My son and daughter had the weekend with us, and it was even a long weekend — Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights — as the girl had a dentist appointment this morning.

They were tired when I picked them up from work Friday afternoon.  Both kids are volunteer camp counselors at the Norfolk Botanical Garden, working full days outside with the little ones.  We stopped by Car Spa to have my car washed and vacuumed, then grabbed Taco Bell (their request), and came home.  After some downtime, I called the kids out of their bedrooms to play board games.  My son showed us a card game that was a lot of fun, especially for us highly competitive folks, and then we played Balderdash.  We were laughing, high-fiving, and really enjoying ourselves.  Afterward, I played an ancient computer game with my son until we all went to bed.

Saturday morning, we took care of grocery-shopping in the morning, and then I dropped off my daughter for some time at the mall with her friends.  At home, we made cheesesteaks for lunch and generally relaxed for the afternoon.  The girl spent the night at her friend’s house, so we played more computer games after going out for supper (and finding a bonus marker for maplestar to snarf).

On Sunday morning, I was not awake enough to drive the ten minutes to church, much less to stay awake during the service.  Thankfully, I was one of two healing prayer ministers scheduled, because I fell back into bed and slept for three more hours.  Once we were all up and showered and everything, we grabbed lunch, picked up some new sneakers for the girl, and went to Red Wing Park for a walk through the gardens there.  We had more time to relax before preparing an entirely grilled supper — marinated flank steak (”London Broil”), corn on the cob, and vegetables.  After cleanup, we played Balderdash again, and then the kidlets watched Wayne’s World before they turned in for the night.

The last weekend the kids spent with us was not nearly so nice.  It ended in a big argument between my daughter in me, and both kids opted to go back to their dad’s house for the rest of the weekend.  I still miss having her live here in alternate months, and it really hurts to hear the poison she is picking up about me from her father.

The thing about this weekend, though, is that it wasn’t spectacular.  There wasn’t anything super exciting or special about it.  It was a quiet weekend, spent mostly at home.  But we had a great time together.  Both kids were laughing and high-fiving maplestar, getting along with him more easily and comfortably than I’d seen them before.  I am so thankful that we could have this nice time together.  In my prayers, I haven’t had much than that to say: thank you, God!

Yesterday brought us stories about the deaths of cultural icons Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett.  Of course, one story got much more attention than the other.  I suspect that this is because the first story came as a surprise, while the second was expected.  We don’t like a steady dose of misery in our news diet in the US; we want new and different suffering every day.  So one of these people fought and struggled for years, when she passed, there was grief, but not the outpouring that we see on television and on the radio and online for the death that was quick and shocking.

Of course, yesterday brought us many other news stories.  Protests continued in Iran, bombings continued in Iraq, North Korea continued to posture with its nuclear weapons.  People lost their jobs, had asthma attacks, declared bankruptcy, found drugs in their children’s bedrooms.  There were deaths from violence, starvation, AIDS, malaria, pneumonia, and a newfangled strain of influenza.  But somehow, the focus of the US media is almost entirely on these two deaths, and really, only on one.

One of my friends on Friendfeed felt quite bitter about this:

Dear Iranian protesters: Sorry about your dead and dying, but right now, one of our most beloved icons just moonwalked off this mortal coil. Maybe after we’re done watching the wall-to-wall coverage on the “news” networks, we’ll remember what you guys … OMG ANOTHER STATEMENT LATERS. Regards, America.

It is hard to blame him.  How does one weigh on one hand the death of a pop culture icon and on the other hand all of the other wonderful and terrible things that happened on the same day?  How can this one man’s passing affect us more than citizens being cheated of their vote and then beaten for complaining to the government?  How can this make us grieve more than for the people who live every day under the barest shelter, not knowing whether they will have the luxury of food that day?  How can we give so much more of our attention to one artist than to the entire state of California, which is on the verge of insolvency?

Four years ago, in a previous blog, I wrote about a similar experience.  I’d found myself in tears when Dumbledore died in the sixth Harry Potter book, but unable to summon the same grief for the 71 who died in a single attack in Iraq.  I found this incredibly sad: I was grieving the death of a fictional character, a person who had never existed except in the imagination, but could not cry for real, flesh-and-blood people, children of God just as I am.  And I realize that today’s grief is the same.  Only a very few people have ever even met Michael Jackson or Farrah Fawcett, but by watching them on television and buying records or CDs, we’ve brought them into our lives.  The people who die far away — or even the ones who suffer from tragedies closer to home, but whom we have never seen or met before — we don’t know them.  Their suffering and death don’t touch us.  We have to make ourselves care, to make ourselves grieve, to make ourselves angry.

Yes, this is sad.  It really is sin, and the prophets of Israel cried out about it.  The suffering of any person in the world is the suffering of God.  When we cause this suffering, we are hurting God; when we ignore those who suffer, we ignore God.  Jesus said this very explicitly: what you do to anyone, you do to me; what you fail to do for anyone, you fail to do for me.  Of course, the problem is, we’re human.  We’re not perfect, not even close.  It is so hard to hold all of these tragedies in our minds and hearts at the same time.  It is overwhelming.  We feel helpless.  All we can do is cry out and hope that our voices are heard.

Unfortunately, I don’t have any answers.  I have some ideas about why and how this happens, but not really any ideas on how to make it better.  All I can do today is watch and pray.

Outside, still darkness
cloudless clear sky
twinkling with stars –
sparkling, glistening –
satin-soft sky tickling
gnarled oaks and tall straight pines.

Within, my breath pauses
as the night overwhelms me
the shawl of the heavens –
knitted from the prayers of saints –
wrapped about my shoulders
starlight dancing around my head
a tiara, a crown.

Around, the dark silence
intrudes on my senses
and I capture the essence of silence in this place:
river wavelets lapping at the pebbled shore
gentle breezes teasing leaves, carrying rumors from tree to tree
an air conditioner humming,
the only voice of man accompanying the song of this night.

Above, the Big Dipper
directs us to Polaris
as surely as this perfect night
directs me to Creator.

Below, my feet are charged
from the heartbeat of the earth
Creation guiding me from miracle to miracle
from clamor to quiet
from busy rush to emptiness
from light into darkness.

Eternally, God
conducts this grand symphony
weaving the songs of silence
voices of darkness
strings of intention
drums of the truth
into one glorious fantastical whole

One body –
earth, water sky
man and woman
all colors erased
in the darkness
the stillness
the prayers
of this night.

(From our parish retreat to Chanco on the James, May 22, 2009)

Gathering in the quiet church
amidst the hardwood pews
and long beams of dying sunlight
we meet,
sit, find a position
for staying twenty minutes in silence.

Seven of us together
bound by slanted beams of dying light
yet separated in silence
each of us alone in this space and time
with God.

The verses are spoken
the chime rings
eyes close
and the prayer begins.

For a moment
we hang suspended
between the ringing chime
and the roaring silence
in a space of not-quite-noisy
and a time of not-yet-quiet
minds chasing the chime
until the sound disappears
into birds and squirrels
into ambulances at the hospital
into cars on the boulevard.

And in this silence, a word –
Listen
the word calls me to the center
calls me away from myself
calls me toward the Holy One.

Listen to those silly birds!
I wonder what they’re up to
chattering and arguing –
Listen.

I really should cook that chicken in the fridge
wonder what the kids would like from it
or if it’s even any good –
Listen.

Listen.

Listen.

Finally,
the silence of the church fills me
I find the no-way
the no-place, the no-time
where the Holy One lives
and there, I come to rest.

Listen.

Somehow we seven
sitting together and alone
in this thin, quiet place
manage to discover that space
between the ringing of the chime
and the roaring of the silence.

Listen.

A pew creaks.
Someone has moved.
My legs are getting tired
so I stretch them out,
remembering how they ached last night
when I was trying to sleep
and –
Listen.

The cycle begins again
from thought to no-thought
from path to no-path
from time to no-time.
I may not find the no-way
back to God tonight
but that doesn’t matter.
Someone here will.

Listen.

God Willing

Gordon Berghuis of Saugatuck, Michigan
Scott Boykin of Birmingham, Alabama
William Burk of Mechanicsville, Virginia
Ronald Firestone of Tarija, Bolivia
Pamela Pranke of Jamestown, North Dakota
Sally Ray of Dalhart, Texas
T. Justin Read-Smith of London, England
Heather Rollins of Virginia Beach, Virginia
James Thomson of New York City

will be clothed as novices
in the Anglican Order of Preachers

Friday, August 14, 2009
Five-thirty o’clock in the Evening

The Church of St. Paul the Apostle
1802 Abercorn Street
Savannah, Georgia

I had been on a rather lengthy spell of reading fiction that just ended this past weekend.  I often read and read and read fiction, and then read and read and read non-fiction, and then go back.  But Saturday night, I finished the novel I was reading and realized that it was definitely time for some non-fiction.  And I was surprised when the right book found me, because I’d expected a book on Dominican spirituality or maybe a memoir.  Nope, nuh-uh.  It was the bible, specifically, this bible.  And once I accepted this choice, I flipped through the pages and decided to start with the prophets.  So in the bathtub that night, I found myself reading Isaiah.

Now, this is not study.  It is simply reading.  I do sometimes happen on a verse or a word that just sings for me, and so I pause and let it soak into me.  This happens when I read other books, too, and it is a nice feeling.  But I’m not picking apart scripture and putting it back together, and I’m not studying to learn the history of Israel.  I’m just… reading.  And The Message is a great translation for this, as it was developed to be a reading bible.

Last night, in my bedtime reading, I came upon this passage:

The whole earth will be brimming with knowing God-Alive,
a living knowledge of God ocean-deep, ocean-wide.

It is the second half of Isaiah 11:9, and it brought me skidding to a halt.  I stared at this sentence, simply letting the words roll into me and roll around inside me.  And a voice within me said, this is your vocation.  I wasn’t sure whether that voice was part of me, was God speaking to me, or was something else.  I’m fairly certain that it is not the voice of the Adversary, given the basics of Ignatian discernment of spirits, but thankfully I have a meeting with my spiritual director this afternoon, so I can run it by her.

So.  This is my vocation?  What does it mean?

The whole earth will be brimming with knowing God-Alive,
a living knowledge of God ocean-deep, ocean-wide.

A living knowledge of God, I can see that.  I have seen people who have knowledge of God, but it is not living, not alive; they have a dead and final knowledge of a God who doesn’t care about them, who simply exists and ignores them, who is small and limited and lifeless.  But I know God to be very much alive, to care about us and love us passionately, to try to guide us and help us.  I do indeed brim with knowing God-alive; sometimes I can feel that deep knowing overflow and spill out for others.  And I sense… is it my vocation to bring my own living knowledge of God to the world?  Am I called to brim with knowing God-Alive, to overflow with God’s love for others?

The NRSV translation is a little different, but is the most common English translation of this verse:

The earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord
as the waters cover the sea.

This has a wonderful rhythm to it, and I vaguely remember this as part of a song.  And this translation brings a slightly different feel to me, as though the earth is pregnant.  Creation is pregnant with the knowledge of its Creator; we need to allow the waters of this knowledge to cover us, so that we, too, can be filled with this knowledge.  This reminds me of baptism, of the prophet Jonah, of the Spirit of God brooding over the waters at the beginning of Creation.  Is it my vocation to become pregnant with knowledge of the living God?  Am I called to give birth to this knowledge, to bring it out as a child, for everyone to see?

I’ve had some fun at BibleGateway.com, looking up this verse in all the English translations they have available.  Young’s Literal Translation has an interesting take on this verse, guided by Robert Young’s emphasis on tense.  This translation uses the perfect tense, to say the earth has been full of the knowledge of God, as the waters are covering the sea. See, the past tense implies something that was happening and still is happening, something we can expect to continue: as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever.  The other translations move this knowledge of God into the future, but the original Hebrew shows a continuous knowing, a knowing that has always been there and always will be.  So when the words came to me, saying, this is your vocation, they didn’t say, this will be your vocation.  No, it already is my vocation, always has been my vocation, and will continue to be my vocation.

The words of the New Living Translation were a little bit different, too, focusing on God’s people rather than on all of Creation:

as the waters fill the sea,
so the earth will be filled with people who know the Lord.

Taken together, as if each translation were a petal on a flower, this little snippet of scripture speaks to me deeply and powerfully.  My work is to continue to listen for God’s voice, for the guidance of God-Alive, for the way to live out this call.  I am a glass overflowing, a creation pregnant with God’s love, a person who knows God.  This is a great gift, and now it is my responsibility to respond.

Thanks be to God, the giver of all gifts.
Thanks be to God, who calls all of us to be filled with knowledge of God.
Thanks be to God, who was and is and ever will be.
Thanks be to God, Alleluia, Alleluia!

I offer two beautiful poems of love to capture the essence of this Good Shepherd Sunday.  The first is simply a re-formatting of the Gospel for the day:

Icon of the Good Shepherd

Jesus said,
“I am the good shepherd.
The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.
The hired hand,
who is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep,
sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away–
and the wolf snatches them and scatters them.
The hired hand runs away
because a hired hand does not care for the sheep.

I am the good shepherd.
I know my own and my own know me,
just as the Father knows me and I know the Father.
And I lay down my life for the sheep.
I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold.
I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice.
So there will be one flock,
one shepherd.

For this reason the Father loves me,
because I lay down my life in order to take it up again.
No one takes it from me,
but I lay it down of my own accord.
I have power to lay it down,
and I have power to take it up again.
I have received this command from my Father.”

- John 10:11-18

And the second is a short poem by Edwin Markham.

Outwitted

He drew a circle that shut me out —
Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.
But Love and I had the wit to win:
We drew a circle that took him in!
- Edwin Markham

As I’ve approached Good Shepherd Sunday this year, I keep remembering those two

Fresco of the Good Shepherd in the Catacomb of Callixtus

lines in the gospel: I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold.  I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. I have often pondered these two lines of scripture, wondering what they mean.  In the context of this gospel lesson, I believe that this fold referred to the Jewish people of Jesus’ time.  Jesus assures his people that he will take care of them, will love them, will keep them together and safe from the wolves in this world.  It is a beautiful and a comforting promise.  The thing is, it’s a promise to the Jewish people of Jesus’ time.

But we know that Jesus extended his love and care to others, while he was here.  He sparred verbally with the Samaritan woman at the well.  He sparred as well with the Canaanite woman in Tyre, and even healed her daughter.  In parables, Jesus taught us that even nasty, unclean Samaritans are our neighbors, and he commanded us to love everybody, including our enemies.  So why should this loving care be extended only to the Jewish people of Jesus’ time?

Sheepfold near Stonethwaite, by Ann Bowker

The thing is, sheepfolds are something humans build.  A sheepfold is walls to enclose the things or people we choose to include, and to shut out those we choose to exclude.  We are really good at building walls like this, both tangible and intangible.  I was once a member of a parish that could feel almost like the Stepford Christians.  There were two types of people in the congregation: young families with husband and wife and children, or older, retired couples.  None of these people seemed to want to have to think too much about their faith, to be challenged by Jesus.  If you did not clearly fit into one of these groups, then you found yourself subtly excluded, pushed to the margins of the congregation.  Since I’ve always been a bit quirky, studying and reading from the great saints and mystics, delving into scripture study, and asking questions of those in authority — and since I had an unhappy marriage, and attended church alone — I found myself on the margins of this parish.  I knew I was loved, but nobody there knew quite what to do with me, so mostly I stood on the edges and watched the life of the parish.  There were not walls of stone or of brick or of wood or even of glass, but there was definitely a sheepfold there, and I was not of that fold.

This Good Shepherd Sunday is a good time to think about the walls we build, to think about the shepfolds we have and the ones we aren’t even aware of.  A congregation might say, we are a fully inclusive church, but do they live that out?  For example, if we say that we are fully inclusive of women, is this really true?  If we say that we are fully inclusive, regardless of sexuality, do we live this out?  Or is it more accurate to say that we’re mostly inclusive of women, as long as they don’t try to sit on a parish council or mess around with the work of the buildings and grounds committee?  Would it be more true to say that we’re okay with homosexual couples in our congregation, as long as they don’t hold hands in church or expect to be married here?  Do we say that we’re fully inclusive of children, but then “invite” all the children out of the congregation and into a children’s church or children’s chapel?  Do we claim to welcome all, regardless of race, but then leave extra space around the one non-white (or non-black) family when they come to church?  Do we say that we welcome everyone, but try to discourage those who don’t put money in the offering plates, or those who aren’t dressed appropriately, or those who don’t smell quite right?  Do we marginalize those who come to church in a wheelchair or with a walker or with an oxygen tank or having seizures or talking to people we can’t see?  What sheepfolds exist within and around our congregations?

This isn’t fun and comfortable stuff to face.  We’re not Jesus, as hard as we try, and it

Psalm 23 by Irv Davis

can be difficult to identify and measure our shortcomings.  But there is good news.  The good news is, Jesus promises to gather together all of the sheep, not just the ones in one human-built sheepfold.  No matter how we build walls around ourselves, Jesus continues to build those spaces bigger.  There is no sheepfold large enough to encompass the entire flock of Jesus.  Jesus is the one Shepherd, who finds us quiet pastures in which to rest and clear water to drink.  Jesus the Good Shepherd guides us as we journey, and he stands with us when we face trouble.  Jesus welcomes us to the eternal banquet, embracing us and leading us to God’s kingdom.  And no matter what walls we build, no matter what circles we draw, Jesus will always win.

Amen!  Alleluia!

Fair warning: This will probably end up being a rambling, semi-coherent, self-involved post.  Just so you know.  :-)

For about a year now, I’ve been engaged in the process of discernment.  Most often, when you hear an Episcopalian say this, the assumption is that they are looking at a possible call to ordained ministry.  Well, I don’t want to say that I am looking at a possible call to ordained minnistry, but at the same time, I can’t say that I’m not.  After all, we know God to have a sense of humor, along with a definite appreciation for irony.  Mostly, though, I found that as the months of great upheaval were giving way to stability and calm, I had a definite need to stop, look, and listen.  I needed to look at where I’d been and think about where I was headed.  I needed to find quiet, so that I could listen for the whispers of God’s voice.  And I want to grow into the person God wants me to be, to walk on the path God places before my feet.

A lot has happened in the last year.  I’ve become involved in more ministries within my parish home, being invited to take turns with other parishioners in leading a lectionary-based discussion group, and even accepting a leadership role in our Christian Formation Commission.  I’ve continued to take communion to our sick and shut in members, and am serving in other ways at worship.  I’ve become a postulant of a religious community, and have found great richness, love, and learning among our postulant class.  I even ran for vestry!

That was an interesting bit.  Our vestry election was in January, at the annual meeting of our parish, and our rector had each of us candidates stand in front of the congregation, introduce ourselves and share one ministry of the parish that particularly excites and interests us.  I had no idea what to say, so when the words came out of my mouth, I was completely surprised: I’m warriormare, and I’m very passionate about healing, at all levels: personal, individual healing, and healing within families, all the way up to racial and institutional healing.  This is completely true, of course, and it resonates along more pathways than I’d realized as I listened to these words that were being spoken in my own voice.

See, I’m passionate about healing for the broken places within ourselves, the places we hide and cover up, the places we’re ashamed to bring into the Light.  But, of course, the Light is the only thing that can help us to heal those places.

I’m passionate about healing for families.  It is so easy to do damage to each other, and all the easier when we share a home and a life.  We take each other for granted, we say things to our family members that we would never say to a stranger, and yet we expect our family to always be there for us.  The same broken places that exist within each one of us, hidden away from the Light, exist in fractures and splinters within families, too.  But where a family generally ignores that these patterns of brokenness exist, they are immediately obvious to an outsider.  We have to bring those splinters and fractures to the Light, so that we can heal within our family as well.

I’m passionate about healing throughout the Church — and not just throughout my parish or the diocese where I live or The Episcopal Church or the Anglican Communion, but throughout the whole body of Christendom.  Jesus told us that we are the members - the arms and legs and fingers and toes – of his own body, and, well, I have to say that we make up one pretty pathetic and broken body.  Of course, each of us want to be the fun, exciting parts of Christ’s body.  Nobody really wants to be the armpit of Jesus, not to mention the rectum, and what is so interesting about being Christ’s left ulna?

I’m passionate about healing within my city, my state, my country.  I’m passionate about healing among nations, about healing among peoples who are divided artificially by color or gender or class.  I’m passionate about healing within the earth, which has been placed in our hands for protection and safekeeping, which sustains us and feeds us and houses us.  And if we are ever so fortunate as to discover beings like us on another world, well, I’m sure we’ll need healing in the relationships between us and them, too!

The thing is, all those big things, I don’t know how much difference I can make.  I try to shine the light, from my own little corner of the world, in my own small ways.  I try to be responsible about recycling, to be considerate and kind to everyone I encounter, to extend love to my family members.  I try to take care of my body, to feed my mind, to tend lovingly to my soul.

So over the last year, I’ve continued to try things, to find the things that feed and uphold me, to listen for God’s voice, particularly coming from the mouths of those I love and trust.  A handful of revelations have gone from misty fuzziness to fairly sharp clarity, and there’s still plenty of indistinct stuff out there in the mist.  

I have always felt a special pull toward those who have been damaged by The Church.  This may be the most difficult healing work that God can call us to, engaging with those who reject God because of the behavior of some of God’s other children.  Our faith resides in very deep places, so when we find pain or anger or fear in those places, this affects every part of us.  It is true that some years ago, I spent time as a practicing neo-pagan, believing specifically that the Greek goddess Athena was my patroness.  My faith in her warrior wisdom helped me to survive a particularly savage depression… and yet, I found that I had to return to my beloved Church, to the Trinity that so baffles and delights me, to the dance of love with God.  But in that time, I was greatly blessed by being able to witness The Church through the eyes of an outsider, and I’ll tell you that what I saw was not pretty.  I believe it was G.K. Chesterton who famously said it’s not that Christianity has been tried and found wanting, but that Christianity has never truly been tried.  It is my prayer that in time, God will gather all of God’s children to Godself, and that those of us here in this world who misunderstood will finally get to see ourselves through God’s perfectly-loving and infinitely-forgiving eyes.

More recently, I’ve observed a strong pull toward those who are new to our parish.  Many are young adults who attended church with their parents when they were children, but who began to walk apart when they were teenagers, as so many of us do.  But now, as they begin to consider children or even begin having children, these folks find that they are missing that special, magical mystery that their parents shared with them.  Worship speaks to those very deep parts of us, those places where we need to feel cared for and loved, those places where music and candlelight live, those places that can understand the realm of symbol and don’t always have to live in the world of rational and logical thought.  I’m not sure yet just what this inclination means, but I believe that it is holy and good, and I’m doing my best to discover what God is calling me to with this pull.

And I think that both of these places are fertile ground for healing.  See, the healing of God does not always mean that we are cured, that we are restored to the state of being we were in before illness or dis-ease entered the picture.  Healing can — and does! — take place in body, mind, heart, spirit, soul.  Healing can mean the acceptance of something that terrifies and angers us, the forgiveness of an old grievance that has eaten us away like a cancer, or the commitment to a discipline of tending to ourselves as lovingly as we might tend to others.  Healing begins when we can allowthe Light to shine on those hidden, broken places within ourselves.  We may only be able to open the shutters the barest crack at first, because we’re afraid of what lies behind them, but even the tiniest sliver of the Light of God can begin the work of healing within us.

I know that there is a lot more here for me to discover, to bring to light within myself.  What do these senses of call mean for me?  How can I live them out within my parish community, within my city or workplace or online communities, even within the wider Church?  I keep returning to prayer, and I know that I’m past due for a weekend retreat; I need to find a place of peace and of beauty where I can be still and know that God is God.

Alleluia!  The Lord is risen!
The Lord is risen indeed!  Alleluia!

So begins our celebration of Easter, the most important Feast of the church year.  This is a day of great celebration, with many flowers decorating the church, with festive white and gold hangings and vestments, with joyous songs and Alleluias (and Hallelujahs).  Easter is our celebration of the Resurrection of Jesus, a miracle that is mysterious and beyond understanding, but that is the foundation of our faith as Christians.  Many years ago, those who wished to be baptized would spend the season of Lent in learning and preparation, and on Easter, they would be baptized into the Church.  Without Easter, the Christian church would not now exist — which, I know, may be considered a mixed blessing — though we mark the birth of the Church at the Pentecost.  So what is this all about?

The lections for Easter worship offer several options, including two

Eastern Orthodox Icon of Mary, Mary Magdalene, and Salome at the grave of Jesus

different accounts of the Resurrection.  The account in Mark’s gospel is more spare, less detailed.  The account in John’s gospel speaks with John’s poetic voice, with more details and more drama.  These appear to be two completely different stories, but they tell one very important truth: Jesus did not stay dead.  Jesus did not remain in the tomb.  Of course, there is another detail that is very dear to my heart: it was women who first discovered this.  It wasn’t John, the beloved disciple, or Simon Peter, the rock on whom the Church was founded.  It was Mary Magdalene, healed by Jesus of a multitude of demons, and some accounts include Mary the mother of Jesus and Salome.

I can only imagine the fear and anxiety that these women must have felt.  First, as they approach the tomb, they remember the large stone that sealed the entrance, and they doubt that they will be strong enough to roll it away.  And then, they arrive at the tomb and find the great stone is already moved.  What does this mean?  Did the Romans or the chief priests take the body of their beloved Jesus to hide it?  Did some thief come, and steal their lord away?  What happened here?

In John’s account, Mary Magdalene runs back to the men to tell them that the stone is moved.  In Mark’s account the women proceed straight into the tomb, and the first words the angel inside speaks to them are, “Don’t be afraid.”  (Of course, these are the first words that every angel appearing in the bible speaks to a human.)  It’s no wonder they are afraid!  This is beyond understanding, beyond comprehension — especially when one is already filled with loss and grief and anguish, and maybe even doubt.  But then, the truth of the miracle is revealed.

Icon of the Resurrection

You are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified.
He has been raised; he is not here!

Two years ago, on Easter Sunday, I wrote in this blog that I could not understand why Jesus would ever want to come back.  I mean, it’s not that he got treated particularly well while he was here, so why would he want to return?  It doesn’t make any sense!

Well, it might not make any sense to us, but it makes perfect sense to God.  After all, what kind of sense does it make to us that God would love every single one of us — love us perfectly, extravagantly, profligately, scandalously — when we know that we’re really not all that lovely or lovable?  And sometimes we might think, okay, so God can love me, but does it make sense for God to love people like Saddam Hussein or Genghis Khan or Vlad Ţepeş every bit as much as God loves Mother Teresa and Archbishop Tutu and Mohandas Gandhi?  Those first three — they’re terrible people!  They’re monsters, destroyers of God’s children!  And those last three, they’re people of great love and peace, truly God’s children!  How on earth does this make sense?  Of course, I just answered that question.  It doesn’t make any sense at all on earth.  But to God, it makes perfect sense.

The resurrection of Jesus is a great gift, and the fundamental truth of it is simple:

GOD. LOVES. YOU.

That’s it.  That’s the message of Easter.  Love.  It’s so simple, but of course, simple things are rarely easy.  Love is hard work for us, because we aren’t God.  We can have a hard time loving people, like Hussein and Khan and Dracula,

The Resurrection by Raffaellino del Garbo

even like the noisy kids next door and the husband or wife and that weird guy who’s always outside the grocery store smelling not-quite-right.  Some of the final words of Jesus to his closest friends, on the night of the Last Supper, were love one another, just as I have loved you.  Jesus commands us to love, tells us that we will be recognized as his followers by the love we show.  And we must show that love.  Love is a verb.  It is an action, a choice, a behavior.  You cannot say you love someone, if you ignore them or hurt them or refuse to help them.  Love is all about the actions.  You don’t love that smelly guy at the grocery store, if you make Tsch! noises at him, or refuse to look at him.  You don’t love the noisy neighbors if you yell at them or glare at them from your driveway.  Love does the very basic physical actions that Jesus entreats us to do: love feeds the hungry, love gives drink to the thirsty, love tends to the sick, love is present for the lonely, love makes sure that the naked are clothed, and love makes room for the homeless.

God’s love has shown itself in a very basic and physical way, too.  God’s love came physically into this world as a baby human.  God came to us as a naked, hungry, thirsty boy, helpless to provide these things for Godself.  God as an infant was even homeless for a time, when Nazareth was not a safe place for God’s human family.  God as Jesus experienced all of those needs: hunger, thirst, illness, loneliness, nakedness, homelessness.  Jesus experienced anger, frustration, fear.  Heck, Jesus even experienced flatulence, sneezes, itches, bumps, and bruises.  This is what it means when we say Jesus was fully human, while being fully divine.  Jesus knows what we humans need, knows in a personal, intimate way.  So when Jesus tells us to love each other, Jesus knows what he’s talking about.

Peter and John at the Tomb by William Hole

Jesus also knows our brokenness, our failures to hit the mark, our separation from God and from each other.  Before Jesus, if a Jewish person wanted to show repentance for sin and be restored to God’s favor, a sacrifice would be made.  Jesus chose to become the last sacrifice; he allowed himself to be killed in order to restore all of us to God’s favor.  When Jesus was nailed to the cross, every one of our sins was nailed to the cross with him.  We may not realize — in this world — that we are loved so perfectly, that we have already been forgiven, that this act of Jesus reconciled us with God and with each other.  That’s because we’re flawed, broken.  We’re not perfect.  All we can do is try.  We can try to love one another, just as Jesus loved us.  We can try to forgive ourselves and to forgive one another.  We can make our own sacrifices, giving time to act out our love, giving money to further God’s work in this world, giving gifts, both tangible and not.

And this is the miracle of the Resurrection.  Yes, Jesus died on that cross, taking on himself the weight of all of the sin of all of the people that ever have been, that are now, and that ever will be.  But God’s love story doesn’t end there.  The story doesn’t end because somehow, marvelously and miraculously, Jesus did not stay dead.  He entered into a new kind of life, a life that included a physical body but that was filled with God’s light and presence.  And the promise of this new life of Jesus is that every one of us will be given the opportunity to enter into this same kind of new life.  We don’t know for sure how or when this will happen, but we know why.  Because

GOD!  LOVES!  US!

Amen.  Alleluia!

Finally, we have reached the last Station of the Cross, the burial of Jesus.  The Message says:

Late in the afternoon a wealthy man from Arimathea, a disciple of Jesus, arrived. His name was Joseph. He went to Pilate and asked for Jesus’ body. Pilate granted his request. Joseph took the body and wrapped it in clean linens, put it in his own tomb, a new tomb only recently cut into the rock, and rolled a large stone across the entrance. Then he went off.

And the NRSV reads:

When it was evening, there came a rich man from Arimathea, named Joseph, who was also a disciple of Jesus. He went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus; then Pilate ordered it to be given to him. So Joseph took the body and wrapped it in a clean linen cloth and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had hewn in the rock. He then rolled a great stone to the door of the tomb and went away.

Intentionally, the Stations of the Cross end with the burial of Jesus, with that great stone sealing the tomb.  We know now that this is not the end of the story, but Joseph of Arimathea and Pontius Pilate and Simon of Cyrene and Mary and Peter and John and all the other disciples and friends did not know this.  They were in a place of pain, of fear, of anguish, of loss, of absence.  They had lost — some of them had even betrayed and abandoned — their teacher, their master, their lord, their savior.

At this Station, we are left standing, looking at a stone.  It is grey: hard, grey rock.  Grey is a good color for this Holy Saturday, this day of emptiness and absence between Jesus leaving the world on Good Friday and re-entering the world on Easter morning.  Grey is a color of between; it is not stark black nor crisp, clean white.  It is fuzzy.  And we’re not walking in the footsteps in Jesus any more, either.  Now we are standing, still and quiet, like that stone.  There is no place left to go.  Where would we turn, without Jesus to guide us?

I will confess to harboring a secret delight at this Station.  It just bubbles up in me, and I can’t help it.  I know that Jesus is gone, and that we are in this between-time of absence and greyness and loss.  But at the same time, I know that marvelous and awe-some things are happening behind that great stone.  I can’t tell you exactly what those things are, because none of us gets to see the process.  We see only what goes into the tomb, the broken body of Jesus, and what comes out on Easter morning.  And right now, I look at that hard, grey rock, just imagining the wonders taking place inside the cave.

This year, this season of Lent, has been the best Lent I’ve ever had.  It feels so strange to say that — we don’t usually think of a season of prayer and fasting and penitence and discipline as good, much less as better or even best!  But despite the burial ceremony for my grandfather, despite being so sick I couldn’t make it to church or our special Lenten discussion series after Ash Wednesday, until the fourth Sunday of Lent, despite never really settling on a personal Lenten discipline… this has been a very holy and fertile season for me.

In prior years, I lived in the house of a very controlling and abusive man, one who could not understand faith, could not come to terms with the idea of having faith in any being other than oneself.  I know that he lives a life of loneliness and fear, because he isn’t even able to have enough faith in other people to extend true trust to them.  And so, living in this house, any expressions I made of my own faith were insulted, mocked, threatened, shouted down.  I learned to try to keep my faith quiet, so as not to rock the boat, not to provoke rage and insult and abuse.  Jesus may have said that we are blessed when we are persecuted for our faith, but when you’re in the midst of it, that persecution feels like anything but a blessing!

This year, my life is completely different.  Being married to maplestar — a lifelong Christian, a cradle Anglican, a man of deep and abiding faith — has meant that we have been able to share our Lenten journey.  We have sat together in worship, have said the prayers, have sung the hymns.  We have taken part together in the Lenten discussions, even sharing leadership of one of them.  We sat vigil in the silent church this morning, as the disciples did with Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane — though we did manage not to fall asleep.  This Holy Week has been the first when I’ve ever been able to really immerse myself in the story, to watch with the disciples, to walk the Way of the Cross with Jesus.   Last night was the first Good Friday liturgy I’d ever been able to take part in, and Thursday was only the second Maundy Thursday liturgy I’d been part of.  Tonight will be the first time I’ve ever gotten to participate in the Great Vigil of Easter, the joyful welcoming of the Christ-light back into the world.

So today, as I sit in the garden outside Joseph’s tomb, as I look on the large grey rock, I am waiting with delighted anticipation for the miracle to be revealed.  I hope you’ll sit down and wait with me, here in this beautiful garden, in the silence of nature.  And we’ll watch the great stone, until it is rolled aside.