Easter Sunday

Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24 • Acts 10:34-43 or Jeremiah 31:1-6 • Colossians 3:1-4 or Acts 10:34-43 • John 20:1-18 or Matthew 28:1-10

Alleluia! Christ is Risen!

Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni!” (which means Teacher) . . . Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord”; and she told them that he had said these things to her.

John 20:1-18

At first she thought he was the gardener.

So it was on that first Easter morning: The ugliness of death had been swept away and Mary Magdalene was the first to understand.

Jesus had gone to the Cross not to satisfy a bloodthirsty God, but to descend with us into the worst moments of pain a human could suffer and take that pain upon himself. And he did so to show us how to live without fear and bring us to hope and wholeness.

Beginning with Mary Magdalene, those who first experienced the Risen Christ began to understand the real meaning of Jesus’ life -- and the real meaning of their own lives. They continued to write the story of the Risen Christ in the way they lived afterwards.

This story is also our story. We continue to write the story of the Risen Christ by how we live our lives.

This way of life is not just about the afterlife that we cannot yet see. This is also about how we live right now, here, today and tomorrow. Salvation does not wait until the next life. Salvation comes right now.

May this Easter bring you many blessings; may you live in the hope of the salvation that is yours forever.

Alleluia! Christ is Risen!

The Rev. James Richardson

Holy Saturday

Psalm 31:1-4, 15-16 • Job 14:1-14 or Lamentations 3:1-9, 19-24 • 1 Peter 4:1-8 • Matthew 27:57-66 or John 19:38-42

THE WORD CAME TO KNOW

In the fullness of time,

God spoke the Word

into a woman.

The Word came to know

her blood,

her warmth,

her voice.

She held him nine months

and brought him forth

for the revealing of hearts

and the piercing of her soul.

When he was rejected, scorned, killed,

the earth received him

into her arms.

The Word came to know

her stone,

her cold,

her silence.

She held him three days

and breathed him forth

for the redeeming of the world

and the tearing of the veil.

Knowing woman, knowing earth,

the Word speaks truth

with tenderness: Love one another.

The Rev. Dr. Ann Bagley Willms

Good Friday

Psalm 22 • Isaiah 52:13-53:12 • Hebrews 10:16-25 or Hebrews 4:14-16; 5:7-9 • John 18:1-19:42

Everybody has a story to tell. But, more profoundly, every body tells a story. Even before a person begins to develop a story about who they are, their body has already begun to bear their story. From birth -- the moment their body is distinct from their mother’s body -- a person carries in and on their body the story of their inheritance. And not long after birth, that body begins learning language by which their story is expanded beyond the body and brought into the broader matrix of stories. The flesh becomes word.

However, in Jesus Christ, the Word became flesh. For the story of Jesus Christ is not just the embodied story of the son of Mary, but also the eternal Story of the Son of God, through whom and for whom the Father speaks the story of all Creation (Colossians 1:16). Therefore, the story of the invisible, triune God is revealed in the embodied story of Jesus of Nazareth -- the Gospel. But in the gospel texts that story changes as it approaches the cross. He whose words bring life is muted (Isaiah 53:7; Mark 14:61). As the passion story unfolds, the narrative overtakes Jesus and constricts around his body and its pain.

The Word is nailed to the flesh irrevocably. The point of the crucifixion was the silencing of the story through the obliteration of the body. The goal was not simply death, but the complete eradication of the body (which made crucifixion one of Rome’s three Supreme Penalties). The powers and principalities of this world destroy the body and extinguish the story of Jesus of Nazareth, co-opting the cry of dereliction (Mark 15:34) into their story of violence and domination. With a loud cry (Mark 15:37), the Word is exhausted; the peaceable story, silenced.

The Rev. Nik Forti

Maundy Thursday

Psalm 116:1, 10-17 • Exodus 12:1-14 • 1 Corinthians 11:23-26 • John 13:1-17, 31b-35

“Why is this night different from all other nights?” The youngest child at a Passover Seder asks this question early in the Jewish annual ritual commanded in Exodus 12 that commemorates God’s deliverance of Israel from slavery in Egypt.

Christians might well ask the same question of Maundy Thursday. In the accounts of the first three gospels, on this same Passover night Jesus shares his last supper with disciples using language and gestures that echo the Passover ritual while transforming it into what we recognize today as the sacrament of Holy Communion.

John 13, however, presents a dramatically different scene. Although the text does not say that the “supper” mentioned was the Passover meal, Christians through the ages have interpreted it that way. Instead of doing anything with bread and wine on “this night,” Jesus performs a ritualistic action that the lowliest of servants, a slave, carries out upon people’s arrival at a house: he washes his disciples’ feet.

Then, Jesus tells his disciples that they are to follow his example and wash each other’s feet—like him, they and we are to become servants. Just as the Passover brought a liberated people of God into being, Jesus’ feetwashing brings God’s people as a servant people into being.

Why is this night different from all other nights? Perhaps it is the night when Jesus calls us to a life of discipleship that follows not only the way of the cross articulated in the Eucharist, but also the way of the servant epitomized in the taking up of the basin and towel, leading us to be the liberated people of God, too. “O Lord, I am your servant . . . ,” the Psalmist declares, “You have loosed my bonds.”

The Rev. Heather Warren

Wednesday of Holy Week

Psalm 70 • Isaiah 50:4-9a • Hebrews 12:1-3 • John 13:21-32

Today, the betrayal of Judas is revealed, therefore foreshadowing the crucifixion of Jesus.

In the reading from John, Jesus does not accuse Judas; instead, he discreetly speaks to him: “What you are going to do, do quickly.” Jesus understood how this disciple would respond to the authorities seeking Jesus. Yet, I believe that even after this confrontation, Judas could have refused to betray his Master.

I want to think that I would not betray my friends, much less my teacher or my God. Yet I know that even Peter, the Rock, will deny Christ three times.

• In what ways do I betray myself, others, and my faith in my daily life?

• How do I deny the power of God in my life?

• What must I do to live in harmony with my better self and in intimacy with God?

The Psalmist helps me to begin to tackle these issues by asking God “not to tarry” but to hasten to help and deliver me.

Isaiah affirms the ways God can help me to live a godly life through listening to God and helping others through my understanding.

Paul, in his letter to the Hebrews, urges Christians to see how Jesus can help in these endeavors: “let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross . . . and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.”

Dear God, help me to reflect on my need for Christ as my guide to persevere in understanding myself and others, to resist the temptations to betray myself and others, and to face with joy the life I have.

Kay Slaughter

Tuesday of Holy Week

Psalm 71:1-14 • Isaiah 49:1-7 • 1 Corinthians 1:18-31 • John 12:20-36

As I read the Scripture passages assigned for today, John 12:24 is the verse that drew me back to it again and again:

Unless a wheat grain falls into the earth and dies, it remains only a single grain: but if it dies, it yields a rich harvest.

New Jerusalem Bible

This reminded me of an anthem which a college classmate of mine, Natalie Sleeth, had composed.

HYMN OF PROMISE

In the bulb there is a flower; In the seed, an apple tree;
In cocoons, a hidden promise; Butterflies will soon be free!
In the cold and snow of winter, There’s a spring that waits to be,
Unrevealed until its season, Something God alone can see.

There’s a song in every silence, Seeking word and melody;
There’s a dawn in every darkness, Bringing hope to you and me.
From the past will come the future; What it holds, a mystery.
Unrevealed until its season, Something God alone can see. 

Alleluia 

In our end is our beginning; In our time, infinity.

In our doubt there is believing; In our life, eternity.
In our death, a resurrection; At the last, a victory.
Unrevealed until its season; Something God alone can see.

Betty Kerner

Monday of Holy Week

Psalm 36:5-11 • Isaiah 42:1-9 • Hebrews 9:11-15 • John 12:1-11

How infinite is our God, who created the universe not ex nihilo but out of himself. Therefore, God is in all creation including each of us. To respond to this “Divine Indwelling” we must search for the meaning of who we are, and God’s call to us; then respond in gratitude. God chose to come into our world by taking on the mantle of our humanity, with all its frailties and brokenness, inviting us to “take refuge in the shadow of his wings.” Through the gift of Jesus, God invites us to look deep within ourselves and to realize our unity, not only with all of humanity, but in all of creation with God as its center. It is in this circle of unity that we will find wholeness, not in our separateness. Through his sacrifice, Jesus invites us to share in his humanity, through his resurrection he invites us to share in his divinity. How radiant is our God, in whose light we see light!

Each year we approach Holy Week seeking new insights into the momentous events that occurred then. The passage describing Mary anointing the feet of Jesus is, to me, one of the most enigmatic. Why did she choose nard (spikenard), an herbal ointment used in palliative care, the embalming process, and to help ease the transition from life into death. Emotionally, it was reserved for deep-seated grief. Mary seemed to have had prophetic and/or intuitive vision. Jesus certainly knew his death was imminent and perhaps he had shared this knowledge with her? Many scholars believe that this was Mary Magdalene, “watchtower of the flock,” apostle to the apostles. It may well have been so.

As we enter into Holy Week and the glory of Easter, may we fully realize the grace of God’s whole and infinite gift to us!

Nancy E. Brockman

Palm Sunday

Psalm 31:9-16 • Isaiah 50:4-9a • Philippians 2:5-11 • Matthew 26:14-27:66 or Matthew 27:11-54

Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness, and being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death - even death on a cross.

Philippians 2:5-8

The Lord God has opened my ear, and I was not rebellious, I did not turn backward. I gave my back to those who struck me, and my cheeks to those who pulled out the beard; I did not hide my face from the insult and spitting.

Isaiah 50:5-6

By meeting the world’s violence with non-violent dissent, and its hatred with love so strong that he could pray for forgiveness for those who had betrayed him to his death, Christ challenges our entire understanding of conflict and its resolution. Those who incite violence and hatred expect to be met with either fear or anger; a retreat, or a return of their own violence, an eye for an eye, or at least angry curses. Anger begets anger, hatred begets hatred, and violence merely continues the endless cycle of violence, the passing of earthly power from one ruler to another.

The non-violent response described in today’s readings undermines that cycle, rejecting human structures of power and conflict. In this way, Christ’s sacrifice is not merely redemptive, but instructive. Doing what is expected, what is easy, what feels natural, may solve our problems for a day, for a year, but human power structures, human hierarchies, human approaches to conflict resolution, will not ultimately bring us closer to God. Only by rejecting those societal expectations can we truly learn to love one another more fully, to draw ever closer to the mind of God, and to usher in God’s kingdom on earth.

Beth Molmen

Saturday of the Fifth Week of Lent

Psalm 137 • Jeremiah 31:27-34 • Romans 11:25-36 • John 11:28-44 or John 12:37-50

By the waters of Babylon, there we sat down and wept, when we remembered Zion. No words can describe the pathos of this Psalm; it is simply heart-rending. The desperation of a people wrenched from their home and forced to make mirth in the wake of catastrophe. We share their desperate grief. Our world is filled up with catastrophe. Life is splintered. The shadows threaten to strangle our bright hope for this Earth, our fragile home. How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?

Jesus wept, too. For one brief moment in the Gospel of John the cosmic Word-made-Flesh behaves like a child of our broken humanity rather than a scion of the bronzed race of the gods. He does not weep because Lazarus is lost, but because the great sadness of Mary penetrates the divinity of Christ and calls forth the tears of Jesus’ mortality. Jesus wept. But that is not the end of the story. The grief turns to astonished delight as Jesus calls forth Lazarus from out of the depths, alive again. Jesus commands those watching to unbind Lazarus from his death shroud and set him free.

Jesus weeps today, too, with and for our world. We may weep for our world—for our remembered Zion—but our weeping must turn to astonished delight, because Jesus has called this world back from the dead. To all who follow the Way of Jesus, he bids us unbind this world from its death shroud and set it free. And the new law of God, written on our hearts calls us to unbind this resurrected world, to pray for it, to live in it justly, to love in it mercifully—and in so doing, God will truly be our God, and we will be a people fit for God.

Andrew Guffey

Friday of the Fifth Week of Lent

Psalm 22 • Jeremiah 29:1, 4-13 • Romans 11:13-24 • John 11:1-27 or John 12:1-10

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning? O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer; and by night, but find no rest.”

The Psalmist cries out to God in this fashion for 21 verses. He feels completely abandoned by God. My guess is that all of us have felt this way at one time or another and that God has left us alone to do “the heavy lifting.”

In my work as a Volunteer Chaplain at UVa Medical Center, I encounter these cries every time I do an on-call rotation. I encounter suffering at all levels: physical, emotional, and spiritual. The suffering is intense, and at times I have felt completely helpless to assist people in alleviating their pain. I have wanted to cry out the words that the Psalmist wrote, and add to them, “and why have you forsaken these people in this hospital?” In my own questioning, I discovered an amazing phenomenon: families and patients help each other. In the family lounges, surgical waiting areas, many families know other families by name. They know who is having surgery, and they know who is struggling, and they cry when they hear someone didn’t make it. And they celebrate when someone goes home. I realized they are ministering to each other. WE are ministering to each other. And in that observation, I know God really IS here.

The Psalmist cries out for 21 verses, but for the next 10 he praises God for delivering him from his own darkness. A very wise priest said to me many years ago: “God is in the brokenness.” I have to believe that. Life just doesn’t make sense otherwise.

Bonny Bronson

Thursday of the Fifth Week of Lent

Psalm 131 • Jeremiah 26:1-16 • Romans 11:1-12 • John 10:19-42

The other morning, I looked down at my hairbrush and saw a copious amount of grey hair in the bristles. As I was about to drift into melancholy mid-life reflections about growing old, I looked at the brush more closely and realized the grey strands were, in fact, blond American Girl doll hair.

Motherhood is a lesson in humility. But as much as I like to joke around about some of the more mundane aspects of my day, I’ve been doing this long enough to have reached a certain level of peace with the arrangement. In my case, it’s about whether I place crafting a well-researched report that will be published and taken seriously by many people on equal parity with making a pair of fairy wings which will be taken seriously by one five-year old girl. For a long time, I would have said no.

But not today, and in fact, not for a while. I chose this path and have received countless blessings because of it. Does time go slowly? Some days. It’s easy to take an ordinary day for granted, especially when it’s repetitive. You can find yourself counting the hours until bedtime. But to its extreme, that can turn into an exercise of wishing your life away, wishing their childhood away.

Today, I was the lucky audience for an impromptu dance performance by my two younger children. They leapt, they skipped, they pranced . . . they filled my heart. I watched with that heart in my eyes, hoping that the stars will always remain in theirs.

O Master grant that I may never seek,
So much to be consoled as to console,
To be understood as to understand,
To be loved as to love with all my soul.

Excerpt from Prayer of St. Francis

Rowena Zimmermann

Wednesday of the Fifth Week of Lent

Psalm 119:145-176 • Jeremiah 25:30-38 • Romans 10:14-21 • John 10:1-18

I’m walking the half mile in the dark. It’s 3 a.m., cold and still. Knowing the way, I walk, looking up at the constellations, Red Venus, and my favorite, Cassiopeia. The little lights to guide us by night, and the moon. By the time I reach the chapel, it doesn’t seem dark anymore, but within, darkness engulfs me again.

Familiar darkness and a welcome warmth. One light emerges, the perpetual candle. As my aging eyes adjust to the interior space, the great Shepherd’s staff appears. It is on the right in the chapel, affixed to the first stall, where the monks pray. Wooden, smoothly carved, tall, with a graceful crook.

Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me. Slowy, noiselessly, the monks file in for the night office, these men who live by the longest continuous form of the government the world has ever known, the Rule of St Benedict. Lord, Open Thou My Lips, and My Mouth . . . baaaa!

The lost sheep, the Shepherd, seeking always to gather, to rescue. . . . The Shepherd lies at the mouth of the sheepfold at night, his staff and rod in his hand to ward off the marauder. The fold often made of rocks, just to keep them all together. The lost sheep by day, found bleating piteously somewhere, and tired, draped around the shoulders of the Good Shepherd.

My favorite image of my Lord Christ. Not the one that comes into view now, the one we Protestants may recoil from, the crucifix. Our dying human Lord hanging piteously upon the Cross. Drop, drop slow tears for the reality of all that is sordid and hideous in our helpless condition prior to your searching and finding us. Who is the lost sheep you know?

The Lord is My Shepherd, I shall not want. I pray for the world, this day before the rest of the world is even aware that Christ is praying with us. The Good Shepherd lays down his Life for the sheep.

I walk back, out into the dark night to wander the half mile lost in the grandeur of humility, becoming the stars.

Margaret Lee

Tuesday of the Fifth Week of Lent

Psalm 121 • Jeremiah 25:8-17 • Romans 10:1-13 • John 9:18-41

Before I signed up to do a reflection, I was thumbing through the assigned readings for each day looking for something “easy” because I haven’t done this before. Then I realized nothing about this was going to be easy because I am still discerning meaning in almost any Bible passage I read. But I came across Psalm 121 and it was at least familiar from my childhood when I was made to participate in my parents’ ritual of daily daytime prayer. That’s how I recall it, but in actuality I know there was a time when I could “opt-out.” I think I often chose to participate though, mostly because it was familiar and there is something about that which is familiar that is comforting.

When reading these lessons, I went in order and the Jeremiah passage illustrates my assertion that none of this is easy. How do we make sense of a God who says “I will utterly destroy them, and make them a horror, a hissing, and an everlasting reproach”? (I’ll have to take that one to the Bible study group.) But it is followed by two more passages, one where we are reminded that God is our salvation and another where we see Jesus as healer. These are images that are more familiar, more comfortable.

As we journey through Lent, and in our daily journeys with God, may we have the courage to explore things that aren’t easy and challenge ourselves in ways that aren’t always comfortable. And in so doing, may we come more in touch with that which is familiar: the promise of God’s love.

Erika Viccellio

Monday of the Fifth Week of Lent

Psalm 31 • Jeremiah 24:1-10 • Romans 9:19-33 • John 9:1-17

AND WHO AM I TO ARGUE WITH THE POTTER?

Romans 9:19-21

Did He not form me of soil and water,

Shape me on the ever-spinning wheel,

And then deck me with designs,

Temper me in His fires,

And breathe on me cool air?

Are there not vessels more comely,

More holy, more exalted than I?

Are some filled with lovely wines

Or honey-bursting pears,

While some know vinegar and gall?

Will I, with a fatal flaw in my glaze,

Shatter into a thousand shards

When life’s tempers cast me down,

Or will He hold me high, treasured,

A work of art ennobled by all?

Only the Potter knows his own purpose;

So I hold His spirit in all of my uses.

Be I beggar’s bowl or cup to a king,

Whether weakened or hardened, or fractured with sin,

I am always His own and restored in His care.

Stuart Dopp

Fifth Sunday of Lent

Psalm 130 • Ezekiel 37:1-14 • Romans 8:6-11 • John 11:1-45

The psalmist cries out to the Lord;
I cry out.

The psalmist hopes and waits;
I hope and wait.

The psalmist knows the Lord is steadfast;
Today I pray to know the Lord.

Jonathan Schnyer

Saturday of the Fourth Week of Lent

Psalm 102 • Jeremiah 23:9-15 • Romans 9:1-18 • John 6:60-71

Jeremiah writes “concerning the prophets: My heart is broken within me, all my bones shake” (23:9). Jeremiah is extremely upset because of immorality in the land, ungodliness, wickedness, and the prophets’ evil course. Sometimes I feel like Jeremiah when I dwell on the social and economic injustices in the world, violent actions among us, wars in many lands and the very few prophets among us who address these issues in the way that Jesus has taught us. So many of us do not listen, believe, nor heed the prophets of today bringing the message of God. How can we identify the “true” prophets? Are they the ones who speak “the truth” as we understand it even though most do not accept or agree with their pronouncements? For me, true prophets speak on issues of justice, equality, and peace and their teachings are congruent with those of Jesus.

HEED HIS WATCHMEN

God set watchmen on our walls

To warn against oncoming dangers;

If we do not heed their calls

We’ll fall into the hands of strangers.

Those enemies of God who want

To maim, kill and destroy us all:

God sent His watchmen to the front

To warn us so we will not fall.

If they should not sound the alarm

stain our prophets’ hands;

They are to warn God’s whole realm

When it’s attacked by evil bands.

Please listen for their bugle sound_

Take heed when they admonish; call;

Make sure you are not sleeping found

When they cry warnings from the wall

Belinda van Rensburg

Glen Peterson

Friday of the Fourth Week of Lent

Psalm 107:1-32 • Jeremiah 23:1-8 • Romans 8:28-39 • John 6:52-59

I believe all four readings for this day reveal a theme of hunger for God which will ultimately be satisfied.

Psalms reminds us that in our humanness we will experience discontent, injustice and trials of rebellion against our loving creator. When we acknowledge our dependence and repent we can be assured of a love relationship with God that blesses and satisfies our deepest yearnings.

The prophet Jeremiah condemns the leaders of the times and reveals God’s promise to send a favored one to His scattered chosen people to gather them once again under a reign of righteousness, mercy and justice.

John’s verses follow the miracle of the loaves and fishes. Now Jesus explains the intimate relationship between His father and Himself which accounts for the mystery of Jesus’ spirit-filled life. We too can access a spirit-filled life now and for all eternity. Jesus calls himself the Bread of Life, the source of everything that nourishes, everything that is life-giving, in body, soul and spirit. When we develop a willing relationship with Jesus, we assimilate Him into our lives, like food into our bodies. He lives in us. We are united, as He is with His father. These verses also point to the mystical body where all who believe are united in Christ. How this recognition reflects our sense of inner-being and communion with one another!

I used to hate making decisions because even my best ones rarely seemed to work out according to my plans. In Romans we are assured that God works out His plans in us and we can rest in the satisfaction and security of knowing that He is in the midst of everything. Now I make decisions with certainty, knowing God is mindful of me, and His love will see me through.

Rosie Jarman

Thursday of the Fourth Week of Lent

Psalm 69 • Jeremiah 22:13-23 • Romans 8:12-27 • John 6:41-51

Save me, O God . . . I have come into deep waters, and the flood sweeps over me. . . . More in number than the hairs of my head are those who hate me without cause; many are those who would destroy me, my enemies who accuse me falsely. . .

Psalm 69

I have always feared drowning more than almost any other mortal danger. I was born, raised and lived most of my life on or near the ocean. I have trained and learned everything I could about surviving in the water, but for me, drowning is the stuff of nightmares. I am sure that my fear is exaggerated, but for me it is very real.

Being accused and punished when innocent must feel like drowning. There is no escape; the misery presses from every side and feels worse than being alone in a crowd. It’s like being crushed in a stampeding mob.

Such is the despair of the Old Testament, which leaves us calling to God for relief, but does not provide us with the denouement -- the story of our redemption. In the New Testament, Jesus offers a breathing tube, a way out of the despair of our undeserved affliction. He tells us that we are baruch -- blessed/lucky/fortunate -- to suffer for righteousness’ sake.

Peter puts it this way: to be punished for our sins is no big deal, but to suffer when innocent and bear it with love and grace_this is truly great and pleasing in God’s sight. And Jesus’ passion and crucifixion is the ultimate example of this.

Thanks be to God for Jesus, who has shown us how to drown without fear.

Jonathan Hine

Wednesday of the Fourth Week of Lent

Psalm 101 • Jeremiah 18:1-11 • Romans 8:1-11 • John 6:27-40

There was clay,

and the Potter shaped it,

turning it upon the wheel.

Too fast the wheel spun,

and the clay trembled,

stretched out too thin.

Then the Potter's hands reached out,

reshaped the clay,

made it stronger.

Off center, the clay wobbled,

lopsided and confused.

Again the Potter’s hand came,

lifted and straightened the vessel.

When it was finished,

fired and final,

the Potter sent it to the world,

filled with Spirit,

made with love.

Megan Brett

Tuesday of the Fourth Week of Lent

Psalm 97 • Jeremiah 17:19-27 • Romans 7:13-25 • John 6:16-27

The story of Jesus walking on water (John 6:18-21) provokes many responses. Thomas Jefferson left the story out of his Bible entirely. One scientist posits (do an Internet search for “Jesus walked on water”) that Jesus might really have been walking on a sheet of ice that could have formed in a cove on that cold morning. Some see the story as a parable_not factually true, but showing Jesus as the fully realized spiritual self, untouched by the material realm. Fundamentalists believe that Jesus really performed the supernatural act of walking on the surface of the lake, proving that Jesus had command over all things on heaven and earth.

Certainly, if Jesus had actually defied physical laws, that would be news. But it would not be the Good News of the Gospel. Jesus came to us as Messiah, not as Magician. It seems unlikely that the authors of the Gospels were presenting eyewitness accounts of all that Jesus and the disciples said and did. The Gospels are efforts to illustrate the spiritual experience and understanding of the writers through stories with Jesus as the main figure. The authors sought words to describe the indescribable. As Bishop Spong describes the Gospels, “Above all it was language that could not be literalized being employed to process an experience that could not be denied.”

Albert Einstein said, “There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” Einstein believed in “miracles,” but he did not intend “miracle” to mean “supernatural.” In this 21st Century it is tempting to explain away_to deny_the Biblical miracle stories. It is so much more uplifting to read them to understand how the Apostles experienced the miracle of Jesus.

Lloyd Snook

Monday of the Fourth Week of Lent

Psalm 89:1-18 • Jeremiah 16:10-21 • Romans 7:1-12 • John 6:1-15.

The Daily Office gospel for today is the familiar description of Jesus feeding the 5000. The only miracle story besides the Resurrection to appear in all four Gospels, it is well-known even to Church School students. My son Jeremy, age five, commented that “Jesus fed 5000 people with only one lunch pail.” Well, not quite. But while this account is thrilling, and has theological connections to manna in the desert and the Eucharist, I don’t believe it is sacrilegious to wonder what it was like to be there that day. Did food suddenly appear? Or is a naturalistic explanation possible, that due to the presence and message of Jesus, people spontaneously shared what they had. We will never know. Some commentators seem to dance around the question of what happened, and given human nature there were no doubt differing reactions to the day. We do know with certainty, from this passage and many other sources and experiences, that God always desires to provide his people with what they require.

There is another factor which seems important to me. The final verse of the passage, John 6:15 (RSV) reads: “Perceiving then that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, Jesus withdrew again to the hills by himself.” Surely the miraculous signs of his authority are important, but they are not the essence of the gospel story. We are in the season which recalls the journey Jesus took to Jerusalem, without guile or overt displays of power, to fulfill the mission his Father had given him. He did not want to be a king. Rather, He carried the astounding message of saving love to the point of overcoming the powers of sin and death. Thanks be to God.

John Zuck

Fourth Sunday of Lent

Psalm 23 • 1 Samuel 16:1-13 • Ephesians 5:8-14 • John 9:1-41

In darkness I
come
seeking a
shepherd
you, Lord,
reach out your hand
open my
eyes
teach me to live as a child of the
light
lead me
safely
home

Anna Askounis

Saturday of the Third Week of Lent

Psalm 87 • Jeremiah 13:1-11 • Romans 6:12-23 • John 8:47-59

Paul struggles as he admonishes the Romans to understand how powerful faith can be. Christ’s message has set aside the slavish following of the Law as a way to God and has instead told us that we must believe to let God into our hearts and our lives. It is a free gift and brings through Jesus Christ the promise of eternal life.

FAITH

Rattling oak leaves
Battered by wind
The mystery of sound
Scratches my soul.

What do I know
Of God the invisible?
The ground of our being
Is founded on faith.

The believer, the cynic,
Proclaiming their certainty,
Their absolute surety,
Are they both the same?

So why do we place
Him in boxes?
Tie him with ribbon
Or just empty the box?

Your surety frightens
The fearful away
But questions are left
On the wind, in the night.

The whisper, the stillness
The emptiness calls me.
God is as vast
As the star strewn sky.

God is as close
As the kiss of my breath
My heart is made whole
By the storm of his love.

Alice Turner

Friday of the Third Week of Lent

Psalm 88 • Jeremiah 11:1-8, 14-20 • Romans 6:1-11 • John 8:33-47

I know that you are descendants of Abraham; yet you look for an opportunity to kill me, 

because there is no place in you for my word.

John 8:36 (NRSV)

Jesus, master of paradox, teaches that complacent dependence upon even the most indisputable benchmarks of identity, e.g., claiming Abraham as patriarch and God as Father can obscure the deep, abiding reality.

A relationship with Jesus involves holding fast to what is true and life-giving, and letting go of what is not. It may necessitate getting out of one’s very own way, surrendering all that serves neither oneself nor others, so that Christ may dwell most truly, vibrantly, and peacefully within.

Like many others, I came to yoga for its myriad physical benefits but, as Jesus would have it, it has transformed my life more than I ever imagined. The practice helps me become aware of my own obstacles and then get out of the way. The postures, meditation, ethics, and attention to breath help me clear more space for God in and with my whole being physically, intellectually, and spiritually.

This Lent, may we prepare a loving place for God’s Word to dwell, recognizing truth with delight and joy.

Are you looking for me? I am in the next seat.

My shoulder is against yours.

You will not find me in stupas, not in Indian shrine rooms, nor in synagogues, nor in cathedrals:

not in masses, nor kirtans, not in legs winding around your own

neck, nor in eating nothing but vegetables.

When you really look for me, you will see me instantly –

you will find me in the tiniest house of time.

Kabir says: Student, tell me, what is God?

He is the breath inside the breath.

Kabir, trans. Robert Bly

Emily Williams Guffey