The Gospel of Mark, 16:1-8

When the sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary, the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go and anoint Jesus.  And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb.They had been saying to one another, "Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?" When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large,  had already been rolled back.  As they entered the tomb they saw a young man dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed.  But He said to them, "Do not be alarmed: you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is  the place where they laid him.But go and tell his disciples and Peter, 'He is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him, as he told you.'" So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.

Holy Saturday, April 11

Scripture for the Day:  

After these things, Joseph of Arimathea, who was a disciple of Jesus, though a secret one because of his fear of the Jews, asked Pilate to let him take away the body of Jesus. Pilate gave him permission; so he came and removed his body. Nicodemus, who had at first come to Jesus by night, also came, bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, weighing about a hundred pounds. They took the body of Jesus and wrapped it with the spices in linen cloths, according to the burial custom of the Jews. Now there was a garden in the place where he was crucified, and in the garden there was a new tomb in which no one had ever been laid. And so, because it was the Jewish day of Preparation, and the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there. – John 19:38-42

At Black River

All day

  its dark, slick bronze soaks

    in a mossy place, 

       its teeth,

a multitude

  set

    for the comedy

      that never comes-- 

its tail 

  knobbed and shiny, 

    and with a heavy-weight's punch 

      packed around the bone. 

In beautiful Florida

  he is king  

    of his own part

      of the black river, 

and from his nap 

  he will wake 

    into the warm darkness

      to boom, and thrust forward,  

paralyzing 

  the swift, thin-waisted fish

    or the bird

      in its frilled, white gown,

that has dipped down

  from the heaven of leaves

    one last time

      to drink.

Don't think

  I'm not afraid.

    There is such an unleashing

       of horror.

Then I remember:

  death comes before 

    the rolling away

      of the stone.

Mary Oliver, Why I Wake Early

Beacon Press, 2004

Good Friday, April 10

Scripture for the Day:

 

 “Now my soul is troubled. And what should I say-- `Father, save me from this hour'? No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name." Then a voice came from heaven, "I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” The crowd standing there heard it and said that it was thunder. Others said, “An angel has spoken to him.” Jesus answered, “This voice has come for your sake, not for mine. Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” He said this to indicate the kind of death he was to die. The crowd answered him, “We have heard from the law that the Messiah remains forever. How can you say that the Son of Man must be lifted up? Who is this Son of Man?”Jesus said to them, “The light is with you for a little longer. Walk while you have the light, so that the darkness may not overtake you. If you walk in the darkness, you do not know where you are going. While you have the light, believe in the light, so that you may become children of light.”    – John 12:27-35

Reflection – Ralph Nazareth 

 “Now, don’t you fall asleep with Peter and James and John,” I hear my mother whispering to me. And I’m back there again in that world of shadows.

 The hour is late, Jesus sweats blood, pleading with his Father to let the cup of sorrow pass over him, and I am in the pathetic huddle of men, overcome by sleep. This vivid and troubling memory is for me inseparable from the persistence of guilt in my life.

 Yet, I’m drawn, although with deep trepidation, by this very same sense of failure, to the Gethsemane of the Synoptics more readily than to the scene outside the temple in Jerusalem that John describes in the reading for the day. The passion and desolation of Jesus in the former penetrate me to the core and vivify me in a way that the apparent triumphalism of the latter does not. Do I then refuse to be counted among the “children of light” if I stay with the man who says, “Now my soul is troubled…”? And know that the only true rising is at the zero hour when he is “lifted up from the earth” on Golgotha?

Maundy Thursday, April 9

Scripture for the Day:

Now before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. The devil had already put it into the heart of Judas son of Simon Iscariot to betray him. And during supper Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, got up from the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him. He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?” Jesus answered, “You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand." Peter said to him, "You will never wash my feet.” Jesus answered, “Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.” Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!” Jesus said to him, “One who has bathed does not need to wash, except for the feet, but is entirely clean. And you are clean, though not all of you.” For he knew who was to betray him; for this reason he said, “Not all of you are clean.”

 After he had washed their feet, had put on his robe, and had returned to the table, he said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord – and you are right, for that is what I am. So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you. Very truly, I tell you, servants are not greater than their master, nor are messengers greater than the one who sent them. If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them.”

Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once. Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me; and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, `Where I am going, you cannot come.' I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” – John 13:1-17, 31b-35

Reflection – Kate Heichler 

 Why is this night different from all other nights? I don’t know if that question was part of the Passover observance in Jesus’ time, but Jesus’ disciples could not have imagined how different this night would be from all other nights that ever had been or ever would be.

 Maundy Thursday is for me the most sacred night of all the sacred nights. It is a threshold from regular chronos time into God’s kairos time, a night when the membrane separating heaven  and earth becomes wafer-thin. We gather and celebrate and commemorate a meal at which everything became subverted, no expectation met unchanged. Jesus takes the familiar prayers of blessing and distorts them with shocking words about eating his flesh and drinking his blood. He takes a ritual of hospitality with which a host would normally greet guests and enacts it after the food, lowering himself to wash his disciples’ feet, an act of intimacy and humility that challenges our self-sufficiency as much as it did theirs.  And after supper he goes into the night to accept the most intimate of humiliations, not fighting, but subverting human pretensions of control with love and truth.

 And so we eat and wash and bless and pray, and walk together into the three-day dream sequence we relive every year, in which God and humanity meet on a cross of brutality,

 in which heaven and earth come crashing together and the whole mortal order of things is overturned, once and for all. Death swallowed up by life. Here it begins, our sacred mystery. Stay awake. Watch and pray.

To ponder and pray: Will you accept the gift and discomfort of allowing someone else to wash your feet tonight? Someone who stands in for Jesus?   If not, in your prayer today tell Jesus why you won’t allow him that privilege. How does He answer you? If yes, invite Him to open your heart to God’s transforming life in the encounter.  

Wednesday in Holy Week, April 8

Scripture for the Day:  

Now among those who went up to worship at the festival were some Greeks. They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and said to him, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” Philip went and told Andrew; then Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus. Jesus answered them, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, the Father will honor.” – John 12:20-26

What hard travail God does in death!

He strives in sleep, in our despair,

And all flesh shudders underneath

The nightmare of His sepulcher;

The earth shakes, grinding its deep stone;

All night the cold wind heaves and pries;

Creation strains sinew and bone

Against the dark door where He lies.

The stem bent, pent in seed, grows straight

And stands. Pain breaks in song. Surprising

The merely dead, graves fill with light

Like opened eyes. He rests in rising.

- Wendell Berry,  Sabbaths North Point Press, 1987

Tuesday in Holy Week, April 7

Scripture for the Day:

Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. There they gave a dinner for him. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those at the table with him. Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus' feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray him), said, “Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?” (He said this not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief; he kept the common purse and used to steal what was put into it.) Jesus said, “Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.” When the great crowd of the Jews learned that he was there, they came not only because of Jesus but also to see Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. So the chief priests planned to put Lazarus to death as well, since it was on account of him that many of the Jews were deserting and were believing in Jesus.  – John 12:1-11

Reflection – Niall McMorrow 

Imperfect by design. Unconditionally loved. Perfection.

inspired by:  Not Quite What I Was Planning: Six Word Memoirs by Famous and Obscure Writers, by the editors of Smith Magazine.

Monday in Holy Week, April 6

Scripture for the Day:

At supper with his friends, Jesus was troubled in spirit, and declared, “Very truly, I tell you, one of you will betray me.” The disciples looked at one another, uncertain of whom he was speaking. One of his disciples-- the one whom Jesus loved-- was reclining next to him; Simon Peter therefore motioned to him to ask Jesus of whom he was speaking. So while reclining next to Jesus, he asked him, “Lord, who is it?” Jesus answered, “It is the one to whom I give this piece of bread when I have dipped it in the dish.” So when he had dipped the piece of bread, he gave it to Judas son of Simon Iscariot. After he received the piece of bread, Satan entered into him. Jesus said to him, “Do quickly what you are going to do.” Now no one at the table knew why he said this to him. Some thought that, because Judas had the common purse, Jesus was telling him, “Buy what we need for the festival”; or, that he should give something to the poor. So, after receiving the piece of bread, he immediately went out. And it was night.

When he had gone out, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once.” – John 13:21-32

Reflection –

Jesus is being betrayed by one of His own disciples and then He tells them to love one another as He has loved them. What are the disciples to think? He will be leaving them and they will be left on their own to carry out His mission. Will their faith in His teachings carry them along?

As a high school teenager I was faced with my own question of faith in God. Along came a friend carrying our Jesus’ command to love one another. She wrote the following poem for me when we were counselors at a church summer camp:

Dear child, lift thy burdened thought,
And listen to the Word,
Let not the voice of shattered faith,
Within your heart be heard.

Bind up the wounds of sadness,
Caress the hands of care,
And know that in your trouble,
God’s love is everywhere.

Watch as the fading darkness,
Gives way to heaven’s light,
Lift up your head in gladness,
To worship in delight.

Sweet child of God, be not afraid,
Doubt not the power of love,
Fling wide your arms to happiness,
Seek comfort from above.

And as the clouds are breaking,
To let the sunbeams thru,
Smile up at God and thank Him,
For always guiding you.

Saturday, April 4

Scripture for the Day:    Many of the Jewish leaders therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what Jesus did, believed in him. But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what he had done. So the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the council, and said, ‘What are we to do? This man is performing many signs. If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and destroy both our holy place and our nation.’ But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, ‘You know nothing at all! You do not understand that it is better for you to have one man die for the people than to have the whole nation destroyed.’ He did not say this on his own, but being high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus was about to die for the nation, and not for the nation only, but to gather into one the dispersed children of God. So from that day on they planned to put him to death. – John 11:45-53

Reflection – Diane Riffelmacher 

After being away from my church for 39 years, and finding myself alone due to the death of my husband, I found  that I was missing something in my life, so I decided to reconnect with my religion. I have found it very rewarding and fulfilling meeting new friends with a common goal of growing the church and doing good works for those less fortunate.  I now know  that I made the right decision.  Needless to say, my spiritual life has been awakened, revisited and restored.  It has brought me so much solace, tranquility and happiness.

Friday, April 3

Scripture for the Day:    The Jewish leaders took up stones again to stone him. Jesus replied, ‘I have shown you many good works from the Father. For which of these are you going to stone me?’ The Jews answered, ‘It is not for a good work that we are going to stone you, but for blasphemy, because you, though only a human being, are making yourself God.’ Jesus answered, ‘Is it not written in your law, “I said, you are gods”? If those to whom the word of God came were called “gods”—and the scripture cannot be annulled— can you say that the one whom the Father has sanctified and sent into the world is blaspheming because I said, “I am God’s Son”? If I am not doing the works of my Father, then do not believe me. But if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, so that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.’ Then they tried to arrest him again, but he escaped from their hands. – John 10:31-39

Reflection – Patsy Whitman 

I have shown you many good works from GOD … can you say that the one whom GOD has sanctified   …“I am God’s Son” If I am not doing the works of GOD, then do not believe me …     so that you may know and understand that GOD is in me and I am in GOD …

Please note that I have changed the word “father” to GOD … he/she is in each of us

But as I write this I find it difficult to understand our GOD who took from us two wonderful people who were so vital to their families, their friends, and their communities. The saving grace was that they were killed instantly and were spared a life of devastating injuries if they had remained alive.

As a small child on a visit from Dallas to Manhattan with my mother & father we went to hear preach Dr Norman Vincent Peale the author of a book that my mother dearly loved called The Power of Positive Thinking. Because of that ancient visit I was compelled to read an article in the Times on Feb 2 about the retirement after 24 years from Marble Collegiate Church of Dr Peale’s successor, Rev Dr Arthur Caliandro. Dr Caliandro “navigated the waters of the post- Peale era.” Among his many accomplishments he made a meeting space for the gay members of the church and put women on the church board for the first time. “Really what it is all about is Love”

The essence of Christianity is Love.

This would have made my mother very happy … she would have smiled.

Thursday, April 2

Scripture for the Day:    Very truly, I tell you, whoever keeps my word will never see death.’  The Jewish leaders said to him, ‘Now we know that you have a demon. Abraham died, and so did the prophets; yet you say, “Whoever keeps my word will never taste death.” Are you greater than our father Abraham, who died? The prophets also died. Who do you claim to be?’ Jesus answered, ‘If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing. It is my Father who glorifies me, he of whom you say, “He is our God”, though you do not know him. But I know him; if I were to say that I do not know him, I would be a liar like you. But I do know him and I keep his word. Your ancestor Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day; he saw it and was glad.’ Then the Jews said to him, ‘You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?’ Jesus said to them, ‘Very truly, I tell you, before Abraham was, I am.’ So they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple. – John 8:51-59

Reflection – Ed Tucker 

The best way to live is to be honest and open.  Rather than keeping to yourself, be outgoing, smiley and helpful. Greet people and be the first to open a conversation with anyone you come in contact with at work, at the gym, and on the street.  Be interested in how people are, and what they are thinking about on any subject.   If people are having a bad day, listen to what is going on and be supportive.  Never be involved in gossip.  If someone seems angry with you, listen to what they say, try to explain yourself, and move on.  It is amazing how well this approach to life works.   

Wednesday, April 1

Scripture for the Day:      Then Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, ‘If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.’ They answered him, ‘We are descendants of Abraham and have never been slaves to anyone. What do you mean by saying, “You will be made free”?’    Jesus answered them, ‘Very truly, I tell you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not have a permanent place in the household; the son has a place there   for ever. So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed. 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. I declare what I have seen in the Father’s presence; as for you, you should do what you have heard from the Father.’   They answered him, ‘Abraham is our father.’ Jesus said to them, ‘If you were Abraham’s children, you would be doing what Abraham did, but now you are trying to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. This is not what Abraham did. You are indeed doing what your father does.’ They said to him, ‘We are not illegitimate children; we have one father, God himself.’ Jesus said to them, ‘If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and now I am here. I did not come on my own, but he sent me. – John 8:31-42

Reflection – Mark Ledermann  

And we ask: Where is true life found?

Jesus challenges us: Within the truth.

 The truth?  Where is truth found? Is it found within us? What we have learned, what our traditions have given us? What we have been able to grab a hold of to make sense of life?

 Is that life-giving truth?

 And we hear in our own fears and uncertainties, and see in the world’s strife, that truth grounded in us is a dead-end. An empty place.

 And along comes Jesus who offers us more. And we struggle. And bargain. And insist that the truth we know is the truth to be known. Because to move from even a dead-end truth is hard.

And Jesus persists. He does not give us up: “If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”

Jesus reaches out to us as the rescuing truth open to all.

For everyone. Everywhere.

The Word made flesh.

A life-giving place.