Easter Sunday, April 4

by John Wilkinson

Jesus’ life and ministry happens, and it matters. Holy Week happens, and matters. It absolutely matters – the last supper, the painful and tragic crucifixion. Resurrection happens, and of course it matters. It is the source from which our story flows. But it matters only so much as it gains traction, has a context, is shared from person to person, then from community to community, then from generation to generation, then from century to century, then back to its basics – acts of kindness and love and compassion, simple acts of praise, the formation of communities that gather and disperse to build and renovate and restore. The power and truth of resurrection is never resurrection itself, but all that flows from it, all that follows. Lives transformed. Worlds changed. Differences made.

Here is the gospel truth. From water the world was created and called good. Through water God led our forbears into freedom. In water Jesus was baptized, and so are we. By water God quenches our thirst and plants the tree of life.

And because Jesus meets us at the lakeshore and feeds us and empowers us, here is the gospel truth as well. We are all reconstruction projects. We are all renovation projects. We are all restoration projects. All reclamation projects. All reformation projects. We are all resurrection projects.

To conclude A River Runs Through It, Norman Maclean wrote, “Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world's great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time.” That sounds like resurrection to me, and all that flows from it. Do not weep, Mary. (John 20) Cast your nets, disciples. (John 21) Christ is risen. Christ is risen indeed.

Holy Saturday, April 3

by Martha Langford

By the waters of Babylon, there we sat down and wept, when we remembered Zion. On the willows there we hung up our lyres. For there our captors required of us songs, and our tormentors, mirth, saying, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!” How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land? Psalm 137:1–4 (RSV)

“It is finished…” words from the cross as Jesus gives up his spirit, dying on a bleak Friday afternoon. The women watch; the men carry the body away, give it the dignity of grave clothes, lay it in that garden tomb. Roll the stone in place, “it is finished.”

“It is finished…” haunting words shroud the bleakness of Saturday’s silence. Jesus entombed—the light of the world alone in the darkness. Lay down your harps, “it is finished.”

“It is finished…” execution becomes exile; we too sojourn in Babylon, weep by its waters, and wait by its rivers. How shall we sing the Lord’s song; “it is finished,” is it not?

Gracious God, lift us up when we feel ourselves in exile, when we weep beside the river, when we hear the world’s voices mocking our hope. Fortify us as we wait in silence beside the stone-closed tomb. Having heard the promise of resurrection; give us eyes to see and ears to hear and hearts to understand. Bring us through the darkness of our days into the light of your eternal kingdom. Amen.

Good Friday, April 2

by Rod Frohman

Michel Quoist, born in Le Havre France in 1921 and died in 1997, was an urban parish priest and a French writer. As a post-war chaplain of Catholic Action he published Prayers in 1954. 2,500,000 copies have been sold throughout the world. I have a worn out copy to which I return very often.

Part of his book contains prayers for Good Friday, “Prayers on the Way of the Cross.” The central assumption of these prayers is Quoist’s affirmation: “Christ is still dying. He continues to offer himself for the redemption of the world through those who suffer and die around us today.” Here is prayer number five:

Simon of Cyrene Helps Carry Jesus’ Cross
He passed by on the road;
They pressed him into service,
The first to come along, a stranger

Lord, you accepted his help.
You did not want the help of a friend, the solace of a gesture of love, the generous impulse of one who cared.
You chose the enforced help of an indifferent and timid fellow.
Lord All-Powerful, you sought the help of a powerless man.
By your own choosing you are in need of us.

Lord, I need others.
The journey of life is too hard to be trodden alone.
But I avoid the hands outstretched to help me,
I want to act alone,
I want to fight alone,
I want to succeed alone.
And yet beside me walks a friend, a spouse, a neighbor, a fellow worker.
You have placed them near me Lord, and too often I ignore them.
And yet it is together that we shall save the world.

Lord, even if they are drafted, grant that I may see, that I may accept, all the Simons on my road.

Thursday, April 1

From “More Frightening than the Storm” by Lance Stone

And here all we can really say is that the immensity of the divine power is matched only by the immensity of its mystery. So it is that we have this great but troubling text from Job 38 that we read from, where God overwhelms Job with a vision of God’s cosmic, transcendent mystery. “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?” he asks. In other words, what do you know? What do you understand? Who are you anyway? You understand nothing. Human life is caught up in mystery far beyond human telling and rationalizing and our relentless determination to tame and to domesticate God will forever flounder upon the sheer mystery of who God is.

An excerpt from today’s sermon for the LENTEN VOICES SERMON SERIES led by Martha Langford. Bring your lunch and join the discussion at 12:00 NOON in Room 103 of the Education Wing (ground floor).