yet another day. But it is not any other day. It is Sabbath, a day of being, a day of being holy on the holy day. It is a day to be centered in the mystery of God’s holiness even in the face of death. And God in God’s holiness is not still. Out of human sight, from Sabbath sunset to sunset, on this particular Sabbath, God who is love and life continues to love and live not overcome by death. God stirs in the depths and heights of existence, and this is particularly true on Holy Saturday.

Unlike the original disciples long ago, for those of us who live after Christ’s resurrection from the dead, Holy Saturday has its unique arc. It is a day that begins in the quiet wake of the crucifixion but becomes increasingly marked by a growing restlessness for the proclamation of the good news of resurrection at the Easter Vigil and on Easter Day. This day is a “time between”—between the intensification of events that led to Christ’s atoning death on Good Friday and the exuberant celebration that will erupt over his resurrection. On this day, in this “time between,” we would do well to take a deep breath and embrace the words of Psalm 31:  “let your heart take courage, all you who wait for the Lord.”               

  

― The Rev. Heather Warren

Good Friday

Psalm 22   •   Isaiah 52:13 – 53:12   •   Hebrews 10:16-25   •   John 18:1 – 19:42

Good Fridays

Ukraine barricades, smoldering, stinking, flaming

            Men in green helmets, old uniforms

            Snipers in black, kill with a snap

            The dead dragged bleeding

Drones over Pakistan

            Men with a mouse, kill with a click

Drug cartels, gangs, Border wars

            Crips, Bloods, shivs, guns

Bitcoins collapse, who even knew what they are?

            Greed with a click

Olympic Bitcoin gold

            Putin’s happy Olympics

The homeless man asleep on the doorstep

            He survives the night, layers of clothes stinking

Good Friday surrounds, abounds

The Cross officially unceasing

“Why were you searching for me? Did you not know I must be in my Father’s house?” But they did not understand what he said to them. Then he went down with them and came to Nazareth and was obedient to them. His mother treasured all these things in her heart.

— The Rev. Jim Richardson

Maundy Thursday

Psalm 116:1, 12-19   •   Exodus 12:1-4, (5-10), 11-14   •  

1 Corinthians 11:23-26   •   John 13:1-17, 31b-35

Remember Steve Martin, the comic, before he was “Father of the Bride,” before he was in countless movies; he was the “Wild and crazy guy.”  Well, this could also be God’s subtitle, God: “A wild and crazy god.” Here, in this moment, we are prepared to enter the Triduum of Maundy Thursday through Easter Vigil. We remember today this wild and crazy God who became human in the form of a baby in an occupied land, vulnerable and weak in many ways, but through vulnerability and weakness, God, in Christ shows us that even our lives can be healed, redeemed, saved, blessed.  

Today, on Maundy Thursday, we remember; we remember in the sense that we look back to this night when Jesus was with friends, and when he did this wild and crazy thing of likening the bread they were eating to his very body and the wine they were drinking to his very blood. What a wild and crazy thing to do. For his followers who were well-aware of the sacrificial theology and praxis of the Temple, these words of flesh and blood surely reminded them of the lambs and birds put up for sacrifice. Here, Jesus offers himself, as a full and sufficient sacrifice.

We remember that night on this night,  and we also re-member, that is, we re-create, or re-form, God’s gift to us as we celebrate the Holy Communion, when we offer thanksgiving in the Eucharisto—the Eucharist.  In this moment we embrace the full and abundant way that God has removed our spiritual amnesia, and has instead filled us with anamnesis, that great and wonderful technical Greek word which means to reconstitute and remember the first Communion, the first “Last Supper,” not merely as a mind-trippy remembering, but actually that God is truly present within the bread and within the wine we are about to share together. Setting aside our spiritual forgetfulness and our amnesia, God has filled us with his wild and crazy and Amazing Grace as he offers to us this feast, injected with this deep and abiding sense of anamnesis and remembrance as we celebrate and share the real presence of God in our lives today, in this hour, in this place. Thank God that God is a wild and crazy and wonderfully amazing God!

― The Rev. Peter Carey

Wednesday in Holy Week

Psalm 70   •    Isaiah 50:4-9a   •   Hebrews 12:1-3   •   John 13:21-32

I try to imagine the scene described in John 13:21-32, in which Jesus is gathered with his beloved disciples and announces that one who is present will betray him and thus, bring an end to his life and his teaching as they have known it. Jesus knows the heart of his beloved disciple, understands his weakness, predicts his betrayal, and yet feeds him bread, and dispatches him with love. I cannot imagine a more powerful, and transformative response to Evil. Because, Evil has a way of leading us down the dark corridor of forgetting our relationship with God, and of how radically we are held by Love, regardless of our weakness, fears, and perpetual missteps.

When I allow this story to resonate inside of my own life experience, I’m reminded that the greatest gift of becoming a parent is finding that my life is no longer my own, and I am thereby enriched in ways I could never have imagined. My life is enriched because I am called by Love, again and again, to serve Love, and I am pulled from that dark corridor of forgetting. My mother once said that the fact that my young child took me for granted indicated the goodness of my parenting. I would have preferred an ongoing display of adoration and appreciation for my efforts, but the point is that I have felt called to Love in the face of another’s humanity, even when it might be unpleasant, painful, or heartbreaking. In the face of his own death, Jesus offered this gift to his disciple. Though Judas fell out of relationship with his community and teacher, followed his fear and lost his way, in Jesus’ radically loving response, he was given a light by which to find his way back. Thanks be to God.

― Jenny Gladding

Wednesday in the Fifth Week of Lent

Psalm 128   •   Exodus 7:8-24   •   2 Corinthians 2:14 – 3:6   •   Mark 10:1-16

Today’s readings in Exodus and 2 Corinthians give examples of needing to find external validation and “proof” in order to act or believe in something. This is still commonplace today, whether it is seeking approval from a boss or mentor, a loved one or stranger, or looking for a sign that something is meant to be or not meant to be. We often look outside of ourselves for direction that informs our actions and beliefs.

In Mark’s passage we receive a reminder about how to escape that sometimes damaging and often exhausting quest for confirmation. We are instructed to receive the kingdom of God like a child. Imagine if we went through life with the lens we have as children: unbiased and open to all truth and possibility; an outlook of abundance rather than scarcity; and certainty rather than fear.

Today is my baptism birthday and I am reminded of the gift we are all given in baptism: the holy waters of baptism, the promise of God’s eternal presence among us. Stardust and Spirit that we can turn to inside of ourselves—what greater validation do we need?

Creator God,

You have blessed us with your love.

            You have brushed us with stardust.

            You have called us to live for others.

            You have given us the challenge of plenty,

                        resources beyond our needs.

Instruct us how to be a blessing,

            how to usher in a world of peace,

            how to craft from the stardust

                        a bright future for all of our children.

Thank you, God, for your blessing.

            Teach us to bless one another.

                        Joan Brown Campbell, “Prayers from Chautauqua”

— Erika Viccellio

Tuesday in the Fifth Week of Lent

Psalm 123   •   Exodus 5:1 – 6:1   •   1 Corinthians 14:20-40   •   Mark 9:42-50

Undoubtedly, these readings leave much to consider—if for no other reason than they occasionally do not make very much sense. (Side note: if 1 Cor. 14:34-35 infuriated you, please note that they were likely added by some unscrupulous people far after Paul penned his letter.)

Mark especially has many interpretations. Some scholars reasoned that Jesus was castigating sexual abuse of children and multiple forms of sexual dalliance. This did not seem the case to me; rather, the central point of this passage, I believe, regards distractions—things that get in the way of our relationship with God and Jesus. For Pharaoh, this was not knowing the Lord—a fault which caused him to ultimately unleash the Plagues. For Paul’s Corinthians, they were arguing among themselves about whether or not speaking in tongues was the most valuable spiritual gift. The disciples, before this passage, argued about who was the greatest among them—and not far enough away that Jesus did not pick up on it.

Distractions are sins; distracting someone was causing them to sin. Jesus gives as clear as a solution as a warning of not following it: remove those distractions from your life, an especially appropriate message in this season of fasting. If TV gets in the way of your relationship with God, sell it; if coffee or wine impedes it, stop drinking them; if church obscures it, reform the church. Paul’s Corinthians loved to speak in tongues for the perceived importance, but as Paul told them, tongues are useless without an interpretation because the community goes unedified, their minds distracted, and any nonbeliever who walks in will think them crazy as a hoot owl. The community suffers—the church suffers—because the members have lost the very thing that gave them purpose and meaning, like salt that somehow goes salt-less: the relationship with God through Christ.

This relationship was never going to be easy. We will be “salted with fire”—purified and preserved, as with salt, through the trials—trials we may from time to time fail—of a life following Christ. But if we can carry Christ in our hearts and refuse to suffer distractions, if we “have salt among ourselves,” then we are well on our way to earning the Kingdom of Heaven.

                                                                              — Adam Lees