Easter Sunday Recap and Recording of the Sermon

It was a good Easter Sunday at Faith Lutheran in Bristol, TN.  It's a small, country church, so we don't have what suburban or city churches experience, those folks who show up only for Christmas Eve and Easter.  We are more likely to have brand new visitors on Christmas Eve, not Easter, and even then, it's only one or two.

The church felt full, though, in a similar way yesterday.  It's one of the few days when all members are likely to come, along with some friends and family members tagging along.  In addition, the folks who aren't members but come here and there--they were there too.  It was joyful and a bit noisy.  It was also raining outside, so we don't have as many pictures at the chicken-wire cross covered with flowers; some folks did put flowers on the cross, despite the rain.

My sermon stopped recording part-way through.  I decided to have our tech expert post what she captured, and when I got home, I recorded the rest.  The first part of the sermon is here, and the second part is here.  If you'd like to read along, I put the sermon manuscript in this blog post.

We got home and drifted around the house, collapsing into bed around 6:30.  I woke up a bit later and thought, we are missing a glorious sunset, before falling back to sleep again.  

Wounds and Scars and Doubting Thomas

Today in churches across Christendom, those of us following the Revised Common Lectionary will hear the story of Thomas, Thomas who wasn't there when Jesus appeared to the disciples (where was he?) and who didn't believe the story of resurrection.

And who can blame him?  What a strange tale it must have seemed.

We often focus on Jesus who blessed those of us who come later, who will believe without needing to experience the Resurrection with our five senses.  But what if there's another way to think about this story?

At the Create in Me retreat this week-end, we had Jacqueline Bussie as our Bible study leader.  We talked about the issue of wounds and shame, and Bussie looked back to Thomas.  Like many of us, she feels that Thomas gets a bad rap, but she points to a different angle.  She gives Thomas credit for being willing to sit with Jesus, wounds and all.  Many of us aren't comfortable with woundedness.  We don't want to let people talk about their scars.  We want to jump ahead to healing and wholeness and resurrection.

Bussie gives Thomas credit for being the most authentic friend to Jesus, the one who is comfortable with the wounds and the scars.  Perhaps it is Thomas' response that helps Jesus back to wholeness.

It's an interesting idea, and I wanted to be sure to record it for later.

Sermon for Easter 2025

April 20, 2025, Easter

By Kristin Berkey-Abbott




Luke 24: 1-12



When I first thought about this sermon, I was fresh from last Sunday’s Palm and Passion texts, and I saw some similarities. I had it all planned out in my head, how I could once again preach about the contrasts. We have Mary Magdalene and the other women who believe even though they have yet to see the risen Jesus. That strange encounter with men wearing dazzling clothes is enough to convince them. The women bring the message back, but it’s not enough for the disciples and the others. They decide the women are telling an idle tale.


Let me reassure those of you who are afraid that I’m now about to take sides in a gender war: I don’t fault the men for responding this way. They have seen what happens to people who are crucified. It would not be possible to live in first century Rome without being aware of crucifixion; people were crucified along roadways and on city gates—the public nature of it was the point, because it was meant as the ultimate in deterrence, showing what happens to those who are not loyal to Rome, and the Roman empire made sure that no one could avoid the sight. My New Testament professor commented on the lack of description of crucifixions in both the Gospels and other literature of the time, and she said that you wouldn’t describe it because everyone knew what it looked like, much the same way that we don’t need to describe our phones—we all have one, and we all know what they look like. People did not survive this execution—Rome made sure of it. So this doubting of the story of the empty tomb makes sense.


Let’s be honest—they are probably not only doubting the women, but doubting themselves. They must look back on the expectations that they had and wonder how it had all gone so wrong. Some of them must be doubting the original decision to follow Jesus at all. How could they have been so stupid? They are likely doubting each other. Think about the horrible week they have had. Not only have they lost their beloved teacher in the most horrible way imaginable, but Judas has betrayed them, and so has Peter. It’s no wonder they take the cynical route, not believing in anyone.


Peter’s reaction makes me think that the women are convincing on some level. He leaves to go investigate. Peter has often been criticized for being skeptical, since he’s the one named in this Gospel, but he shows us a healthy reaction. Isn’t that what Jesus said all along? “Cast down your nets in deep water.” “Come and see.”


What I love about the Easter stories, the one today and the ones we’ll hear in the coming weeks, is that we have so many points of entry, so many places where we might find ourselves identifying with those first witnesses of the resurrection. You might be a skeptic, like like Peter, or a cynic like the others who first hear the women, but the resurrection story is for you.


You might be like these women, up before the rest of the world awakens, up to attend to the caretaking duties that no one else wants to do. You might be the one who makes sure that the customs are followed—and we all have a variety of reasons for tending to the customs that make sense to us. I think of those ancient women, the ones who stayed with Jesus until the horrible death was complete, the ones who came to tend to his dead body. I think of that first Easter morning, and I wonder how many of them were thinking about the customs that needed to be followed and who would really notice if they slept in and ignored custom and propriety, just this once.


I think about the unnamed followers, the ones who might have been too stupefied by grief and disorientation to respond at all. Like them, we may be in an Ash Wednesday time of our lives, not a time of miracles and wonders. Like those followers, we may be whipsawed by the way that life has changed all of a sudden; we may be gobsmacked by the way that all that we thought we knew about the world and our place in it has been shattered. We simply cannot bear one more time that needs us to pivot. Maybe our understanding of who we are as a people has been stripped bare. In this mental state, we may have stopped listening to the women when they talked about the empty tomb. We might have taken on that protective shield of cynicism. We may have assumed the news after the words of an empty tomb would be something catastrophic, not something miraculous. We may turn away, unable to bear any more bad news.


I want to stress that none of these mental states—or any of the other mental states we might experience—not one of them means that we are more or less worthy of this redemption. As Jesus makes his appearances, he doesn’t say, “You there—you, who are still back in the tomb where I am no longer to be found. If you can’t snap out of it, I’m off to find better followers.” Jesus doesn’t come back to call the followers morons for not perceiving what he was up to. No—as we will see in the coming weeks, he comes back and cooks for them.


One of the benefits of having a God who has been fully human, as Jesus has been fully human, is that Jesus understands how hard it is to understand. Jesus understands our human exhaustion. Jesus understands our inability to believe in miracles. Jesus understands all the ways that grief and horror weigh us down and threaten to drown us.


The men in the tomb understand too—the reason why I think they are angelic messangers is that the same verb is used here as is used for the angel choirs that sing in the skies over Bethlehem to the shepherds on the night that Christ is born. These are messengers with knowledge to impart, and they seem comfortable with the idea that the followers of Jesus still might not be grasping the full importance of what he has told them. I imagine them saying with great gentleness, “Remember how he told you.” And then, they do remember.


In other Gospels, the women are told to go and tell the disciples that Jesus is risen. In this Gospel, the women are told to remember, to remember all that Jesus told them, all that he has promised. These women are the first witnesses, just as Elizabeth is the first witness before Jesus is even born, as is Anna, the first witness to proclaim that the Messiah is come when Jesus is presented at the Temple. These women are the first, but they will not be the last to proclaim that Christ is risen.


And so, too, every Easter, we are told to remember. We may be looking for the living among the dead. We may be unable to get the taste of ashes out of our mouths. We may have forgotten the promise of abundant life that Jesus offers to us. Happily, it’s not an entrance exam, but an ongoing revelation. Christ is risen.


Jesus is not captured by the tomb. The forces of evil do not have the final word or the last laugh. I do realize that at times, it may look that way. The inbreaking Kingdom of God that Jesus proclaims forces us to live in an essential mystery—that Kingdom is happening now, it’s underway. But that flourishing life that God intends for creation isn’t fully formed yet. We have to live in the now and the not yet at the same time. We have to believe that a better life is possible, even if we don’t have it all figured out. Christ is risen.


Paul tells us that the last enemy to be destroyed is death. The angels in the tomb proclaim that the destruction of death is in progress. Rejoice. Redemption Day is here. Resurrection is underway: for Jesus, for the world, for each and every one of us. Christ is risen--he is risen indeed.

Lessons and Carols and Theology Ancient and Modern

Many churches today will do a Service of Lessons and Carols.  It's a great way to give church folks a lower-key Sunday, after the work-intense week that includes Christmas Eve and perhaps Christmas morning.  Musicians already know the music, and if pastors don't want to preach, the lessons do the work.  Many churches won't have communion, so more people can take the day off--after all, pastors have families too, and many of them haven't had much holiday time with those families.

When I was younger, I loved this service.  Of course, when I was younger, I loved everything about Advent and Christmas, and I wondered why church services throughout the year were no match for Christmas Eve.  Even today, the Christmas Eve service seems the most perfect to me.  I know I should love Easter best, but I don't.

One of the gifts seminary has given me is an appreciation for various theologies that have been squashed throughout church history--and not just appreciation, but hearing about them at all.  I will always wonder what might have happened if Pelagius had become the go-to theologian, not Augustine.   Just imagine it:  a church based on God's love of all of creation, not a church based on ideas of a fallen, unworthy creation.  What if the idea of sin took a back seat to ideas about the beauty of creation?

Alas, most of us aren't living in that world, which is one reason why Easter isn't my favorite.  Even though we have an empty tomb at Easter, we also get a lot of substitutionary atonement theology in an Easter service, lots of references to that old rugged cross.  And if that's true in ELCA Lutheran churches, I can only imagine how much worse it might be in more conservative churches.

But Christmas Eve is different.  We might want to lean into Christmas Eve as a story of God vs. Roman empire--well some of us pastor folks/social justice folks might.  But Christmas Eve is about beauty, about a Divine love so huge that God comes to be with us, to experience all of human life.

I've often marveled at the idea of God who is willing to be a baby, willing to be a teenager, willing to experience pain the way we do.  Again, I think of a different way that church/theology might have helped me frame this differently:  a God who wants to experience the exquisite wonder and awe of being human.  If I had it framed this way, earlier, preached from the pulpit, maybe it would have taken me less time to feel wonder and awe at being human, less time feeling trapped in my body, my fallen body in all of its femaleness (the way the Church has framed it through the ages). 

I write today, surrounded by Christmas beauty, lights and decorations that will soon be packed away.  It's a good day for thinking about ways to keep this wonder and awe going throughout the year.  Now that's a new year's resolution that makes me happy.

Eclipse Glasses and Easter

I thought about crafting a sermon for the adults around the ideas of Easter and the eclipse.  But I decided to use the ideas for my children's sermon--in the church where I am Synod Appointed Minister, the adults listen to both the children's sermon and the one for the adults.

I ordered enough eclipse glasses for all, children and adults, and before the children's sermon, I gave each child a pair, had them put them on, and took a picture.  I've edited these pictures to protect the privacy of minors.

Then I had them take the glasses off.  For those of you who haven't gotten your eclipse glasses yet, these are very dark, as they should be.  If you put them on and can still see objects as you look through them, they won't protect your eyes when you stare at the sun.

I told the youth to be listening in the post-Easter readings, because people would have this same experience when they met the risen Jesus.  They wouldn't recognize him at first.  Then something would happen, usually involving food, and it would be as if they took their eclipse glasses off--suddenly they'd be able to see what was right in front of them.

Our lives are the same way.  God is at work in the world, but often, we can't see it.  Maybe we're wearing our eclipse glasses of grief, despair, or cynicism.  Maybe we're too anxious to look.  Maybe we're focused on the wrong thing, while something of celestial magnificence is happening.

Jesus appears, and gently, he reminds us to take off our eclipse glasses.  In the breaking of the bread, we recognize divine love.

One Last Look at Easter 2024

Before we get too far away from Easter Sunday, I want to record some memories.  It was a whirlwind day, in many ways.  But compared to other church folk, my day was laid back:  no sunrise service, no Easter egg hunt, only one service.  

In some ways it was like any other Sunday.  We got up early and got ready for church at Faith Lutheran in Bristol, Tennessee.  I had a decent enough Easter outfit, but as always, I didn't like my shoe options.  I decided to wear my special Easter socks that come just over my ankles with sandals.  It was warm enough for bare feet, but my feet are in rough shape--Maundy Thursday feet, not Easter feet.  It usually doesn't concern me, but Easter felt different.  In the past I've solved the problem with toenail polish, but I hadn't planned ahead.

I found a way to solve my sermon, did a bit of polishing, and printed it out.  We put our stuff in the car and headed across the mountains, which looked soft and furry in the early morning light.  I couldn't get a good shot of them, but this gives you an idea.

And later, when we stopped at the Tennessee Welcome Center where we always stop, I saw this glow in the mountains.  I knew it was a trick of clouds and sunlight.  But it had an Easter morning vibe that this view doesn't usually have.

We got to the church early-ish, before most folks, because we had no Sunday School.  The wooden cross sat outside, wrapped in chicken wire, empty.  But it wasn't long before people arrived and started filling it up with flowers.  When a parishioner offered to take our picture in front of it, we couldn't resist.

My spouse had suggested that in addition to unboxing the alleluias, we have noisemakers for everyone to shake when we say or sing an alleluia.  Faith Lutheran hadn't done that before, and it worked beautifully.  There was an energy in the church that isn't always there.

My sermons went well, both the children's sermon with eclipse glasses (more in a later blog post) and my sermon on the Gospel (if you want to read that sermon, I put it in this blog post).  There was a moment near the end where I felt like I might get a bit choked up at the idea of Jesus waiting for us further on up the road.  But I pulled myself together and finished the sermon.

After the service, several people told me I had done a marvelous job.  That might have just been the Easter energy.  Still, it was great to feel the Easter energy taking us all out into the world. 

And then we hopped in the car and drove back across the mountains--still beautiful, a subdued set of blues.  We stopped by the local grocery store just before we got home, and we picked up our Easter meal:  steak, potatoes, mushrooms, and red wine.  Not exactly traditional Easter, but we don't have traditional Easter meals in our house.

It was a good Easter, and I am guessing that in much later years, when I look back, I'll see it as one of the best Easters.

Easter Sermon 2024

I was really pleased with how my Easter sermon went--the written copy will be lacking a bit of the energy, but you'll get the general idea:

Mark 16: 1-8

Are you wondering what happened next? Are you wondering if we forgot to copy a paragraph or two as we prepared bulletins? I assure you, we did not. The Gospel of Mark ends here.

Are you feeling shortchanged at this point? We might say, “Don’t we even get to see the resurrected Jesus?” It’s much more common to hear the Gospel of John on Easter Sunday, and I see why. The writing teacher in me sees the other Gospels as much more developed. The ending is more satisfying. We get a first hand resurrection, not news of the resurrection.

You might be remembering different endings of Mark, and you wouldn’t be wrong. Most Bibles include a few more verses to develop this story in ways that are more similar to the other Gospels. But those verses were added much later, in the second century or later, and those endings were based on the endings of the other Gospels which had been written by then.

My New Testament professor would say that we’re missing the Resurrection appearances, but the Resurrection is here. We’ve got an empty tomb, after all. We know we have the Resurrection because of what happens after the women run away. They may have been too terrified to speak in the closing moments of the Gospel, but clearly they got over their fear. We’re here, in a church, hearing the story, with other versions of it if we want something different. We can infer that although the women ran away amazed and terrified, that amazement won the day. Or maybe, as other events happened to corroborate what they heard at the empty tomb, the women found their voices. That’s often how it works when we experience a traumatic event.

After those earliest days, people went out to all the ends of the earth to tell that story. They wouldn’t have done that if there had been no resurrection, if they had just lost a teacher who told them interesting parables in a poetic way.

In so many ways, the original ending of Mark, which we have here, is a fitting end to this particularGospel. The Gospel of Mark is short, and the pace is quick, even hurried. There’s an urgency to Mark, and the ending fits with this urgency. “Go, tell”—and the women do. No one lingers as they try to sort out who this man is and how he knows so much. They run away in both amazement and terror.

Amazement and terror might be a shorthand way of summing up the whole Gospel. Throughout the Gospel, we see people amazed and terrified—baffled and frightened and amazed and terrified. People don’t know what to make of what they’ve seen Jesus do, and of all the Gospels, this one shows a Jesus who is more reticent, more likely to tell people NOT to tell what they’ve seen. This ending fits the rest of the Gospel, with women leaving in a state that is both amazed and terrified. And it fits the story—Jesus raised from the dead? Even now, thousands of years later, it’s a profoundly disturbing ending. Think of our own lives, all the times we’ve prayed for a different ending. We might pray for a miracle cure, but once our loved ones die, we understand that act as final. The women in the Gospel of Luke have been through a trauma, witnessing the crucifixion of Jesus—and now, news of resurrection, along with an empty tomb. The urge to run away makes sense.

The women are sent back to Galilee, back to where the ministry of Jesus began. Jesus waits for them there, for the ones who watched him die, the women. You may remember from our reading last week that the women watch him die on the cross from a distance. Mark doesn’t give us the crucifixion scene of support at the base of the cross. Jesus dies alone, but he comes back. The women are told to tell the men, and Peter by name, Peter, the one who denied Jesus. Jesus waits for them there, in the place where it all began, waiting for the ones who ran away, for the ones who denied him, for the ones who deserted him along the way. Jesus waits for us too. Nothing we have done is too awful for redemption.

Some Bible scholars point out that the men are headed towards Galilee, and one Bible scholar says that they were probably running for their lives. But Jesus has gone on ahead of them. This detail, too, fits nicely with the resurrection message. We may think we’re on the run, but Jesus waits just a bit on up the road. As always, Jesus is one step ahead.

This ending speaks to the mystery that we proclaim each week: Christ has died, Christ has risen. The ending, both of the Gospel of Mark and of the work God is doing in the world, is open ended, a work in progress. The women are sent out with a message and a task—and so are we. The story is not complete—why do we think we should get a tidy ending?

Some Bible scholars see this ending as elegant. The women run away, too terrified to tell anyone. But clearly, something changed. We don’t get to hear the particulars, and that leaves us free to imagine a different ending, or to imagine all the ways it might have happened. More importantly, this bare bones ending invites us to enter into the ending. The story ends this way—with a non-ending—and that invites us to insert ourselves into the story.

In some ways, Easter is about endings. The Roman empire kills Jesus and believes they have rid themselves of a rabble rouser, an insurgent. The religious authorities kill Jesus and believe that they will win favor with Rome. But Easter reminds us that earthly powers don’t have the final word. Earthly empires don’t get to write the ending. Earthly empires aren’t nearly as powerful as they would want us all to believe.

We may find it hard to believe, this idea that good will prevail, that love wins in the end. We live in a world where it seems the rich will prevail. We live in a world where the rich evade justice and the poor are punished. But Easter promises a different ending.

Like the women in today’s Gospel, we may have trouble processing this idea. Life changes, and often faster than we can process the information. We're left struggling, grasping for meaning, refusing to believe the good news that's embodied right before our eyes. We don't recognize the answer to our prayers, our desperate longings. We're stuck grieving in the pre-dawn dark. Or we are too terrified to even talk about what we’ve seen.

That’s O.K. Jesus waits for us, back in the place where it all began. Jesus waits for us to catch up, just a little further on up the road.

Each and every day, God commits to the forces of creation and resurrection. Each and every day, God invites us to gather together, to begin our ministry anew, to join God in overthrowing the forces of brutality with the force that is love. Each and every day, I hope we say yes, even if we are terrified, even as we are amazed.

Empire is so much more fragile than it seems. Chaos always lurks at the margins—and sometimes chaos moves front and center. But God has a larger vision and invites us to be part of it.

Today and every day, I hope we say yes.

And rest assured that if we say no, we’ll get more invitations. God will not abandon us. No—God will wait for us, on up ahead, and when we get there, we’ll realize that Jesus has been by our side all along.

Easter Pre-Dawn: 2024

 Easter Sunday:  soon we will go to the car and head over the mountains to Bristol, Tennessee, where I will preach and preside at Faith Lutheran.  I've preached many sermons before, but never the Easter sermon.  We are doing the passage from Mark, the last part of Mark, without the verses tacked on in the second century.  The women run away, amazed and terrified.

But that's O.K.  They are going to Galilee, where they will tell the men what they have heard.  They are going to Galilee, where Jesus will meet them.  Jesus has gone ahead.  Jesus has also gone back to the place where it all began.  From there, the next phase of ministry will launch.

Time is short.  Time to put on my Easter socks to hide my Maundy Thursday feet (such mangled toenails!) and white sandals.  Time to print the sermon.  Time to go, to proclaim the good news that the brutal forces of empire and hate do not have the final word.

Empire is so much more fragile than it seems.  Chaos always lurks at the margins.  But God has a larger vision and invites us to be part of it.

Today and every day, I hope we say yes.

Relaxed Easter Sunday

We had a much more relaxed Easter than we sometimes do.  Often we've gotten up very early to get over to the church to set up for Easter sunrise service; we've been part of the team that plays music.  Once we've done the Easter sunrise service, in the past, we would stay at the church the whole morning and participate in every service.

We did leave a bit earlier yesterday so that my spouse could get to choir practice before the 10:30 service.  But we only live minutes away from our current church, so it felt leisurely.  I sat in the large fellowship area and read my textbook for Church History II class.  There was no Easter breakfast or coffee cake or hardboiled eggs.  That felt sort of strange.  Happily, I had brought my own homemade bread, and there was tea at the hot beverage area.

The church service was a bit more crowded, but not as crowded as the early service.  I've been to the early service, and usually there are 15-25 people.  Yesterday, it was packed; I was able to observe because the church service wasn't done when I first arrived, and I could see the church empty out as I read and ate my bread.

The church service had some special elements, lovely flowers and some special musical instruments.  Easter is the day of brass instruments, and we had two.  We had bells to jingle when we heard the word "Alleluia."

At the end, we came  home, did some grilling, including grilling the bread dough I made, which gave us a delicious meal.  I got some grading done, and we called family members or made plans for a call on a less hectic day.  We ended the day by listening to music and watching reruns of Mash and All in the Family (as if it was a Sunday evening in the 1970's).

I will close with pictures of the flamingos in the neighborhood that flanks my seminary.  

When I was taking the pictures, a woman walking her dog told me that the woman who lives in the house designs these seasonal decorations for the flamingoes.  

I asked the dogwalker to tell the woman how much joy they have brought me.  

They make me want to do something similar in my mountain home.  We shall see.

Gardeners and Other Easter Types

 It is Easter morning, and we will go to church for the later service, where my spouse will sing in the choir.  It is Easter morning, the first Easter in many years that I don't have a lot of church duties.  I am aware that it may be one of the last Easters where I don't have a lot of church duties, so we have taken a low-key approach to Holy Week.  Plus it's been very rainy, which made me want to stay put.

We have found ourselves exhausted, part way through a home remodel, part way through an intense schedule of classes, both ones I've been taking and the ones I've been teaching.  We've spent much of the time between Thursday and now sleeping and napping.

I have been thinking about the stories we don't hear in our liturgies.  In the past few years, I've been hearing more about the women who stayed at the foot of the cross and the women who came to the tomb--who may have been the same women.  I'd be surprised if more conservative churches are focusing on those women; I'd be happy to be surprised.

One year, I thought about the gardener, and a poem came to me.  It tells the story of the first Easter morning from the view of a gardener.  It was inspired by the piece of the Easter story where Mary thinks that Jesus is the gardener, which made me think about the fact that there must have been a real gardener and made me wonder what he thought of all the commotion.

It first appeared in issue 3 of Eye to the Telescope.  The whole volume is devoted to persona poems and edited by Jeannine Hall Gailey.

The Gardener’s Tale


I liked to get to the garden
early, before the harsh
light of day revealed
all my mistakes, all the growth
I couldn’t contain.

I liked the pre-dawn
hours, when I knew
the flowers by their smells
as I rustled
their stems.

That morning I saw
him first. He asked
for bread, and I had a bit
to share. I offered
him olives and some cheese
from my son Simon’s goat.

We talked of ways to attract
butterflies to the garden:
the need for nectar
and leaves for the babies.
I showed him a tree
that had been ailing,
and he suggested a different nourishment.

I thanked him for his wisdom
and moved to the border
of the garden. I didn’t make
the connections until I heard
the shrieks of the women
and Peter nearly knocked me down.

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel, Easter Sunday

The readings for Easter Sunday, April 17, 2022:

First Reading: Acts 10:34-43

First Reading (Alt.): Isaiah 65:17-25

Psalm: Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24

Second Reading: 1 Corinthians 15:19-26

Second Reading (Alt.): Acts 10:34-43

Gospel: Luke 24:1-12

Gospel (Alt.): John 20:1-18

I've talked to many people who seem a bit amazed at how fast this season of Lent has zoomed by us. I've talked to several people who don't feel ready for Easter at all. Are we ever ready for Easter?

Some years feel more difficult than others. Here we are, at the beginning of the third year of a global pandemic.  Some of us have losses that we're still grieving.  Some of us may feel we have been spared.  Some of us may be wondering what's coming next.

If we're lucky enough to have been spared from personal disaster, medical or otherwise, we've likely looked on in horror as other parts of our world have suffered horribly.  Maybe we've been focused on war in Ukraine.  Maybe we're afraid of hurricane season that begins soon. If we're thinking people at all, we have to realize how precarious is our existence on the surface of our planet, that surface which looks stable, but we know that forces are rumbling underneath.

Maybe you say to yourself that you're still in that Ash Wednesday space. Maybe you ask, "How can we celebrate Easter with the taste of ashes still in our mouths?"

Hear that Easter message again. Know that God is working to redeem creation in ways that we can't always see and don't often understand. But we get glimpses of it.

The earth commits to resurrection this time of year. Green sprouts shoot out from hard earth everywhere. Each spring, we are reminded of the cyclical nature of the world, which can bring us hope in the times in which we suffer. This, too, shall pass.

But maybe we see those examples of resurrection as random and capricious. If we've heard the Easter story (and the Holy Week stories) again and again, we tend to forget the miraculous nature of them. Maybe we're tempted to downplay them even. Maybe we're beaten down and tired: tired of praying that the insurance company gets its act together before the next hurricane season starts, tired of praying for health and people getting sicker, tired of praying for peace in the world which never seems to come, too beaten down and tired to believe in miracles anymore.

Resist that pull towards despair, which some have called the deadliest sin, even worse than pride. We have seen miracles with our own eyes: Nelson Mandela walks out of jail to claim his place as president, for example. We're often too shy or scared to run out of our gardens to tell everyone else what we've seen, what we know.

We may worry that the world is sliding backward, but we've always been worried about that possibility. We must remember we are a Resurrection People. Commit yourself to new life. Rinse the ashes out of your mouth with the Eucharist bread and wine. Celebrate the miracles.

Staying Behind and Staying Rooted: The Feast Day of Mary Magdalene

On July 22, we celebrate the life of Mary Magdalene. Take a minute with the reading for her feast day: John 20:1-2, 11-18.

There are many approaches to Mary Magdalene. Some people focus on her notorious past, while a variety scholars remind us that she might have been painted with the brush of prostitution to discredit her. Even to this day, she is rarely mentioned outside of the fact of her demon possession. For some, these are the demons that bedevil many woman, both ancient and modern, the demons that come with a patriarchal culture. Others might think that demon possession was how ancient culture understood mental illness.

Why hasn't the Church focused on her healing and subsequent steadfastness, rather than what might disqualify her from worthiness? Whole books have been written on that.

As I've been spending time with female saints, both the kind recognized by popes and the ones far from canonization, I've been thinking about how these centuries of church history might be different if we had treated women differently. Let's begin with Mary Magdalene as an example.

The theologian Cynthia Bourgeault wrote a book about Mary Magdalene, and she notes that Mary's presence at the resurrection is mentioned in all four gospels, either alone or in a group, but always there, always named. Most scholars agree that when a detail is present in more than one Gospel, it demands our attention and deeper consideration.

Mary Magdalene's presence at the resurrection is so important that all four Gospel writers include it. Why do we so rarely consider this in our modern churches?

Bourgeault calls our attention to this passage from Matthew 27:61: “And Mary Magdalene and the other Mary remained standing there in front of the tomb.”

She says, "How would our understanding of the Paschal Mystery change if even that one sentence [from Matthew 27: 61] was routinely included in the Good Friday and Palm Sunday Passion narratives? What if, instead of emphasizing that Jesus died alone and rejected, we reinforced that one stood by him and did not leave?—for surely this other story is as deeply and truly there in the scripture as is the first. How would this change the emotional timbre of the day? How would it affect our feelings about ourselves? About the place of women in the church? About the nature of redemptive love?" (found in this meditation)

As I have settled into midlife, I've had similar thoughts. What if we had celebrated Mary Magdalene as the first witness to the resurrection? What if we celebrated her as the one who was first to
tell of the resurrection?

For that matter, what if instead of celebrating the evangelizing apostles who went out with very little in their pockets, we celebrated the ones who stayed to build up the communities that the apostles created? We rarely celebrate settling deep roots into a community and staying put. We often see those churches as stagnant and out of touch, even if they're the ones supporting the local elementary school and teaching new immigrants and running the food pantry.

Most of us can't be the kind of disciple that leaves family and commitments behind to traipse the country. Many of us have been raised to believe that's what Christ wanted us to do--there's a Great Commission after all that tells us to go to all the lands and make disciples. We don't hear about the families that the apostles left behind. How are they supposed to cope?

The lives of Mary Magdalene and other saints show us that there's more than one way to make disciples. There's more than one way to be missional.

Throughout our lives, we will suffer all sorts of death and loss.  The world will give us many tombs.  Today, let us focus on the ways we can remain steadfast and true to our callings. Today let us remain at the tomb alert for resurrection.

Doubly Masked, a Mix of Fear and Hope

 I don't have as much time to write this morning.  I'm leaving early, so that I can help open the Hollywood campus before I drive to the Ft. Lauderdale campus for day 1 of a two day orientation.  The e-mail with the orientation schedule went to 58 people.  If they all show up, I don't know how we'll fit safely into that room; it's a big room, but it's not that big.

But it's likely that they won't all show up.  Some of them will have to teach.  Some of them will read the sentence about being able to watch the recording later and decide to go that route.  Some of them won't want to make the trip from Gainesville or Orlando.

I had similar concerns back in December when we met as a larger group, and it turned out to be O.K.  And this time, I've had one vaccine dose, so I'm more protected than I would be with no vaccine in my body.  Still, I plan to be double-masked and to take my masks off as little as possible.

On Sunday, at the 11 a.m. church service, I looked out across the congregation and thought about how rarely in the past year I've been in an inside space with that many people--about 50 people.  We were spaced out across a chancel built for 300 congregants, so we were able to stay separated.  

Most of us hadn't seen each other in over a year, at least not in person.  I could see many of us trying to figure out this new normal--how close could we get to each other?  There was no hugging, although in the past, we were a congregation of gentle huggers.  There were some fist bumps, but mostly there were waves across the sanctuary.

It was also strange that it was Easter Sunday, a Sunday when traditionally we'd be seeing families that don't come more regularly.  This year, we've all been jumbled in terms of participation, as some of us have participated more than we would have in the pre-recorded segments of the services and some of us have drifted away.

Throughout the morning, across 3 services, I sometimes felt my heart squeeze at the thought of all the stresses and losses of the past year.  I've stayed more connected than many people.  I still go into the office each day, and I'm still doing lots of work with the church.  But I'm aware of all the ways my connections have become a bit looser; I'm not seeing people as much as I once was.  I know that some people have substituted Zoom calls for in-person get togethers, and I've done that to an extent, but not as much as some people I know.

So in a way, I understand the desire to have us gather in person, whether it be in church, in schools, or in the workplace.  I will try to hold onto that understanding as I go to my work orientations today, doubly masked, in a mix of fear and hope.

Easter Update

Yesterday morning, Easter morning, I had planned to write something, even if it was a rerun of a past post.  But I had no time.  I did morning watch, my televised morning matins from the liturgy of the hours that I do on my church's Facebook page.  Then it was off to church to set up and play for the sunrise service that started at 7 a.m.

My church had 3 services:  sunrise outside at 7 a.m., and 2 indoor services at 9 a.m. and 11 a.m.  My spouse did a lot of singing for all of them.  In past years, I played hand chimes, but this year, I played upright bass in the sunrise service:

photo by Keith Spencer

It went so well that I played the bass during the song "Now the Green Blade Rises" (ELW 379) for the 2 later services too.  It's an interesting Easter song, since the music is a French carol.  It was far from perfect, but it was better than I thought it would be.  If I had had another 2 weeks to practice . . . 

The other highlight of the day was my pastor's Easter sermon.  I think that Easter would be a tough sermon opportunity.  You know that the audience has been to Easter services before, and many of them have been to many services.  In short, it's tough to say something new.

My pastor talked about resurrection ferns, plants that can lose 97% of their water in the South Florida dry season and come back to life with the return of the rainy season.  He also gave us an interesting lesson about the passage of a caterpillar to a butterfly, how the caterpillar in the chrysalis collapses into ooze and from that protein goo emerges a butterfly.  I didn't know about the imaginal disks that develop into the separate parts of the butterfly or that the butterfly might retain some of the knowledge it had as a caterpillar.

In short, the imagery was unique and perfectly suited for Easter.  I was happy to be able to hear it 3 times.

After the 3 services, my spouse and I stayed to count the money and make the bank deposit.  Then we came home and watched the services several more times.  My spouse likes to watch the music and try to challenge himself to do better.  

Is it a good way to do this?  I don't know.  But I was intrigued to watch myself playing the bass, to know that I was actually doing a much better job of keeping time than I might have thought.  Hurrah.

And now, to nurse the blister on my bass picking finger.  Yes, I have a blister on my bass picking finger!  That may not ever happen again . . . or maybe it will!

Season of a Sketchbook

Yesterday, I started a new sketchbook.  As I closed the last one, I realized that the last sketch was done on Easter.  I started the sketchbook on Transfiguration Sunday.  I don't usually have a sketchbook that begins and ends this way, perfectly synced with the season.

Here's the Feb. 23, 2020 sketch that opens the sketchbook:

I also wrote some haiku.  The last one leapt out at me:

Tale of two mountains
Stay here in God's presence.
Golgotha summons.


Little did I know--even then, the new virus was making its way into new parts of our country.

When I got to the last page of the sketchbook, it was the Saturday before Easter.  On Saturday, I created this sketch:

I have experimented with small dots and dashes in the past, but never crosses.  I had Good Friday on my brain.

On Easter Sunday, I added a bit of color. 

I'm taking an online journaling class, and we're working with a limited palette, so that's why I don't have the kinds of colors that my sketches usually have.

I have not been writing much haiku in these past weeks.  Maybe I'll start doing that again.

The Strangest Easter

Yesterday was a very strange Easter--but then again, I don't have a usual Easter.  Some years, we've spent much of Easter at church.  Other years, we haven't gone at all.  One year we created our own service on a rocky beach in Hawaii.  One year, I was on my way to Mepkin Abbey, where I would return to the Easter readings more often than I have before or since.

Yesterday I didn't wear any Easter finery--but then again, I often don't wear finery, either Easter or any other kind.  I helped with the Easter Sunday livestream.  We had some technical difficulties, but we worked around them.  I did spend the whole service worrying that I would touch something on our pastor's iPhone and bring the whole service stream to a crashing halt.

Before the 10:00 service, my spouse had choir rehearsal at 8:30.  I made a few cloth masks.  I was making one to send to my parents, and two of my friends who are in the choir asked me to make them one.  So I did.  I'm not making masks to last--I use pinking shears to minimize the sewing I have to do.  I sew a panel of flannel to the interior of the mask which holds the layers together.  I sew two fabric ribbons to the sides; I gather the two corners together to make pleats of a sort.

I didn't do much sketching yesterday, but I did make bread.  I wanted to do some sort of hot cross bun, but I didn't have time before our church duties.  As the afternoon progressed, my spouse proposed we make bunny bread.  I'm not sure what trick of photography makes my spouse's hand look so strange in the photo below, as he placed carrots on the bread to make a face:

We both grew up with our mothers making a bunny cake from two round cakes, so it was the perfect way to celebrate for us:

The bread was really tasty, but much healthier than a bunny cake would be--and we didn't have to go to the grocery store for ingredients.

We ended the day by listening to some great music; we kept returning to this recording of "Will the Circle Be Unbroken?"--such talent gathered together!

It seemed perfect for Easter and for what made this Easter particularly strange:  it was the 15th anniversary of my mother-in-law's death.  It was both good and strange to sit together watching great gospel music delivered by some of country music's finest musician.  I think she would have liked the way we remembered her:  church in the morning, bunny bread in the afternoon, and gospel music as the day faded.

Easter in a Time of Plague

The Gospel of Matthew tells us that the Easter story begins now, "towards dawn, on the first day of the week." I have been awake since 4:45 a.m. EDT, keeping watch for the mystical, staying alert for signs of resurrection.

For most of us, this will be an Easter unlike any other.  Most of us have never experienced Easter under stay at home orders.  Most of us have never been isolated the way we are now.

For some of us, this particular Easter may feel more like the tomb than like resurrection.  We are still waiting.  We don't know what the outcome will be:  will this new virus mutate and become worse?  Will our favorite schools, businesses, social institutions survive?  What will the new normal look like?  Can we bring some of our favorite aspects of the old normal with us to the new normal?

In many ways, these questions are the essential Easter questions.  Life changes, and often faster than we can process the information.  We're left struggling, grasping for meaning, refusing to believe the good news that's embodied right before our eyes.  We don't recognize the answer to our prayers, our desperate longings, even when it's right before our eyes.  We're stuck grieving in the pre-dawn dark.

The situation of this Easter may lead us to see the story in new ways.  What does resurrection demand of us?  How can we fulfill the promise of our lives?  How can we help transform the world we live in to be more like the world God envisions for us?

Something new is being born, and we are here to help shape it.  Alleluia!

Easter Sunday Wrap Up

Our church was packed yesterday.  We usually have 40-60 people in the pews on a regular Sunday, which leaves lots of room.  Yesterday, we didn't have much space empty.  What a delight to sing in a sanctuary full of voices.

We finished the first Easter hymn and from somewhere near the back, a little voice proclaimed, "Yay!"  Our pastor smiled and said, "Ah, the Easter yay."  The little voice said it several more times.  I was so glad that we didn't hear any shushing.

We had a good church service.  Our pastor's message focused on the women who weren't believed at first, and then our pastor circled back to Jesus' good news for those, like women, who had been marginalized.

At one point, we had thought we might skip Easter service.  My sister and nephew were in town, and they usually don't want to go to church.  But my spouse was integral to the choir, which had a piece that had been composed with his violin skills in mind.  He floated the idea to my sister a few weeks ago, and she said they'd go, especially if they didn't have to dress up.

We do not have a church that requires dressing up.  We're in a vacation place, after all.

We didn't have brunch at church or watch the Easter egg hunt.  My spouse and I had already told our counting team that we couldn't count.  We went home and had a quiet Easter Sunday, soaking in one last day of sunshine and later grilling some lamb chops.

Easter is not my favorite church holiday; Christmas gets that honor.  But it's good for me to remember that Easter has its delights too.

Easter Sunday, 2019

Here we are at Easter Sunday, a surprisingly chilly morning in South Florida, although it does remind me of the Easter Sundays of my youth, in Montgomery or Charlottesville or Knoxville.  Most years the winter hadn't been particularly harsh, but I was always ready for warmer weather.  Easter morning always had that chilly promise of an intense summer that was just around the corner.

We haven't done much in the way of tradition, although my sister and nephew have been here.  I'd have made a bunny cake.  But I know I'd have been the only one to eat it, so I decided not to do it.  We've been eating enough high calorie treats, without adding cake into the mix.

We haven't decorated eggs.  I don't usually do that, so that's not strange.

Some years I might have baked some sort of festive bread over the week-end, particularly hot cross buns.  I did heat up some cinnamon babka that I got from a grocery store, but it's not the same.

I am feeling like I should have thought ahead to have some sort of egg casserole ready to bake this morning, but again, I likely would have been the only one to eat it.  I will likely cook some sort of eggs to go with the bacon that my spouse is about to cook before he goes to church early for choir rehearsal.

We have not totally flunked Easter.  When I look back on this week-end, I want to remember the times of all of us gathered around a table, my Philosopher spouse, theologian me, sister who is the mother to my nephew.  I want to remember that we had conversations about the roots of the holidays of Easter which led to conversations about Passover, which led to conversations about the best ways of dealing with oppressive governments.

At first, I felt tense.  Do we really need to have these conversations (about oppressive governments, not about history) now?  But I saw that my nephew listened intently and intensely.  And I thought, if not now, when?

Unlike a lot of the world's twelve year olds, my nephew can linger in a safe space a bit longer.  He doesn't have government agents coming after him.  He may never need the lessons that we are teaching to save his own skin.

But the oppressed of the world rely on those of us who are safe to leave our safety to make the world better.  Good Friday tells us what might happen if we do.  Easter Sunday gives us the promise that our work will not be in vain.

Death does not have the final word.  Not during the times of the Roman empire, not during our own time of turbulence.  Alleluia!

Easter Report

Some Easter Sunday bits worth remembering:

--The Easter brunch at church had a wide variety of pastry.  I had cannoli to go along with my yogurt and berry parfait.

--We didn't have as many children at the egg hunt as we usually do.  In fact, we had eggs left over.

--Our handchime prelude seemed to go well.  But it's hard to know when I'm part of that choir, as I was yesterday.

--We had a baptism.  But here's the twist:  not too long ago, the mother of the baby was a teen helper with VBS Arts and Crafts.  I don't know that I'll ever get used to seeing the humans I once knew as children in church grow into adulthood.

--The baptismal party included several small babies.  As we got ready for Communion, one of the mothers was discreetly breastfeeding her baby.  I thought about how my grandmother would be scandalized, and how happy I am to be part of a church where mothers feel free to breastfeed.

--Even not counting the baptismal party, we had a huge crowd.  We don't always have a huge crowd for Easter.  It was nice to be part of a big crowd.

--I was part of the counting team after church--we counted all the money from Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Easter, the Easter egg sales, and the AA group which gives us their donation for use of the hall in singles and fives.  The counting was easier than I thought it might be.

--We don't have a lot of Easter food traditions, so we came home and grilled the swordfish steaks that we hadn't gotten around to eating when my sister and nephew were here.  Then we took a long nap.  It was lovely.

--I ended Easter by finishing our taxes and sending them off--hurrah!  Perhaps there's a metaphor here . . .