| …Easter us to joy and energy and courage and freedom; Easter us that we may be fearless for your truth. Come here and Easter our Wednesday with mercy and justice and peace and generosity. We pray as we wait for the Risen One who comes soon. from “Marked by Ashes” by Walter Brueggemann(click here to read the full poem) |
| Dear Friends, This is our last Wednesday before we enter into the most sacred time in our Christian calendar: Holy Week, Jesus’ final week on earth. Holy Week is bracketed by Palm Sunday and Easter Day, 4/10 and 4/17 respectively this year. It begins with Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem. The atmosphere in Jerusalem over the week changes quickly and changes drastically. The powers of the day seek to eliminate Jesus as a threat to the way they have structured life to be lived, a way of life contrary to God’s desire for God’s people. God’s desire? To Easter us. In our services this upcoming week, we hear the stories of that holy week, and come alongside Jesus and the authorities, his friends, his followers, and his family. We join the crowds of others too, those who had only come to celebrate Passover and were swept into the chaos of the week. The disturbing and difficult, the touching and tender are the tenor of the interactions embedded in the stories we hear throughout the week. This is an important and difficult week in the liturgical life (calendar) of the Church; perhaps one that many would like to skip over. And it is an option to skip with Palm Sunday and Easter Day as brackets. Sometimes skipping over is necessary. Still, somewhere and every day some person and people are experiencing their own version of a holy week. We might be able to identify those times in our collective lives. Those on the margins and those who suffer any form of oppression surely have versions that touch their personal lives. Brueggemann reminds us that if we can, show up. It is in Lent and especially in Holy Week when we experience how closely and intertwined disturbing and difficult are to tender and touching. We are reminded and embody the truth that as a community or personally we are not abandoned by God, no matter how dire, no matter how horrific, the circumstances. We are being Eastered all the time. Joy, energy, courage, freedom, fearless for God’s Truth find their ways into our experiences, even if we need to look hard to find them. Joy, energy, courage, freedom, fearless for God’s Truth become our petition and proclamation. Ruler of the Night, Guarantor of the day, Easter us – Easters us. Welcome Holy Week. In Peace, Rev. Dina |