"Do You Hear Him?"

Before she ran and told the others, she heard her name whispered in a garden ... in the unknowns. "MARY." She heard Jesus whisper her name.

It is Easter! Before the Alleluias and before the sunrise, listen ... shhh. Do you hear your name whispered?

In the midst of all that will be this morning, as we sing and worship and shout our Alleluias, listen ... shhh, listen for your own name to be whispered for Christ has risen indeed!  A single whispered name is our very witness and our call to run and tell others!

"Today, There Is No Voice' (Holy Saturday)

Yesterday,

we still heard 

his voice,

agonizing as it 

might have sounded.

“Father, forgive them…

Today, you will be with me…

Dear woman, your son…

My God, my God …

I am thirsty …

It is finished …

Father, into your hands…”

Still, we heard his voice.

Yesterday,

we wondered

why, oh why

is this day called

Good Friday.

In disguise,

GRACE poured out

from nail-pierced

hands and feet,

from a sword’s wound,

from thorns pressed 

into flesh.

Yet, still, we heard his voice.

Today, 

scattered as we are,

we wait

in deafening silence.

At best, we cry

“How long, O LORD,

will you hide yourself 

forever?”

HOPE is now 

carefully wrapped

in linens and

sealed in a tomb.

“How long, O LORD,

will you hide yourself 

forever?”

In stillness,

earth awaits

the resurrection.

Today, there is no voice.

Today, There is Silence (Good Friday)

As a child, I didn't have the luxury of checking weather.com or The Weather Channel for forecasts ... I had my mother to call attention to the weather on Good Fridays.  My earliest memories of this day leading up to Easter were of her telling us to notice the weather.  "There will be clouds on this day ... maybe even rain or a storm if only for a brief moment."  There was a heaviness in her forecasting as if she knew something that I didn't know.  She continued by saying,"It is God's reminder."  Mom left it at that.  She left me moving about through the rest of my Good Fridays with a heaviness on my heart that I couldn't explain away.    She left me to dwell in these Fridays without jumping into my Easters.

I believe that it was Barbara Brown Taylor who once said to preachers, "Stop two paragraphs shy of a good Presbyterian sermon."  That is what Mom did ... and that is what God does on this day when Jesus' last words from the cross were "Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit" and then falling into the silence of death. God stopped two paragraphs shy of what we so want to know.  Today is Good Friday and Jesus is crucified.

THE END ... or is it?

"Do This In Remembrance ..." (Holy Thursday)

(As we think of this night, Holy/Maundy Thursday, so long ago, we realize that Jesus not only washed the feet of the one who would betray him, but he prepared a place at the table for him as well. It is the same today. He still prepares the table ... for all)

You prepare a table before me

in the presence of my enemies.

It was when you asked me to help,

O God, that I truly understood ...

or at least understood

in the way that you asked me

to understand.

You handed a chalice to me

from the table you prepared

and whispered, "For all."

I gulped. "Oh God... really?

For all?"

You whispered again,

"Look into their eyes,

offer to them what I have prepared,

Some might be your enemies,

but none are mine."

And so I stood,

at the end of an aisle,

with chalice in hand

and wept at the thoughts

of my enemies welcomed

to the table

that was prepared for me

in such a generous way.

The table was not mine;

the guest list was not mine;

the chalice never ran dry ...

nor did the grace and mercy.

Once again, I heard,

"Do this in remembrance ...

and remember,

these are not my enemies."

You prepare a table before me

in the presence of my enemies,

and then you say, "All sit ... together."

And still the chalice never runs dry

for those around the table -

not even for me.