Open to the Light: the tomb opens

The Great Vigil of Easter

“May we open

and open more

and open still

to the blessed light

that comes.”[1]

Are we ready? Ready to move from the darkness into the light? From our brokenness into wholeness? division into unity? death into life?

Voices around us shout: Be afraid. Shut the enemy down. Bomb them. Deny them. Crush them. We cannot be safe if they are allowed to exist.

Are you ready to move from darkness into light? From death into life?

So, what then shall this resurrection mean? We all long to be freed from our prisons: from the fear, anxiety, grief, shame, loneliness, depression, greed, self-preservation, materialism, self-centeredness, pride, vanity, and despair that often confine us.

Listen, beloved, have ears to hear this love story of God’s, this story written to us, for us, by the Creator of Heaven and Earth.

Easter proclaims: There is One who has the key to open every prison door. One who opens the way to freedom and life.  Not without cost. Not without price. Not without death. This One, this God, this Jesus defeats death with death. And in this sacrificial act of love comes life. New, full, rich and abundant life.  A life of wholeness, a life of unity, a life of light. 

The Good news is that we do not have to physically die in order to taste the Feast at God’s banquet table.  But we are called to the Cross.  We are called to sacrifice the ways of life we carry around which deny God’s dream, which deny the Light.  These ways and words, these behaviors and choices that are really darkness, they must be abandoned.

Are we ready? Ready to put an end to shutting out God instead of opening to the Spirit---to leave behind behaviors of independence, self-preservation, individualistic prosperity, blindness and deafness toward the common good?  Are we willing to shout no to those Voices that urge us to live in fear instead of hope, willing to rise up and say yes to God, yes to the Light—even and especially in the face of the darkness?

If we are, when we say yes, then we begin to walk the freedom road, the road to wholeness. Even when it seems the world has dimmed the lights to a dark and foggy mist, we remember: God is in control. God has the final say. Easter proclaims: Grace wins. Love wins.

In the song “Awake My Soul” Mumford and Sons sing:

“In these bodies we will live, in these bodies we will die

And where you invest your love, you invest your life.

Awake my soul….For you were made to meet your maker.”

It is time to wake up.  To rise.  It is time to invest our love, invest our lives and shine the light of Christ into the darkness of the world.  Let us cast our darkness upon the cross and receive new life.

Are we ready?

“May we open

and open more

and open still

 to the blessed light that comes.

---

[1] Jan Richardson

Death to Life; Live Beloved

Good Friday

In order to be a people of the Resurrection, we must first be a people of the crucifixion.  Stinks, doesn’t it?  Certainly, not how we would have planned it.  But it is our reality.  The reality that life comes with grief and struggle, woundedness and betrayal, blood, sweat, tears, and death.

Because all this nastiness is a part of our lives, and there seems to be no human way to avoid it, Jesus entered our humanity and shared it.  In order to show us that there may be a different way to survive it.

Jesus shares in our grief: Eloi, eloi, lema sebachthani (My  God, My god, why have you forsaken me?)

Jesus shares in our struggle: carrying the cross after being beaten and whipped, dropping it  along the way.

Jesus shares in our woundedness: his pierced side flowing with blood and water.

Jesus knows what it means to be betrayed as his beloved Peter denies knowing him at all.

Jesus’ blood, sweat, and tears fall in droplets to the dusty ground below the cross.

Jesus shares in our death---even his divinity does not save him from it.  Because we die, so does he.

Why?  Why such passion? Why such drama?  Why didn’t God simply put a stop to it and shout from the heavens: Hey, y’all: I love you.  Don’t worry.  I got your back.

I do not know.  Mystery. I only know that before the Resurrection comes the cross.

Perhaps God knew that we would have to be shown in order to trust.  That in order for us to believe there is a different way to live, in order for us to wrap our heads around such grace, we require to have it lived out before us.  Possibly, we need to witness mercy so as to understand our pain doesn’t have to lead to striking out at our fellow humans.  That our betrayal and being denied justice doesn’t have to lead to retaliation.  That there is more to us than the sum total of our wounds, our bruises, our leaking, open sores.  There is more to us than our jeering, our mocking and name-calling, our throwing of stones. We need not follow the voices that tell us we must isolate ourselves from our enemies, bomb them, kill them, demonize them.  In fact, the cross calls us to forgive them.  To show mercy, not retaliation.

Perhaps God is hoping that this act of Jesus, this loving sacrifice and forgiveness, will open our eyes to whom we are created to be, to how we are designed to live.  Maybe Jesus’ walk to Jerusalem will free us to understand we do not have to move from fear, that there is another way to journey:

Instead of vengeance----mercy.

Instead of terror----compassion.

Instead of violence---grace.

Instead of division----connection.

Instead of walls----bridges.

Instead of  betrayal----shelter.

Instead of blindness---seeing.

Instead of condemnation-----healing.

Instead of shame-----hospitality.

Instead of hatred-----love.

Today we are called to take up our own weapons of destruction—as individuals, as communities, as families, and as nations. We are to acknowledge the crosses upon which we nail the Body of Christ each and every day: the nails that are our words, our apathy, our self-righteousness, and our certainty. 

The new life we seek, the resurrection for which we long, can not be entered, cannot be lived, until we sacrifice these very parts of ourselves that deny who we are and whose we are---the beloved people of God.

Let the stone in your hand symbolize one thing, just one thing---one thing within yourself that needs to be put on the cross.  One thing that prevents you from fully entering and sharing God’s love.  Maybe it’s a resentment. Or a fear.  Or a belief that someone is less deserving than you.  Or that you are less deserving.  Maybe it’s an attitude of indifference or a pattern of self-centeredness or the desire to always be right. Maybe it’s the excuse that you just don’t have the time.

Whatever it is, today Jesus shows us we can let it go; we can give it up, sacrifice it and live.  Live fully and abundantly in the shelter of God’s love, mercy and delight.  We can place it on the cross and be freed. Freed to love and be loved. Resurrection is a gift we are invited to receive.  God is doing a new thing.  Let us allow death that we might live. Truly, fully, abundantly live. Live as the beloved.

Love one Another: Maundy Thursday

According to the dictionary, the definition of the word privilege is:

a special right, advantage, or immunity granted or available only to a particular person or group of people.

Often we think of the privileged as those who can live lives of luxury or those who have vacation homes, more leisure time, less wanting and more having.

But Jesus has a different way of looking at privilege.

As Jesus’ apprentices---those who follow in this life of Jesus----our privilege is to serve.  Our special right, our advantage, our blessing, comes from how we live.  And we are called to live lives of service.

Today’s celebration is such a gift to us.  In this crazy, chaotic world that implores us to buy our way to happiness, in this society that tells us, first and foremost, we better look out for #1, in this culture that tries to scare us into being afraid of those who are not like us---telling us we should build walls instead of bridges, that we should not trust those of different faiths, that we better have a gun if we want to be safe in our own homes…..today, Jesus points to a different life of blessing, to a different path to privilege….

Come, Jesus says, come and gather with those who are seeking this different way of living, share in the one bread and the one cup---remember who you are and whose you are and let your heart be filled with hope, become possessed by the Holy Spirit, let your eyes see your brother and sister with the eyes of God, and be changed.

Kneel, Jesus says, kneel and take up the worn-out, dusty feet of your fellow pilgrim—without regard to color, gender, faith, or economic status---don’t be dismayed or unsettled.  Tend to them; tend to their brokenness, their pain, their sorrow. In this act you will know love, give love, be love. When we serve, we give glory to God who, from the very beginning of our story, has always freed the oppressed from whatever binds them up. When we serve, we participate in God’s ongoing redemption in the present world; we enact the Kingdom.

By these acts of communion and service, Jesus promises, we are blessed.  Not because our bankroll increases; not because our lives are made easier, not because our problems are ended.  But in this remembering, in this serving, our hearts are enlarged.  Our spirits, which are weighed down with the grief and the sorrow of everyday living, are lightened and lifted.  We get a glimpse into the true meaning of this living, the real gift of this life----our relationships.  Being connected to others.  

Having communities who help to bear the load and lighten the burden.  A web of grace into which we can lean when we ourselves tumble, or are pushed, into the depths.

Privilege—a special right, advantage, or immunity.  Living as an apprentice of Jesus does not promise an easy road; in fact, it is difficult.  And yet it is our privilege.  For as we truly live this Way with our whole heart, we become immune to loneliness and disconnection; we gain the advantage of sharing our grief and our joy; we recognize the right we have always had, even before we took our first breath, to sit at the banquet table in the community of Father, Son, Holy Spirit because we are loved. We are worthy. We are forgiven. We are enough.

Come.

Kneel.

Take and eat.

Serve and be blessed.

You belong; we belong; all belong. May our lives become our thanksgiving.