Easter

This past week brought to my attention the memory and importance of ritual in our lives.

Tim and I attended a Saturday evening service (which I was expecting to be a kind of Easter Vigil). What the service entailed was actually the retelling of our salvation history, from Old Testament stories of salvation – to the raising of Christ. What I did not expect was my reaction. In the middle of the service they started taking down the dark paraments (the cloths that cover the furniture in the front of the church) and started putting up the Easter colors. I turned to Tim and said – “we need to leave right now’. I was not at all prepared to celebrate Easter on a night that I expected to be taken to the depths of sorrow that were experienced by the disciples.

For me there is great importance to the rhythm and ritual of season. Maybe it is a Minnesotan thing – but spring is all the more beautiful after a cold harsh winter. And the warmth of the sun is much more comforting and radiant after days of gloom and cold. That is like the Easter rhythm for me. There is nothing greater than to experience the joy of freedom after the taste of our bondage to sin and death. To be re-united with Christ after having remembered what it is like to have lost hope.

And when the sun rises on Easter morning, after the dark of the night – we are reminded that the light broke into the darkness. It is the memory of Christ death and resurrection that gives us pause to be able to rejoice.

On Easter morning – we went to a sunrise service on the beach. What a different experience. We got up early because I was helping to lead the service – but just to gather with a group of people some of whom planned to be there and some of whom “happened by”. And knowing the preparations for that morning happened in the deepest part of the night.

God works sometimes in the depths of our darkness. And when the light comes to shine on the changes they are startling, miraculous, and often worth the sorrow we have walked through to witness the story.

May this Easter season be filled with the dawning of God in your life.

how well do we know . . .

I have been recently having some email conversations with a colleague of mine - and this morning as I was writing to him, and complaining about being sent out here on my own - I have the realization that Jesus may possibly have known these men that he called to follow him.

While to many people that might not be anything earth shattering, or inspiring, I think there are some very important lessons that we – as people, as leaders, as members of communities – can learn.

As a church it has always seemed odd to me that we send people out one by one (not a very biblical model anyway you put it). But we also find these crazy people who take on the challenge (me being a prime example) because we believe that God is calling us to “go”.

It occurred to me this morning that Jesus most likely knew most of the people in the small town of Nazareth – (maybe this has a bigger role to play than we have paid attention to before). And growing up in that small town were also a number men (an women) who became followers. Jesus most likely knew quite a bit about James and John – and for that matter their father Zebedee. I guess it had always been my assumption that the God-ness of Jesus led him to “know” who to call. I am just beginning to understand some of the ordinary ways that god works through the ways of humanity.

Jesus maybe saw much more in these men than we might, but we also know who are the good leaders of our communities, those people that we think could be great leaders, those people that we think will change the world.

So how well do we know the people around us? As someone just getting to know this community it puts another challenge in front of me. Not only who are the movers and shakers in this place here and now, but also who are the potential changers of the world!

april

I went for a long bike ride the other day. It's a reminder for me of why I really like living in Southern California. It is a great time to be out and enjoying the world. Biking is the one time that my mind is truely focused on the one thing that I am doing. Other forms of excersize like running and swimming are great times for me to meditate - and plan and vision what is coming in the days and weeks ahead - but when I bike - it is all me and the bike.

(for those of you who watch LOST - I named my bike Mr. Eko. There is some spiritual/religious power, raw strength and faith in that character - even with (or maybe because of) his life story.)

I continue to seek these things in life - where I can just be.