Isaiah 25:7 And he will destroy…the shroud that is cast over all peoples, the sheet that is spread over all nations; 8 he will swallow up death forever. Then the Lord GOD will wipe away the tears from all faces, and the disgrace of his people he will take away from all the earth.

Celebrations mark changes relating to the past, such as Memorial Day or the future, such as New Year’s Eve. Easter reminds us of the eternal present, promising us that the world has changed. Past grief is in Christ’s hands, and there is ample hope for the future. Easter is the realization of the Good News proclaimed by John the Baptist. It is the peace and security of being held in your mother’s arms which washes away the darkness of uncertainty, fear, loss, and blindness. In this restoring power are cleansing love a mother can bring to a child and a spouse can bring to their partner.

Christ is this power for all times and all people.

We are children to the Christ, we are calmed by Jesus word, we are all redeemed by his example.

Be new, be joyful, be thankful for this bright new day.

Now hush little baby, don’t you cry

Everything’s gonna be all right

Daddy’s here to hold you through the night.

Eminem – Variation on Mockingbird lyrics.

The Journey

Our walk with Christ is a continuing journey.  As we have meditated on the life, passion, and crucifixion of our Lord during this season of Lent, we have also reflected upon our own lives—our faith, our suffering, our spiritual practices, and our failures when it comes to living a Christ-like life.  We often do not live up to our own expectations as we strive to be a reflection of Christ’s love to others.  But God, in Christ, has lived among us and understands our weakness and our inconsistencies.  Through his Spirit, he has given us the power to overcome our sin, our failures, and our weakness.  

As we continue on our journey through the Easter season and beyond, I think it is important to reflect on this verse from the apostle Paul in Philippians 3:10:  “I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.” (NIV)  Where are we in our journey with Christ?  How can we know him more deeply and follow him more closely as we continue on our journey?  May God empower us to ask these questions, so that we can live more fully into the hope and power of the Resurrection.

The Escort

Those who had arrested Jesus took him.
Matthew 26:

Last night, at the end of the Maundy Thursday service, the Blessed Sacrament was processed solemnly out of the church, flanked by torches, to the chapel where it reposed till Good Friday morning. For me, it is the hardest moment of the Triduum. Whatever my eyes are seeing, my spirit feels that Jesus is being escorted away by soldiers. This tugs on the pool of sorrow where all the other losses of life reside. All the goodbyes, all the never-agains, all the if-onlys. The intellectual knowledge that Sunday and Easter will come has no impact on the knowledge of the heart that everyone and everything is escorted from the world. The knowledge faith brings that all will be made new lets us keeping walking on to tomorrow.

--Laura Howell

In Color

My companion stretched forth his hand against his comrade; *

       he has broken his covenant.

His speech is softer than butter, *

       but war is in his heart.

His words are smoother than oil, *

       but they are drawn swords.

Cast your burden upon the LORD, and he will sustain you; *

       he will never let the righteous stumble.

-Psalm 55:21-24

It's been a long day and I find myself weary before my usual hour.  The words of an acquaintance weigh heavy on my heart.  I know that they were not meant to sound hurtful, but I am in fragile state; in a particularly tender place.  I want nothing more than to complain to someone else and be justified.  I crave justification for my hurt.  But instead, I pull out my journal and my colored pencils and I draw and draw until this burden is out of my heart and onto the paper; an offering for my Lord.

Several months ago, a new friend invited me to come out drawing once a week. I resisted, telling myself that I'm not a fine artist and my time could be spent catching up on household chores.  Today I am grateful that I have said yes.  God put desire for drawing in my heart so that I have a way to communicate with God.  It doesn’t have to be perfect because it already is; a connection to the divine, in color.

- Ellyn Siftar

Pouring It Out

“You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.” – John 12:8

These words, from the Gospel reading for Monday in Holy Week, are probably not what those gathered around the dinner table expected to hear in the moments after Mary emptied a very expensive jar of perfumed oil onto Jesus' feet. Judas protests at it, and, like so many of the other people who interact with Jesus and don’t quite comprehend what they're experiencing, has more or less set himself up for the warning. Did its content come as a surprise to those who heard it? Probably. Jesus is foretelling his demise, which will come in a matter of days. It is probably not something anyone at that table thought could possibly happen, much less as soon as it did.

Jesus' response to Judas is not about how Judas is a pretty terrible treasurer – he’d definitely be prosecuted for embezzlement these days – but rather one about stewardship and how we treat one another. Sure, Mary’s action in anointing Jesus’ feet is costly in economic terms. The price tag of 300 denarii that Judas mentions was about a year’s income for most laborers back then. Yes, it's an expensive gift, though in presenting it, she is giving the very best of what she has, both in terms of her material wealth and her very self. This is not just a very deliberately constructed foreshadowing of the events to come later in the week. It’s about the kind of response we are called to make to Jesus’ self-emptying sacrifice – if you want a $10 word for that, it’s kenosis – that is, an emptying of ourselves on someone else’s behalf.

Br. Curtis Almquist of the Society of St. John the Evangelist sums it up this way: “Our life is not about hoarding or about conserving for its own sake but its opposite: about giving. Our life is about willingly giving up our life and our life’s energies as we see in Christ’s own self-emptying.”

- Amy+

Judging Pilate

In Christianity Pontius Pilate is remembered nefariously, almost as a stereotype of evil. I've wondered about that. I have no illusions about the man; he was a Roman, after all. He had concerns about his position of being procurator. He had a job to do, and he was committed to doing it, even though he didn't want to be in
Jerusalem; but there he was.

Thrust upon the stage of history in “virtue” of this political position, he had an enviable conversation with an itinerant prophet. His question about “What is truth?” echoes through the ages. Christ’s answer is not recorded. Perhaps He told Pilate that He was the way, the truth, and the life. Pilate did understand one fact though, that Jesus was an innocent man, and he asserted this to the chief priests.

Within the parameters of his position, he tried to save Christ. He offered Barabbas as a possibility for release to slake the bloodthirstiness of the crowd. In that case he didn't seem to want to put Christ to death; and yet, he had Christ scourged.

Most, if not all, men would not have survived that punishment. Did he think that because Jesus claimed to be God, that He wouldn't die? He sent Christ to Herod, passing Him off to another ruler, so that Pilate wouldn't have the responsibility of taking His life, or was it because his wife, Claudia, cautioned him about not having to have anything to do with this man because of her disturbing dreams? In the end he washed his hands “of the blood of this innocent man.”

In the end, practicality won out. Pilate didn't need a bad report sent to Tiberius about yet another altercation with the Jewish leadership. He caved in; he didn't want to lose his job. Fear stalked him. When I realized this, I understood that we all have a bit of Pilate inside of us. Whenever we are paralyzed from doing something, saying something, achieving something because we are afraid of losing our standing at work, being ridiculed or held in disdain or doing a difficult job itself, we are having “a Pilate moment.” Some of the research postulates that Pilate later became a Christian. In the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church he is cast as a saint. Certainly, it is not out of the realm of possibility to think that he had a conversion as St. Paul did. However, other sources state that he committed suicide. We will never know.

All of this—his conversation with Christ, his concern over his job, his refusal to take responsibility for Christ’s death, even refusing to change the inscription on the cross, breaks Pilate out of his stereotype of his being purely evil, and shows us that his constitution makes him more of a person like you and me, prey to many of the same emotions and motivations, not purely evil, but a sinner all the same.

If Pilate became a Christian, then he ultimately came to recognize Christ as more than just a man, and perhaps like St. Peter, he spent the rest of his life asking for forgiveness.

I’m not as quick to judge Pilate anymore because of our shared humanity. I too sin, want to be forgiven, and hope in divine forgiveness. Perhaps Pontius Pilate did the same, even if I am fanciful in thinking it might be so.

- S. Becker

Philippians 2:5 Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, 6 who, thought he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited. 7 but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form.

Although I have gone through such an experience a few times, I sense that few others, even those on a path to advise others on spiritual matters, have experienced this sense of genuine emptiness. Even those who have achieved it realize that it lasts for just a few minutes, and the afterglow rarely lasts for more than a few days. Persisting in the feeling of being in this state of grace requires constant maintenance, not unlike needing insulin to ward off the progress of diabetes. This reveals the importance of both daily prayer and especially centering prayers without words, that is, prayers with non-verbal focuses for one’s attention.

Moat: It is hard to fill a cup that is already full.

Jake Sully: My cup is empty. Trust me. – Avatar.