the long darkness.....

That point where the light one has always known 

and the skills one has spent a lifetime perfecting 

and the faith whose previous challenges had been but whispers of the unseen future is where hope is found. 

In that place, no logic prevails; no meaning echoes from the depths. You stand deep in a tunnel of darkness without plans or schemes or even wild magical thinking; only your breath remains. 

 Quietly in, quietly out.

Hope is tucked in the secret chambers of our hearts, overlaid with fear or sorrow, buffeted by longing and loss. It is the flicker of ‘maybe’ the faint glow of ‘perhaps’. Under all the knowing we have gathered through the years, a child’s voice forms the words, ‘Please don’t forget me’. Faint promises of love are all that is left. 

 except for the waiting.

In the long darkness, hope stands solitary guard. Fragile. Precious. In the dark, hope carries us just as much as we cling to hope in order to move forward. 

So we remember the others.  Jesus’ mother ponders in her heart. Martha’s sister kneels, pouring out her love in fragrant anointing. Four men carry their paralyzed friend through a roof to get to the feet of Jesus. A dying thief seeks whatever Jesus can bring.

Hope. Trust. Faith.

We wait and we watch......in hope.

A blessed Advent to all.

Jesus, Lazarus and two sides of the stone

This is a reflection on the story of Lazarus found in John 11.  It is the gospel reading for All Saints Sunday.

A day will come when three women will go to the tomb and ask one another, "Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?"  But not today.

Today we stand before another tomb, immersed in the grief of two sisters who have lost their brother; we stand before a stone which holds at bay the stench of death.
And we want to believe.

We want to trust, that this tomb is not just another dead end, and the promises we have learned and then taught others are real and to be trusted.  We want to know that our loved one: a spouse, a friend, a child a parent, rests in the arms of a merciful Creator.

Yet it is is even deeper than that.  We want to know about the deep dark places of our world - our places of fear and loss, our places of worry and powerlessness - we want to know if these too can be redeemed, if these too can be healed.

We are all too familiar with this side of the tomb.  Some days the brokenness of this world overwhelms us; deaths pile up around us in our personal lives, our community, our nation: opioid addiction, gun violence, evil and terror, relentless diseases, and toll of poverty.

As we stand before the tomb today we know that this is no place for slapping smiley face stickers.  We want to know where is Jesus in all this misery and suffering.  We want to know if this is as good as it gets.  We want to trust.

But it is hard.  Very hard.  Because we only know what we know: this man Lazarus who once was is now no more.  The life has drained out of him and now he lies behind that great stone, beyond our reach.  We only know that there seems to be no end to the wounds we are willing to inflict on one another, the wounds we both give and receive.

So it is easy to laugh at Jesus' words, just like the neighbors did in the ancient story.  He promises life when the evidence is right before our face.  It is so easy to stand with Mary and Martha's neighbors and mock this so called Savior.......when in fact we are longing for a truth which makes fools of us and all we think we know.

It is so easy to doubt when one is standing before that giant stone which is a monument to the place where it all ended; a monument to our forever powerlessness.  It is so easy to let go of hope.

"If only you had been here our brother would not have died."  Jesus was Mary and Martha's hope, right?  Jesus who claimed to be one with the Creator, who claimed to be the way, the truth and the life.  Standing before that stone it is easy to feel foolish for having invested in this Jesus, believing that the great feast that God was preparing for God's people would include them and us.

We are led to ask ourselves, "Are we the greater fools for believing in a reality beyond the one we see here?  Are we the greater fools for using whatever power we have to build up others, to care for our neighbor and to forgive the offenders.....instead of grabbing all the fun and wealth we can now? Have we not hoped that this one called Jesus could hold us fast in the face of all the forces who daily deal death?

Is it not our hope that this one called Jesus would call our name and pull us out of the deepest darkness where there is no life at all?  That Jesus would hold our lives as precious?

Jesus cried out, "Lazarus, come out" and we watch as Lazarus stumbles from the tomb with the shroud of death still covering him.  So Jesus commands again, "Unbind him, and set him free."

Free.  From death.  Free to live.  Free because of Jesus.

On this side of the tomb and on the other.  Unbound and set free in Christ's name.

On that first Easter morning, three women go to another tomb and ask one another. "Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?"

For all the saints: those who draw breath today; those who are yet to be born, and those who now live beyond our sight, there is is only one answer and his name is Jesus.

....and he began to wash the disciples' feet....

When I prepare for a funeral, I sit quietly and await the Holy Spirit.  Holding what I know about the now deceased, I wait for the Holy Spirit to guide me to a scripture passage that will open the gates of heaven for those who grieve.

Once it was Genesis 1  "In the beginning when God began creating....and God said, Let there be light and there was light and God saw that it was good."

Once it was Moses arguing with God.  Once it was Mary anointing the feet of Jesus.  Today it was Jesus washing the feet of the disciples.

It came to me as I drove to the cemetery for a graveside service (sometimes the Holy Spirit waits until the last moment).  I could picture the joy and relief and comfort it would have brought this woman to have someone who loved her so deeply wash her feet and welcome her into his house. She was not always welcome; she rarely felt welcomed.  This public witness of Jesus' deep love for her; this sign of release from a challenging and difficult life and beginning of a new and glorious life; this moment of being ministered to......these were the pictures of heaven that came to mind.

I wanted to say so much more than 'she is with the Lord' (although God knows that is a powerful blessing and promise).  I wanted everyone to be able to picture her with the Lord, tickled pink that someone was fussing over her, settling in to her new life with God.  

This is how the stories of faith are used: they give us a narrative that points to God and the hope we find in the promise of Jesus. The narrative is the receiving blanket for a unique experience of hope - transcendent hope - hope that is a taste of the eternal.  The narrative holds God's promises and attempts to pass onto us the power and experience of this God.  We enter the story, identify with one of the characters, resonate with the hope found there.

God is always bigger than the story.  The parts of God which remain hidden are much greater than the parts which the stories reveal, but the glory......the life....the healing....the wholeness....the hope....of our Lord Jesus is there.  There is God's story and there is our story and then.......there is the story that will be written one day down the road.

....when Jesus began washing the disciples' feet....

from Alleluia to fear in an Upper Room....

It happens every year (or at least every year that follows the Revised Common Lectionary) - we leap from Alleluia to fear and hiding.  In one week.  In truth, the events happened much more quickly but we only gather for regular worship once a week so we need to wait 7 days to discover the disciples hiding out in the Upper Room.  With. The. Door. Locked.

One week.  But then we are much more skilled at fear than at Alleluia, and besides, we have had 2000 years to digest this outrageous news about a risen Jesus and we don't quite understand what it all means so I can give those disciples a break.  Fear is a more familiar companion to this lifetime than resurrection will ever be.

Fear is learned at our mother's knee; it is a critical lesson we must all master or be crushed by the powers that prowl the night.  Most days it wears the masks of respect or caution or good sense, but the ultimate message is this: great harm can come to us.  Physical harm. Emotional harm.  Spiritual harm.  We better beware.  In the end, it is all fear.

Fear that the fragile light of life that is us will be snuffed by other forces is the foundation for so many of our actions.  Exercise, diet, work habits, diligence at school, wearing our seat belt, smoke detectors, background checks, sunscreen, savings accounts.  On our very best days, we take all these threats to our continued life as necessary nuisances and we light birthday candles and build sand castles and play soccer and do crossword puzzles and simply get on with living.  On our worst days, our fear drives our interactions with friend and foe alike so we end up contributing to the deadly atmosphere around us.

So let us not look sideways at those disciples huddled in that upper room With.The.Door.Locked.  The door won't keep the fear at bay, but it gave them all a sense of false hope.  No one was going to sneak up on them; they would decide who got into that tiny hidey hole.

Yet, they couldn't and didn't and thanks be to God.  Jesus just simply appeared in their midst ignoring the locked door, ignoring their embarrassing silence just a few days ago.  There he was, standing in the midst of them, alive, forgiving, handing out gifts of peace to all.

It was the disciples, and not Jesus who carried a lingering odor of death, drenched in the sweat of fear.  Their racing hearts  warned them that death was at the door, seeking out an opportunity to crush the life right out of them.  In the middle of that scenario (our scenarios would feature courtrooms and ERs and dark alleys and sleepless nights) Jesus stands - life in the midst of death....inviting all who were present, and all who are reading their story....to leave death behind and embrace the life that is life, the life that comes through Jesus.

With the story of Thomas, we learn that Easter isn't just about Jesus.  Jesus was the first; now he invites everyone else to follow.  Sure the Romans were still at the door and they were pretty scary fellows.  But then, look at that empty tomb.  Look at my hands and touch my side.  The Romans aren't in charge.

Welcome to the resurrection.

Waiting in the darkness......

Waiting in the darkness is the hardest time.  The darkness surrounds you and you cannot see the end.  You cannot see any possibility of good coming out of the horror of the now.  You cannot see a new way forward.  You cannot see your hand in front of your face.

               "...even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is as bright as the day,
                             for darkness is as light to you." the psalmist writes. 139.11

In our darkness, we lean into this, hoping, praying that it is Divine Truth: that even the deepest darkness is light to you.  We cling to this most especially when all reason fails us and despair hovers.

This is the darkness of Easter Saturday. The women waited in the darkness.....fully expecting Jesus was dead, forever.  The women waited in that darkness....before the bright light of Easter sunrise.  Before the announcement that He is Risen.  Before the possibility of resurrection becomes, well, a possibility.  Before all of that joy and rejoicing is the darkness of Easter Saturday when the tomb lies quiet and hope is shredded.

If today is your day of dark waiting, then my prayer for you is "hold on." The light is coming, and even the darkness is held in God's embrace.

Death, resurrection and a good friend

Tomorrow we will bury a good friend of Luther Memorial.


Shirley led us in worship and led us in laughter.  She supported the choir with a wonderful bass and supported the work we did together.  You could count on her to pitch in even when she had to take a seat to fold clothes at 10 Tons of Love.  She was there, she was fun and she was a friend.


Tomorrow we will remember the gifts she shared so generously with others.  We will claim the promises of her baptism for her.  We will sing (lots) and I expect shed a few tears, tell stories of her mischief as a child and adventures as an adult.  Tomorrow we will say good-bye.

Tomorrow we will confront all that has meaning for us as believers in this the holiest of weeks.  Shirley knew Jesus and trusted in a merciful God.

Tomorrow we will have to trust once again, for Shirley's sake, for our sake and for the sake of all of creation.  We dare to hope that because he lives she will live too.

We dare to hope.

....but without the traffic jams

It is hard to hold onto a belief in a kingdom to come.....a world that is divinely formed by, in and with the Spirit.....a community of grace.  It is just hard to believe that it just might be so some day.

Most of the time we think of the kingdom of God as this world minus the traffic jams, and cancer, and probably wars and child abuse.  But the kingdom that Jesus keeps talking about where the meek will be blessed and the hungry full is too good to be true.  It is beyond....beyond here, beyond our imagination, and beyond our ability to bring it into being.

Which, I guess, is a good place to start.  We cannot bring this kingdom into being.  Jesus did.  In his body, among us, and for our sake.  Jesus was the opening.  God hides in, with and under Jesus and together they break into the world we know and begin to bring into being the kingdom where God's way is the only way.

So we 'watch' as Jesus feeds 5000 with a meager lunch and heals a man born blind and walks on water (why not?  If you can heal a man born blind, what is walking on water?).  We certainly know we can't do these things and so we are faced with at least two possibilities:  the stories are exaggerations because nothing like that can occur in the world as we know it.....OR.....Jesus has access to a world beyond this one.  It is a world where God's rule is absolute: not in a power hungry sense but rather in an 'absolutely best case scenario' sense.  Or as the Bible is wont to say, a place and time where we will live in God's glory.

My guess is that you have (at one time in your life) experienced this time and place where the demands and brokenness and rejections and hurts of this world fall away and you are infused with the power of life and light.  For a moment you glimpse the better you and a purity of oneness with the world or your family or possibly even your God.  For a moment you don't even need to breathe.  For a moment you experienced God and the kingdom God invites you into.

Then we move back into this time and this place and seek to see the Lord's face again, to taste the power of God's presence, to be the better you that you glimpsed.  It is here that believing in a kingdom to come is so difficult.

Don't let go of the vision, the hope, the promise that Christ brings to us.  Seek after the face of God like you'd seek after a great deal on a new car...because in the end the car will rust and the kingdom will be yours forever.

Hope

To hope in the resurrection is to cling to a reality that transcends the darkness and evil of this world.

 

When the bombs are exploding it is the hardest hope to which you will ever cling.

 

God bless you and keep you in this time of fear, anger, and loss.  AMEN

Left behind

Not so long ago, the Left Behind series by Tim LaHaye was very popular in non Lutheran Christian circles.  It was a series of books about the end times, the second coming of Christ, the apocalypse (you can choose the term that is most familiar to you; they all mean about the same).

Using the imagery from Revelation and other apocalyptic literature in the Bible, this fictional series spoke of massive struggles - even wars - between the faithful and the unfaithful until Christ brings about the end time and the chosen ones will be with God and the others will be 'left behind.'

Not only do I believe these were inaccurate interpretations of scripture, they had a tendency to sound like private militia rantings with limited Christian overtones.

I only bring this up because we are approaching that time in the church year when we consider the end times - the time when Jesus comes again and the kingdom of God is manifest on earth.  It is a time in the future which the hope we all hold (to live eternally in the presence of God) and yet about which we know next to nothing specific.

We get a glimpse of God at work in our own times, especially if we are attentive to places of destruction, hopelessness, oppression and sorrow.  It takes faith to see God at work in those places, but our hope is strengthened when we watch and listen for Jesus. 

It's not about the kind of fear that leads you to climb over your neighbor and grasp at final straws.  As Luther would have told us, "remember your baptism" for in it you were joined to the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus.  Now and forever.  Amen

What keeps you up at night?

What worms its way into your head and steals sleep?  Where does fear enter your life?

We all have a list, and probably the same items are on everyone's list, just in a different order: finances, health, relationships, violence, personal well-being.   To sum them all up: we are afraid that this whole world - our whole world - is going to fall apart right before our eyes. 

Jesus tells us we can count on it.  That is one of primary assumptions of the cross: the powers that rule this world are going to lead us only to death.   True, the dramas of our lives are often small compared to the wars and violence in the world, yet as my Grandma would have said, "Your troubles are bad, but my troubles are my troubles."  Our dramas are big to us.

So on some scale we fear that the world is falling apart and it very difficult for us to trust that God is working in the midst of the destruction to bring about new creation.  Life is in the midst of death; life arises out of death.  The ashes around us are a sign of the labor pangs of new life birthed by God.

We are the midwives.  That is our job in this new creation.  To ease the labor, protect mother and child, to assist in the birth of the new.  Jesus insists on standing in the graveyard and speaking of the pangs of birth.  That is what hope looks like.