Easter People

The sorrow and struggles of Lent are over and now we are in the season of Easter.  And I love it.

The blessing of my life is that I am leading a Bible study on the book of Acts which means every week we spend time looking at the work of the Holy Spirit.  And that excites me. It is essentially about "the rest of the story" - what happens to the group of disciples who walked with Jesus and were part of that movement that he started.  That movement that continues to this day. 

We are now into the 14th chapter of Acts and you can see all the ways the spirit works:

Guiding the disciples in and out of missions

Giving them the words to speak

Creating signs and wonders

Getting them out of prison

Bringing people together

What is a constant message is that while the spirit empowers and brings "success" - it also encounters various forms of resistance.  And so the disciples go through rejection, imprisonment, stoning and being pushed out of town.

So, what does this have to do with our lives in 2022. 

Yesterday I had a zoom meeting with clergy friends who have been part of my "peer group" for over 10 years.  We started as we were all serving churches as senior pastors.  Now 4 of 6 of us are retired and we are watching the churches that we loved and served get smaller and sometimes close.  We talk about where to worship and what is next for each of us.

I have been blessed for the past almost three years to be part of a vital, loving church - Gender Road Christian Church.  The pandemic has been problematical for all churches and we seem to be bouncing back but it is different.  Church attendance is a habit and for many people, zooming online is enough.  And so, we continue to try to share the good news and be the good news in a world that is pretty resistant. 

What I know to be true is that we have to be Easter people - aware of the miracle of the Risen Christ that is lived out in our lives on a daily basis.  This morning in "Pray as you go" we pondered the third resurrection appearance of Jesus - when he met the disciples at the beach and guided them to the best fishing and fixed them breakfast. In all of that we were invited to imagine what it was like for the disciples and all I could think was that they just loved being with him - sitting around the fire and drinking in the miracle of his presence before they went out to share the good news of the power and love and grace  of God.

And maybe that is the beginning task for all of us Easter people.  Lets just start with savoring the resurrection and all the resurrections of the life that we live.  The Holy Spirit is real and at work in our lives and in our world.  It is so easy to get caught up in the negative resistance to life and to goodness and to love.  But God brings both extraordinary miracles as well as ordinary messages every day of our lives.

Today I get to write in this blog, have lunch with an old friend and lead a wedding rehearsal.  Acts of creativity, love and new beginnings.  Signs of spirit at work.  Always.

So, here's to drinking in the good news, spending time with Jesus, reflecting on and savoring the work of the spirit.  Happy Easter!

An Easter Prayer

O Source of all living things, we praise you for the power of recurring recreation of life we see around us,

and for the timeless resurrection of Jesus our Christ.  

May these signs inspire us to manifest your presence in our relationships and actions,

that those cries of joy first heard on Easter morning may echo through the centuries to our time and place.

Amen

(Ruth Duck)

The Cross

This is Holy Week and a time to consider "The Cross of Christ."

Yesterday I preached about the crucifixion and it gave me an opportunity to be able to express my understanding of what this central image of my faith means.  I want to continue to explore and expand on that this morning. 

Jesus calls us to "pick up our cross daily and follow him."  I think it is easy to think about the cross as a piece of jewelry or a symbol.  It is - however - a method of execution.  It is a painful, public and humiliating method of execution.  Is that important?

Clearly at the center of "picking up the cross" there is death.  It means a daily decision to "die to self."  And then there is the question - what does that mean?  Is it dying to the ego?  to the false self? Is it a letting go?  A surrendering?  The answer is all of these and more.

I found this quote Tulian Tehviditan

Daily Christian living, in other words, is daily Christian dying: dying to our trivial comforts, soul-shrinking conveniences, arrogant preferences, and self-centered entitlements, and living for something much larger than what makes us comfortable and safe. 

Like the crucifixion of Jesus , our dying to self  always involves suffering. I think of some of some of the important times I had to face the "self" that needed to die.  There was  the time I caused an accident that could have killed someone,  or the time my husband announced he did not want to be married to me. There were the times  I made mistakes that affected my children, and the recognition of my prejudices and white privilege.  It is the times when I have had to face my imperfections and humanity - I was wrong, I was selfish, I was thoughtless,  I was impatient, I was clueless, I was inadequate.  In my experience, the dying to self sometimes involves humiliation and always humility. It when  that i realize - in the deepest part of myself - that  I cannot do this on my own - I need God's help - guidance, forgiveness, strength. Those big awarenesses have led to daily practices of remembering that God is present with me and always in some way - "I am weak and he is strong."  And I pick up the cross again.

There are two foundational beliefs that enable me to do the work of picking up the cross.  One is the understanding that in some mystical way Jesus is present with me in the  suffering.  There is nothing that we have experienced in life that he did not encounter and he sits with me in times of pain and isolation bringing comfort and healing.  I frequently  image him entering a room and looking at me with love and saying "What do you need?" And it helps. 

And the other belief is the understanding of God's constant and abiding love for me.  I frequently quote this sentence I learned years ago from the late preacher John Claypool: "God loves us as if we are the only one and God loves all as God loves each."  I believe this because I have experienced that love - over and over again in small and large ways.  In the beauty of an April morning, in the constant love of friends, in the music at a church service, in a mystical glow during prayer.  And I also experience times of genuine guidance - an inner knowing, a voice, a path that emerges and brings new life.

So. ......what does the cross mean to me this year? It is about  the practice of  surrendering,  letting go, confronting of self  and yes - at times -   suffering . .And it leads to a freedom to be me, a sense of peace about the future and a gratitude for the gift of this day and this time.   

Here is a wonderful prayer by Maxine Shonk

May God accompany you and bless you in your times of dying.

May God walk with you into the unknown as you say goodbye to what is familiar and beloved.

In this time of letting go may you give yourself over to all that is

loving, lifegiving, and eternal and all that lives on in memory and in mystry. 

May you be blessed by the ones who know you and received by the One who created you 

and has loved you from the beginning of time.

 

Amen