We are an Easter people, moving through a Good Friday world. —Barbara Harris, Hallelujah, Anyhow!
Episcopal Bishop Barbara Harris (1930–2020) explores how we can celebrate Easter, even in the midst of difficult “Good Friday” circumstances:
The world is full of the misery and pain of Good Friday. We only have to open our daily newspapers, turn on the television to the nightly news … for fresh reminders of the violence, cruelty, want, and need that permeates our world. We have only to examine and reflect on our own lives, our own trials and tribulations, our own cares and woes. We have only to consider how we relate to each other and to our world neighbors. But we are Easter people, and we are supposed to be different.
There are some distinctive characteristics about Easter people that keep us in close touch with this Jesus who says to a grieving Martha: “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die” [John 11:25–26].
Easter people are believers. We believe not only in the possible, we believe also in the impossible. We believe that the lame were made to walk, and the mute made to speak, that lepers were cleansed and the blind received their sight…. We can believe also that with the helpful presence of God’s Holy Spirit, we are strengthened and sustained on our earthly pilgrimage. Further, we can believe that we can fashion new lives committed to love, to peace, to justice, and to liberation for all of God’s people.
Easter people grieve and need to be comforted. And, yes, Easter people get angry … but we must seek to channel that anger in constructive ways. Be angry enough to say and to seriously mean, I will commit my life to living out the Baptismal Covenant: seeking and serving Christ in all persons, loving my neighboras myself, striving for justice and peace among all people, respecting the dignity of every human being.
Easter people hang in until the end. Like the women who stood by the cross, Easter people live by the words of the old spiritual: “I will go, I shall go to see what the end will be.” [1]
Benedictine nun and poet Mary Lou Kownacki (1941–2023) embraces this resurrection wisdom:
Easter grabs us by the throat and shouts, “Live.” The radiant Jesus who leaves the tomb challenges our complacency with the forces of death, be they hopelessness, fear, discouragement, or lack of will. Don’t let death have the last word in your story, Jesus urges. None of us has the right to sleep in death. Even if there is no angel to help you, grab the door of the tomb that holds you back and rip its seal. There’s too much goodness in you that still needs to rise, and there’s too much work in the world that still needs to be done. [2]
This is the day that I have made. Rejoice and be glad in it. Begin the day with open hands of faith, ready to receive all that I am pouring into this brief portion of your life. Be careful not to complain about anything, even the weather, since I am the Author of your circumstances. The way to handle unwanted situations is to thank Me for them. This act of faith frees you from resentment and frees Me to work My ways into the situation, so that good emerges from it. To find Joy in this day, you must live within its boundaries. I knew what I was doing when I divided time into twenty-four-hour segments. I understand human frailty, and I know that you can bear the weight of only one day at a time. Do not worry about tomorrow or get stuck in the past. There is abundant Life in My Presence today.
RECOMMENDED BIBLE VERSES: Psalm 118:24 NLT 24 This is the day the LORD has made. We will rejoice and be glad in it.
Philippians 3:13-14 NLT 13 No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, 14 I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us.
Today’s Prayer:
Dear Heavenly Father,
On this day that You have lovingly crafted, I come before You with an open heart and hands of faith and belief. Help me to receive Your blessings with gratitude, trusting in Your vision for my life.
Grant me the grace to refrain from complaining by recognizing Your sovereignty in every circumstance. May my gratitude pave the way for Your transformative power to work many wonders in my life.
Guide me to embrace the present moment by understanding my human limitations. Let me not be consumed by the past or anxious about the future. Instead, let me find abundant life in Your presence here and now.
As I journey through this day, may I rejoice in Your creation and remain steadfast in pursuing Your purpose for me. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Sisters and brothers, especially those of you experiencing pain and sorrow, your silent cry has been heard and your tears have been counted; not one of them has been lost!… The resurrection of Jesus is indeed the basis of our hope. For in the light of this event, hope is no longer an illusion…. That hope is not an evasion, but a challenge; it does not delude, but empowers us. —Pope Francis (1936–2025), “Urbi Et Orbi,” Easter, 2025
Father Richard shares how we can receive the miracle of new life by embracing our own difficulties and “deaths” as Jesus did.
Death is not only physical dying. Death also means going to the full depths of things, hitting the bottom, going beyond where we’re in control. In that sense, we all go through many deaths in our lives, tipping points when we have to ask, “What am I going to do?” Many people turn bitter, look for someone to blame, and close down. Their “death” is indeed death for them because there is no room for growth after that. But when we go into the full depths and death of anything—even, ironically, the depths of our own sin—we can come out the other side transformed, more alive, more open, more forgiving of ourselves and others. And when we come out the other side, we know that we’ve been led there. We’re not holding on; we’re being held by a larger force, by a larger source that is not our own. That’s what it means to be saved! It means that we’ve walked through the mystery of transformation.
The miracle of it all—if we are to speak of miracles—is that God has found the most ingenious way to transform the human soul. God uses the very thing that would normally destroy us—the tragic, the sorrowful, the painful, the unjust deaths that lead us all to the bottom of our lives—to transform us. There it is, in one sentence. Are we prepared to trust that?
Jesus’ death and resurrection is a statement of how reality works all the time and everywhere. He teaches us that there’s a different way to live with our pain, our sadness, and our suffering. We can say, “Woe is me,” and feel sorry for ourselves, or we can say, “God is even in this.”
None of us crosses over this gap from death to new life by our own effort, our own merit, our own purity, or our own perfection. Each of us—from pope to president, from princess to peasant—is carried across by unearned grace. Worthiness is never the ticket, only deep desire. With that desire the tomb is always, finally empty, as Mary Magdalene discovered on Easter morning. Death cannot win. We’re finally indestructible when we recognize that the thing which could destroy us is the very thing that could enlighten us.
Friends, the Easter feast is a reminder to all of us to open our eyes and our ears and to witness what is happening all around us, all the time, everywhere. God’s one and only job description is to turn death into life. That’s what God does with every new springtime, every new life, every new season, every new anything. God is the one who always turns death into life, and no one who trusts in this God will ever be put to shame (Psalm 25:3).
APR 23, 2025 The Resurrection Means Matter Matters
Gnosticism is an ancient heresy that is still very much alive today. The Gnostics were false teachers in the early church who were deeply influenced by Greek philosophy and knowledge that exalted the spiritual and condemned the material. They taught that intangible things like the souls, spirits, and wisdom were divine, while the physical world, bodies, and matter were inherently evil. When this Greek understanding was mixed with Christianity, it led to some troubling ideas—chiefly that Jesus’ incarnation was just an illusion because God, who is spirit, would never inhabit something as evil and corruptible as a human body. Of course, with no body, Jesus could not have died on the cross, and if he never died, there’s no reason to believe in his physical resurrection. The Apostle John was targeting this Gnostic heresy when he wrote that every spirit that does not acknowledge that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh “is the spirit of the antichrist” (1 John 4:2-3). Not only did Gnosticism deny the core message of the gospel, it also permitted all manner of sexual immorality and debauchery. After all, if our physical bodies don’t matter because God is only interested in our immaterial souls, then neither does what we do with them. Today, Gnosticism remains a common false teaching among Christians, although it manifests very differently. Many Christians still assume God cares only about souls and spirits, and that the physical world and our bodies don’t ultimately matter. This subtle form of Gnosticism is often reinforced with unbiblical visions of the afterlife occupied by disincarnate spirits in a celestial heaven. And within evangelical communities, Gnosticism has been supported by “purity culture,” which spotlights the dangers of sexuality and implicitly communicates the inherent evil of the body and its desires. Taken together, this focus on “saving souls” and avoiding the “temptations of the flesh” has made pop Christianity into a kind of neo-Gnosticism that celebrates the spiritual and condemns the physical.But this understanding contradicts everything the New Testament says about Jesus’ ministry and his miracles. If he were only concerned with saving souls, why did Jesus spend so much time healing bodies? And if physical matter isn’t part of God’s redemptive plan, why does the New Testament aggressively and repeatedly emphasize the physical resurrection of Jesus? Yesterday, we saw that his resurrection is identified as the “first fruits” or the prototype for the rest of God’s salvation. Paul says that our bodies will also be raised, transformed, and glorified like his when Christ returns. And the physical creation itself will share in this glory and be set free from its captivity to death and decay (Romans 8:20-21). In other words, the physical reality of Jesus’ resurrection is why we believe in our physical salvation and the physical salvation of the world. Put simply, the bodily resurrection of Jesus means matter matters.This has huge implications for our lives and callings as Christians. It means we must reject both the overt and subtle forms of Gnosticism that infect our faith, like the tendency to celebrate vocations that care for souls and focus on heaven, and dismiss vocations that care for bodies and the earth. And uprooting the assumption in many Christian communities that God cares about the next world but has given up on this one, or that a spiritually mature Christian must transcend their body and its weaknesses to occupy a realm of ideas, theology, and knowledge alone. Too many of us live as if God created the heavens and the earth and then retired into full-time ministry. The resurrection reveals that God cares about all of his creation—both the material and the spiritual—and he is redeeming all of it.
Christ is Risen: The world below lies desolate Christ is Risen: The spirits of evil are fallen Christ is Risen: The angels of God are rejoicing Christ is Risen: The tombs of the dead are empty Christ is Risen indeed from the dead, the first of the sleepers, Glory and power are his forever and ever. Amen.
Mary [of Magdala] stood weeping outside the tomb…. Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” Jesus said to her, “Mary.” She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni,” which means Teacher. —John 20:11, 15–16
In her homily at the 2019 CAC Universal Christ conference, Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis reminds us that we are each called by the resurrected Christ who knows us by name:
Mary is the first preacher in the gospel ... not because she recognizes Jesus, but because he knows her, and what she can do, and what she’s got to give. Amen. In the moment of speaking and seeing, in the moment of revelation and connection, there is a passing on, an apostolic succession, that goes to this woman on the outside of her society, who has no status, no stature, except that Jesus sees her, and knows who she is, and whose she is.
So, my friends, Jesus sees you. The Christ knows you. The Christ knows you even when you don’t know the Christ. Do you understand what I mean? You are known. You are seen. You are loved. You are baptized into the work of the Living God, and you are catechized into the work of the Holy [Spirit], which is no less than the healing of the world. This is your job, too. You’re not preaching the first sermon. That’s happened already, but you’ve got sermons to preach. I have seen the Lord, because you have.…
I have seen the crucified Body of Christ in all those places: in Indigenous people, in the broken heart of Mama Earth, in the brown bodies on the border, in the Black bodies languishing in prisons, I have seen the Lord in the struggling transwoman coming out…. I have seen the Lord in the teen who doesn’t know how to tell his pastor he’s queer. I have seen the Lord in the woman wrestling with the decisions about her body. I’ve seen the Lord in divorcing couples. I’ve seen the Lord in the troubled ones all over my life. I’ve seen the Lord, and I’m going to tell you about it. My job is to speak the truth to power. That’s your calling and mine: To listen deeply to the hearts of those who are languishing, to listen for their hopes, dreams, passions, fears, to love the hell out of them and to speak the truth.
Christ is everywhere. Christ is in all things. We are all one. When you’re hungry, my stomach growls. When someone chops down a tree, I’m cut. When the oceans are being poisoned, I feel thirsty for something different. This is our calling, because we’ve been ordained, just like Mary, by the One who knows all about us. I’m inviting you to look in the mirror and see yourself. Recognize yourself as deputized by the Living God. Amen.
…… from Chuck DeGroat author of Healing What’s Within
How I’m Straining To See Easter Light Amidst The Darkness
The older I get, the more I experience much of the talk about hope as cheap.
The promises of politicians with their visions of greatness feel vacuous.
The motivational pep talks of many preachers ring hollow.
The older I get, the more my eyes must strain toward a glimpse of hope – not the kind peddled in slogans or applause lines, but a hope that rises, quietly, from the compost of loss.
A hope born not in bypassing death, but in walking through it.
A hope that pulses from deeper soil.
Gerard Manley Hopkins is a poet who I return to in times like this. His God’s Grandeur stings with its honest account of (late 19th century) modern life:
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.
Life’s monotony is felt-through in his repetition of “trod” – the lifeless routine, the pervading automaticity of so of much what we do.
His prophetic musing of a life “seared with trade” speaks of an earth desecrated by human exploitation. Our feet insulated from the soil of God’s green earth, where we might even spot (or feel with our toes!) life springing anew.
Humans dulled by utility and noise.
It’s a cry from the heart for ecological and spiritual renewal.
And yet, he continues:
And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
Here’s the hinge – the resurrection turn.
Despite everything, creation is not exhausted.
Even beneath the scars, there is an abiding freshness, a sacred resilience. Places of refugia, as author Deb Rienstra reminds us – sacred sanctuaries where life abides, even when death surrounds it.
I’m straining to bear witness to the light in spring rhythms of Resurrection, even as the first seeds sprout out of death and decomposition, even if my tired eyes can barely see the new, greening tree buds after a long Michigan winter. As St. John says, “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone. But if it dies, it bears much fruit.” (John 12:24)
I’m allowing myself to pause for a moment when I hear the loud, trumpeting call of a sandhill crane migrating back home again after snow-birding down south for the winter.
As I’m sitting with counseling clients, I’m remembering that so much of the work is ultimately a letting go of what no longer serves. A synaptic pruning is afoot – neural pathways weakening and dying off as new, pathways-of-hope come online. Our brains a testimony to Resurrection life. The tears and fresh smiles of my clients testimonies of renewal and goodness.
I’m reminding myself that this is the pattern – the ancient way of ego death, the dark night before the dawn. The spiritual life is cruciform, inviting us to die to illusions so that we may rise in love.
I’m recalling the biblical politics of death-to-life – how Ezekiel 26-28 and Isa. 23 describe Tyre and Sidon as powerful cities, symbols of wealth and imperial arrogance, ultimately worshipping the gods of economic and spiritual self-sufficiency. The fall of these kingdoms represent the vacuousness of a particular vision of human flourishing, one we’re too-familiar with today.
And I’m bearing witness to John-the-Revelator’s apocalytic vision of Babylon-fallen in Rev. 18 – a vision that ultimately indicts Rome amidst its injustices, too – reminding us that empires that exploit the weak and seduce human beings with promises of wealth and power will be revealed as empty and powerless.
I’m straining to see what Isaiah sees:
“See, I will create new heavens and a new earth. The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind. 18 But be glad and rejoice forever in what I will create, for I will create Jerusalem to be a delight and its people a joy. 19 I will rejoice over Jerusalem and take delight in my people; the sound of weeping and of crying will be heard in it no more. 21 They will build houses and dwell in them; they will plant vineyards and eat their fruit. For as the days of a tree, so will be the days of my people; my chosen ones will long enjoy the work of their hands. 23 They will not labor in vain, nor will they bear children doomed to misfortune; for they will be a people blessed by the Lord, they and their descendants with them. 24 Before they call I will answer; while they are still speaking I will hear. 25 The wolf and the lamb will feed together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox, and dust will be the serpent’s food. They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain,” says the Lord.” (portions of Isa. 65)
Don’t you, like me, long to see?
And so we look and listen, with Hopkins:
And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things.
In his homily on Easter Sunday 2019, Father Richard Rohr shared the good news of the resurrection:
The Brazilian writer and journalist Fernando Sabino wrote, “In the end, everything will be all right. If it’s not all right, it’s not the end.” [1] That’s what today is all about: “Everything will be okay in the end.”
The message of Easter is not primarily a message about Jesus’ body, although we’ve been taught to limit it to this one-time “miracle.” We’ve been educated to expect a lone, risen Jesus saying, “I rose from the dead; look at me!” I’m afraid that’s why many people, even Christians, don’t really seem to get too excited about Easter. If the message doesn’t somehow include us, humans don’t tend to be that interested in theology. Let me share what I think the real message is: Every message about Jesus is a message about all of us, about humanity. Sadly, the Western church that most of us were raised in emphasized the individual resurrection of Jesus. It was a miracle that we could neither prove nor experience, but that we just dared to boldly believe.
But there’s a great secret, at least for Western Christians, hidden in the other half of the universal church. In the Eastern Orthodox Church—in places like Syria, Turkey, Greece, and Egypt—Easter is not usually painted with a solitary Jesus rising from the dead. He’s always surrounded by crowds of people—both haloed and unhaloed. In fact, in traditional icons, he’s pulling people out of Hades. Hades isn’t the same as hell, although we put the two words together, and so we grew up reciting in the creed that “Jesus descended into hell.”
Instead, Hades is simply the place of the dead. There’s no punishment or judgment involved. It’s just where a soul waits for God. But we neglected that interpretation. The Eastern Church was probably much closer to the truth that the resurrection is a message about humanity and all creation. It’s a message about history. It’s a corporate message, and it includes you and me and everyone else. If that isn’t true, it’s no wonder that we basically lost interest.
Today is the feast of hope, direction, purpose, meaning, and community. We’re all in this together. The cynicism and negativity that our country and many other countries have descended into show a clear example of what happens when people do not have hope. If it’s all hopeless, we individually lose hope too. Easter is an announcement of a common hope. When we sing in the Easter hymn that Christ destroyed death, that means the death of all of us. It’s not just about Jesus; God promises to all, “Life is not ended, it merely changes,” as we say in the funeral liturgy. That’s what happened in Jesus, and that’s what will happen in us. In the end, everything will be all right. History is set on an inherently positive and hopeful tangent.
An Example for Us All
In this Easter message, Richard Rohr teaches that Jesus’ resurrection is a universal pattern we can trust:
Let’s try to get to what I think is something basic, because the basic is beautiful, but to most people, it’s utterly new.
We got into trouble when we made the person and the message of Jesus into a formal religion, whereby we had an object of worship; then we had to have a priesthood, formal rules and rituals. I’m not saying we should throw those things out, but once we emphasize cult and moral code, we have a religion. When we emphasize experience, unitive experience, we have the world Jesus is moving around in. Once we made Jesus into a form of religion, we projected the whole message onto him alone. He died, he suffered, he rose from the dead, he ascended and returned to God. We thought that by celebrating these wonderful feasts like Easter that this somehow meant that we were members of the club.
But you know what? I’m quite sure that was not intended as the message! Jesus was not the lone exemplar. Jesus was not the standalone symbol for the pattern of the universe. Resurrection is just the way things work! When we say hallelujah on this Easter morning, we’re also saying hallelujah to our own lives, to where they’re going, to what we believe in, and hope for.
Reality rolls through cycles of death and resurrection, death and resurrection, death and resurrection. In the raising up of Jesus, we’re assured that this is the pattern for everything—that we, and anybody who is suffering—is also going to be raised up. This is what God does for a suffering reality. What we crucify, what reality crucifies, God transforms. I don’t think it’s naive to say hallelujah. We have every reason, especially now, since biology and science are also saying this seems to be the shape of everything. It just keeps changing form, meaning, focus or direction, but nothing totally goes away.
Of course, it’s an act of faith on our side. In our experience, our most cherished people, pets, and even places, fade away—but Jesus is the archetype of the shape of the universe. To believe in Jesus is to believe that all of this is going somewhere and that God is going to make it so. All we have to do is stay on the train, stay on the wave, trusting that by our crucifixions, we would be allowed to fail, fumble and die, and be transformed by grace and by God.
Easter is the great feast of the triumph of universal grace, the triumph of universal salvation, not just the salvation of the body of Jesus. What we’re talking about creates a people of hope, and a culture of hope that doesn’t slip into cynicism and despair. Easter is saying, we don’t need to go there. Love is going to win. Life is going to win. Grace is going to win. Hallelujah!
Throughout his papacy, and despite the vast differences between our lives, I always felt a profound spiritual kinship with him. And I’ve been deeply grateful that he was a moral leader with a unique and important call and message for global community in these days.
I will pray for him and for the Catholic Church in these hard and holy days. If you are a praying person, I hope you will, too. Who is the leader of the world’s Catholics is important — especially important in these days of authoritarian cruelty.
It is obvious Pope Francis understood that. He didn’t shy away from that responsibility in his final writings and remarks.
As the commemorations spread in the news and online, you will probably see many comments on his final remarks to the crowd in St. Peter’s Square, “Urbi et Orbi” (“To the City and to the World”). The address is a small masterwork in theology and politics — as so many of Pope Francis’ addresses have been:
The light of Easter impels us to break down the barriers that create division and are fraught with grave political and economic consequences. It impels us to care for one another, to increase our mutual solidarity, and to work for the integral development of each human person…
I appeal to all those in positions of political responsibility in our world not to yield to the logic of fear which only leads to isolation from others, but rather to use the resources available to help the needy, to fight hunger and to encourage initiatives that promote development. These are the “weapons” of peace: weapons that build the future, instead of sowing seeds of death!
You probably will NOT see, however, Pope Francis’ final sermon, one he wrote but was spoken on his behalf at the Easter mass in addition to his public remarks.
The Pope’s final sermon began with the words, “Mary Magdalene.”
The entire sermon is beautiful — and I found it spiritually stunning. In it, Pope Francis elevated Mary Magdalene to the same status (maybe even a higher status!) as Peter and John, the two most significant disciples. Some of this happens “between the lines,” but there’s a lot happening theologically in this homily. He transformed the witness of two into a triad of three, lifting her (he continually lists her first) as a model for the entire church and faithful discipleship.
Mary Magdalene, seeing that the stone of the tomb had been rolled away, ran to tell Peter and John. After receiving the shocking news, the two disciples also went out and — as the Gospel says — “the two were running together” (Jn 20:4). The main figures of the Easter narratives all ran! On the one hand, “running” could express the concern that the Lord’s body had been taken away; but, on the other hand, the haste of Mary Magdalene, Peter and John expresses the desire, the yearning of the heart, the inner attitude of those who set out to search for Jesus. He, in fact, has risen from the dead and therefore is no longer in the tomb. We must look for him elsewhere.
This is the message of Easter: we must look for him elsewhere. Christ is risen, he is alive! He is no longer a prisoner of death, he is no longer wrapped in the shroud, and therefore we cannot confine him to a fairy tale, we cannot make him a hero of the ancient world, or think of him as a statue in a museum! On the contrary, we must look for him and this is why we cannot remain stationary. We must take action, set out to look for him: look for him in life, look for him in the faces of our brothers and sisters, look for him in everyday business, look for him everywhere except in the tomb.
We must look for him without ceasing. Because if he has risen from the dead, then he is present everywhere, he dwells among us, he hides himself and reveals himself even today in the sisters and brothers we meet along the way, in the most ordinary and unpredictable situations of our lives. He is alive and is with us always, shedding the tears of those who suffer and adding to the beauty of life through the small acts of love carried out by each of us.
For this reason, our Easter faith, which opens us to the encounter with the risen Lord and prepares us to welcome him into our lives, is anything but a complacent settling into some sort of “religious reassurance.” On the contrary, Easter spurs us to action, to run like Mary Magdalene and the disciples; it invites us to have eyes that can “see beyond,” to perceive Jesus, the one who lives, as the God who reveals himself and makes himself present even today, who speaks to us, goes before us, surprises us. Like Mary Magdalene, every day we can experience losing the Lord, but every day we can also run to look for him again, with the certainty that he will allow himself to be found and will fill us with the light of his resurrection.
Today, Pope Francis ran into the tender embrace of a loving God.
This is the beginning of the Easter season. May we who are Christians, run toward Jesus, the one risen liberating love. Like Mary Magdalene.
May we find the arms of God wide open. And may we open our arms to the newness of life offered in the embrace, embracing all others with that same love.
May we follow Christ through and inspired by Mary Magdalene.
In the final prayer he wrote for the Easter mass, may we find ourselves in Pope Francis’ holy hope:
Sisters, brothers, in the wonder of the Easter faith, carrying in our hearts every expectation of peace and liberation, we can say: with You, O Lord, everything is new. With you, everything begins again.
It is worth noting that Pope Francis continually re-imagined and re-presented Mary Magdalene over the course of his papacy. As recently as February, in a Jubilee audience at the Vatican, he held her up as the model of discipleshipand transformation for a “new world.”
The jubilee is for people and for the Earth a new beginning; everything must be rethought within the dream of God.
— Pope Francis
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Breaking through the powers of darkness bursting from the stifling tomb he slipped into the graveyard garden to smell the blossomed air.
Tell them, Mary, Jesus said, that I have journeyed far into the darkest deeps I’ve been in nights without a star.
Tell them, Mary, Jesus said, that fear will flee my light that though the ground will tremble and despair will stalk the earth I hold them firmly by the hand through terror to new birth.
Tell them, Mary, Jesus said, the globe and all that’s made is clasped to God’s great bosom they must not be afraid for though they fall and die, he said, and the black earth wrap them tight they will know the warmth of God’s healing hands in the early morning light.
Tell them, Mary, Jesus said, smelling the blossomed air, tell my people to rise with me to heal the Earth’s despair.
Love has triumphed over hatred, light over darkness and truth over falsehood. Forgiveness has triumphed over revenge. Evil has not disappeared from history; it will remain until the end, but it no longer has the upper hand; it no longer has power over those who accept the grace of this day.
Sisters and brothers, especially those of you experiencing pain and sorrow, your silent cry has been heard and your tears have been counted; not one of them has been lost! In the passion and death of Jesus, God has taken upon himself all the evil in this world and in his infinite mercy has defeated it. He has uprooted the diabolical pride that poisons the human heart and wreaks violence and corruption on every side.
— “URBI ET ORBI” MESSAGE OF HIS HOLINESS POPE FRANCIS Easter 2025
Father Richard Rohr invites us to consider how loving surrender leads to softened hearts.
It is true that each of us will die, and yet “I am certain of this, neither death nor life, nothing that exists, nothing still to come, not any power, not any height nor depth, nor any created thing can ever come between us and the love of God” (Romans 8:38–39).
On Good Friday, we lament Jesus’ death while living in hope that death does not have the last word on our destiny. We are born with a longing, desire, and deep hope that this thing called life could somehow last forever. It is a premonition from something eternal that is already within us. Some would call it the soul. Christians would call it the indwelling presence of God. It is God within us that makes us desire and seek God.
Yes, we are going to die, but we have already been given a kind of inner guarantee and promise right now that death is not final—and it takes the form of love. Deep in the heart and psyche, love, both human and divine, connotes something eternal and gratuitous, and it does so in a deeply mysterious and compelling way. We see this in simple acts of love in the everyday and in times of crisis. Isn’t it amazing how a small act of love or gratitude can imprint a deeper knowing on our soul? [1]
The crucifixion of Jesus is the preeminent example of God’s love reaching out to us. It is at the same moment the worst and best thing in human history. The Franciscans, led by John Duns Scotus, even claimed that instead of a “necessary sacrifice,”the cross was a freely chosen revelation of total love on God’s part.
In so doing, they reversed the engines of almost all world religion up to that point, which assumed that we had to spill blood to get to a distant and demanding God. On the cross, the Franciscans believed, God was “spilling blood” to reach out to us! This is a sea change in consciousness. The cross, instead of being a transaction, was seen as a dramatic demonstration of God’s outpouring love, meant to utterly shock the heart and turn it back toward trust and love of the Creator. [2]
I believe that the cross is an image for our own time and every time: We are invited to gaze upon the image of the crucified Jesus to soften our hearts toward all suffering. The cross beckons us to what we would call “grief work,” holding the mystery of pain, looking right at it, and learning from it.Withsoftened hearts, God leads us to an uncanny and newfound compassion and understanding. [3]
“But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” — Romans 5:8 (NIV)
On this solemn day—Good Friday—we remember the darkest, most beautiful moment in human history: the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. It is a day of mourning, but also of immeasurable love—a love that knows no bounds, no limits, no conditions.
Unfettered loveis love without restriction. It isn’t cautious or calculating. It doesn’t wait for us to be ready or worthy. It moves first, reaches far, and gives all.
That is the love Jesus poured out on the cross.
He didn’t wait for the world to understand or appreciate His sacrifice. He didn’t require our obedience before He laid down His life. He saw our brokenness, our rebellion, our need—and still, He stretched out His arms in total surrender.
This is the love that speaks louder than words: A love that bleeds. A love that forgives. A love that redeems.
Reflection:
Take a moment today to sit in the weight of the cross—not in guilt, but in awe. Christ didn’t go to the cross because we deserved it. He went because His love couldn’t be contained. It was too wild, too powerful, too holy to be held back by fear, rejection, or even death.
What kind of King dies for His enemies?
Only One—Jesus, whose love is unfettered.
Prayer:
Lord Jesus, Today I stand before Your cross, overwhelmed by the depth of Your love. You gave everything for me—not because I earned it, but because You are love itself. Thank You for not holding anything back. Help me to love like You—freely, fiercely, and without conditions. Let Your unfettered love fill my heart today and always. Amen.
Meditation Prompt:
How might your life look different if you fully embraced the truth that you are loved—without restraint, without condition, without end?
The distinction is subtle and yet substantial. A relationship based on love not leverage? I suspect that in the right relationship with You, our desire is not for heaven or blessings or rescue. You do not desire a relationship based on what You can and will do for us, but a relationship based on Your love. All else will follow and is incidental to our relationship.
And God says…” You are starting to understand the relationship I want with you. The relationship I desired when I first created Adam, and the relationship I enjoy with My Son. I understand your needs and I will meet all your needs…but I seek a relationship based on love, not wants or needs. The depth of My sacrifice is a testimony to My love for you. And I give you My love freely, without reservation or requirement. Simply accept My love and the sacrifice of Jesus. Come and rest in relationship with Me.”
Surrender is the discovery that we are in a river of love and that we float without having to do anything. —David Benner, Surrender to Love
Father Richard Rohr considers how surrender is simply accepting the reality that we are not in control:
If we cannot control life and death, why do we spend so much time trying to control smaller outcomes? Call it destiny, providence, guidance, synchronicity, or coincidence, but people who are connected to the Source do not need to steer their own life and agenda. They know that it is being done for them in a much better way than they ever could. Those who hand themselves over are received, and the flow happens through them. Those who don’t relinquish control are still received, but they significantly slow down the natural flow of Spirit.
When we set ourselves up to think we deserve, expect, or need certain things to happen, we are setting ourselves up for constant unhappiness and a final inability to enjoy or at least allow what is going to happen anyway. After a while, we find ourselves resisting almost everything at some level. It is a terrible way to live. Giving up control is a school to learn union, compassion, and understanding. It isultimately a school for the final lettinggo that we call death. Right now, as we face social uncertainty, economic fragility, and the vulnerability of our own bodies, is there something deeper that we can surrender to, that can ground us in disruption?
Surrendering to the divine flow is not about giving in, capitulating, becoming a puppet, being naïve, being irresponsible, or stopping all planning and thinking. Surrender is about a peaceful inner opening that keeps the conduit of living water flowing to love. [1]
I am confident in this: every time we surrender to love, we have also just chosen to die. Every time we let love orient us, we are letting go of ourselves as an autonomous unit and have given a bit of ourselves away to something or someone else, and it is not easily retrieved—unless we choose to stop loving—which many do. But even then, when that expanded self wants to retreat back into itself, it realizes it is trapped in a much larger truth now. And love wins again. [2]
Jesus surely had a dozen good reasons why he should not have had to die so young, so unsuccessful at that point, and the Son of God besides! By becoming the Passover Lamb, plus the foot-washing servant, Jesus makes God’s love human, personal, clear, and quite concrete. Jesus is handed over to the religious and political powers-that-be, and we must be handed over to God from our power, privilege, and need for control. Otherwise, we will never grow up or participate in the mystery of God and love. It really is about “passing over” to a deeper faith and life. [3]
I am training you in steadiness. Too many things interrupt your awareness of Me. I know that you live in a world of sight and sound, but you must not be a slave to those stimuli. Awareness of Me can continue in all circumstances, no matter what happens. This is the steadiness I desire for you. Don’t let unexpected events throw you off course. Rather, respond calmly and confidently, remembering that I am with you. As soon as something grabs your attention, talk with Me about it. Thus I share your joys and your problems; I help you cope with whatever is before you. This is how I live in you and work through you. This is the way of Peace.
RECOMMENDED BIBLE VERSES: Psalm 112:7 NLT 7 They do not fear bad news; they confidently trust the LORD to care for them.
Isaiah 41:10 NLT 10 Don’t be afraid, for I am with you. Don’t be discouraged, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you. I will hold you up with my victorious right hand.
Additional insight regarding Isaiah 41:10: All believers are God’s chosen people, and all share the responsibility of representing Him to the world. One day God will bring all his faithful people together. We need not fear because (1) God is with us (“I am with you”); (2) God has established a relationship with us (“I am your God”); and (3) God gives us assurance of his strength, help, and victory over sin and death. Are you aware of all the ways God has helped you?
Today’s Prayer:
Lord,
Train me in steadiness to maintain awareness of Your presence amidst life’s countless distractions. Help me not to be thrown off course by unexpected events but to respond calmly and confidently, knowing You are with me and that You are in control. Let me share my joys and problems with You, experiencing Your peace in every moment—the kind of peace that surpasses all understanding. Amen.
Author bell hooks (1952–2021) considers the biblical call to surrender, so we might be healed by love:
It is difficult to wait. No doubt that is why biblical scriptures urge the seeker to learn how to wait, for waiting renews our strength. When we surrender to the “wait” we allow changes to emerge within us without anticipation or struggle. When we do this we are stepping out, on faith. In Buddhist terms this practice of surrender, of letting go, makes it possible for us to enter a space of compassion where we can feel sympathy for ourselves and others….
Redemptive love lures us and calls us toward the possibility of healing. We cannot account for the presence of the heart’s knowledge. Like all great mysteries, we are all mysteriously called to love no matter the conditions of our lives, the degree of our depravity or despair. The persistence of this call gives us reason to hope…. Renewing our faith in love’s promise, hope is our covenant.…
To return to love, to know perfect love, we surrender the will to power. It is this revelation that makes the scriptures on perfect love so prophetic and revolutionary for our times. We cannot know love if we remain unable to surrender our attachment to power, if any feeling of vulnerability strikes terror in our hearts. Lovelessness torments.
As our cultural awareness of the ways we are seduced away from love, away from the knowledge that love heals gains recognition, our anguish intensifies. But so does our yearning. The space of our lack is also the space of possibility. As we yearn, we make ourselves ready to receive the love that is coming to us, as gift, as promise, as earthly paradise.[1]
Brian McLaren describes how healing occurs when we release our need for supremacy, certainty, and control.
The more we hear the sound of the genuine, the more the deepest habits of our hearts are renovated and remodeled in the way of love, and the more supremacy loses its appeal.… We surrender the supremacy of our ego, our self-centered demands for power, pleasure, prestige, prominence. We surrender the supremacy of our group, whether that group is defined by religion, race, politics, nationality, economic class, social status, or whatever. We even surrender the supremacy of our species, realizing that humans can’t survive and thrive unless the plankton and trees, the soil and bees, and the climate and seas thrive too. We gladly shed supremacy to make room for solidarity. That gain, we discover, is worth every cost….
As the desire to dominate slips through our fingers, something in us dies…. But in the letting go, something new comes, is born, begins, grows: a sense of connection, of not-aloneness, of communion and union and belonging. We descend from the ladders and pedestals we have erected, and we rejoin the community of creation, the network of shalom…. The loss is no small thing, ah, but the gain is incomparably greater.
From Curt Thompson, a Christian Counselor who deals with the issues we are studying this week….
Dear Friend,
As we walk together through Holy Week, we are invited once more into the mystery of Lent—a season of reflection, repentance, and preparation for the joy of Easter.
This time of year has long been about naming our sin, our sorrow, and our longing. But perhaps more than anything, it invites us to name our grief. Lent draws us into the wilderness Jesus himself entered—the place where desire, temptation, and suffering are confronted, not with avoidance, but with honesty and trust in the presence of God.
The more I sit with this season, the more I sense how deeply Lent mirrors the inner patterns of our lives. Beneath our sin lies desire—and beneath that, often, unacknowledged grief. When we begin to untangle these layers, we find that it is not just repentance we need, but healing. Not just confession, but comfort.
Desire is not inherently bad. In fact, it is core to our humanity. But when our desires are unmet or misdirected—when we stop believing that God will give us what we need—we often take matters into our own hands. We grasp instead of receive. We cope instead of grieve. And in doing so, we unknowingly deepen the ache in our souls.
This ache—this grief—can feel overwhelming. For many of us, it’s been tucked away for so long we hardly know where to begin. And yet, the Gospel reminds us that Jesus does not avoid our grief. He draws near to it. In John 11, Jesus is moved not by theological explanations, but by Mary’s tears. Her honest, unfiltered sorrow brings him to his own tears—and then, to action.
This is the invitation of Holy Week: to follow Mary’s lead. To allow ourselves to feel, to grieve, to long—and to bring all of it into the presence of Jesus.
In the days ahead, I encourage you to create space to ask the deeper questions:
What grief am I carrying that I have not fully named?
What longing has gone unmet for so long that I’ve stopped believing it matters?
What sin in my life is really a cry for something good that I’ve tried to secure on my own terms?
Jesus is not afraid of these questions. He welcomes them. And more importantly, he welcomes you.
May this week be marked by sacred honesty, compassionate presence, and courageous hope. And may the One who weeps with you also be the One who calls you forth to life.
Episcopal priest and CAC faculty emeritus Cynthia Bourgeault describes how we can follow the path of descent Jesus models:
In Jesus everything hangs together around a single center of gravity…. In Greek the verb kenosein means “to let go,” or “to empty oneself,” and this is the word Paul chooses at the key moment in his celebrated teaching in Philippians 2:5–11 in order to describe what “the mind of Christ” is all about….
In this beautiful hymn, Paul recognizes that Jesus had only one “operational mode.” Everything he did, he did by self-emptying. He emptied himself and descended into human form. And he emptied himself still further (“even unto death on the cross”) and fell through the bottom to return to the realms of dominion and glory. In whatever life circumstance, Jesus always responded with the same motion of self-emptying—or to put it another way, with the same motion of descent: going lower, taking the lower place, not the higher….
It is a path he himself walked to the very end. In the garden of Gethsemane, with his betrayers and accusers massing at the gates, he struggled and anguished but remained true to his course. Do not hoard, do not cling—not even to life itself. Let it go, let it be—“Not my will but yours be done, O Lord. Into your hands I commend my spirit.”
Thus he came and thus he went, giving himself fully into life and death, losing himself, squandering himself, “gambling away every gift God bestows.” It was not love stored up but love utterly poured out that opened the gates to the Kingdom of Heaven.
Over and over, Jesus lays this path before us. There is nothing to be renounced or resisted. Everything can be embraced, but the catch is to cling to nothing. You let it go. You go through life like a knife goes through a done cake, picking up nothing, clinging to nothing, sticking to nothing. And grounded in that fundamental chastity of your being, you can then throw yourself out, pour yourself out, being able to give it all back, even giving back life itself. That’s the kenotic path in a nutshell. Very, very simple. It only costs everything. [1]
Depth psychologist and contemplative author David Benner considers Jesus a model of surrendering to God’s will:
Christ is the epitome of life lived with willingness. “Your will be done,” he prayed in what we call the Lord’s Prayer (Matthew 6:10). And more than just in prayer, he lived this posture of preferring God’s will to his own. Christian spirituality is following Christ in this self-abandonment. It is following his example of willing surrender….
The abundant life promised us in Christ comes not from grasping but from releasing. It comes not from striving but from relinquishing. It comes not so much from taking as from giving. Surrender is the foundational dynamic of Christian freedom—surrender of my efforts to live my life outside of the grasp of God’s love and surrender to God’s will and gracious Spirit. [2]
Our vocations—our everyday jobs, responsibilities, and societal roles—are sacred callings in which we are meant to glorify God and serve others. Whether someone is a teacher or technician, stay-at-home parent or CEO, every disciple of Jesus can actively participate in His Kingdom mission through their vocation.
Dismantling the Sacred vs. Secular Divide
A long-standing misconception in the church is that ministry is inherently more spiritual than a so-called “secular job.” Thankfully, this thinking is fading, especially among younger generations who are eager to see their work tied to eternal purpose.
Martin Luther argued that the idea that only clergy served God was “the worst trick of the devil.” Instead, he insisted that cobblers, smiths, and farmers were as consecrated as priests when they served their neighbor through their trade.
Luther and the Reformers emphasized that all vocations—from parenting to farming, teaching to governing—are ways God serves humanity through His people. Gene Edward Veith later expanded on this, showing that when we pray for daily bread, God answers through farmers, truck drivers, and grocers. When we need healing, He often works through doctors and nurses. When we learn or grow, He uses teachers, pastors, mentors, and friends.
As Jack Hayford put it, the divide is not between sacred and secular in God’s mind. It’s between light and darkness. God wants to “seed the Earth” with sons and daughters of light—in every arena of culture.
Redefining Vocation: From Job to Calling
The English word “vocation” stems from the Latin word vocatio, meaning “calling.” In this sense, your vocation is far more than your job title or career path. It’s a divine invitation to participate with God in His work on Earth.
Luther taught that every believer’s vocation—whether in the home, church, market, or government—was a form of priestly service. We are each placed strategically by God to love our neighbors, meet real needs, and bring His light into every space we inhabit.
William Perkins, a Puritan leader, described calling as “a certain kind of life ordained and imposed on man by God, for the common good.” Veith added that every legitimate kind of work is a “mask of God”—an avenue through which God blesses others, often hidden behind human hands.
When you bring comfort, make decisions, serve others, produce value, or build anything that helps your community—you are partnering with God. Whether you’re a milkmaid or a business owner, it’s all holy ground.
Vocational DNA: Five God-Given Traits
Each field of work—whether education, business, arts, technology, medicine, or beyond—contains:
God-Given Competence – Each vocation comes with gifts and skills that are unique expressions of God’s creativity and power. For example, tech professionals serve by fixing our gadgets, and emergency workers bring order and rescue in moments of crisis.
Distinct Products and Services – Every field contributes real solutions to meet real needs in the world. Fuel workers help power homes and cars. Media professionals inform, inspire, and sometimes even save lives.
Unique Impact Range – Some vocations have wide-reaching influence, like performing artists or politicians. Others are more intimate but no less important, like homeschooling parents or local shopkeepers.
Collaborative Relationships – Each vocation invites teamwork. From surgical units to athletic teams, collaboration builds both friendships and stronger results.
Specialized Mission – Finally, each field has a unique mission to bless others. Government is meant to protect and provide justice. The Church exists to disciple and evangelize. All work done unto the Lord is valuable and has Kingdom impact.
God’s Character on Display in Every Vocation
Technology reveals His omniscience and power. Every notification or GPS signal reminds us of God’s capacity to know and guide.
Creation and Environment reflect His artistry. From the structure of a sunflower to the orbit of the Earth, God reveals Himself as both architect and artist.
Government shows His leadership, justice, and mercy—pointing to the coming Kingdom.
Parenting and Family reflect His nurture, creativity, and loving discipline.
Even construction points back to the Master Builder, who gave Noah detailed blueprints for the ark and called skilled laborers to build the Tabernacle. Every field is a canvas for His glory.
This Is Not Just a Job—It’s God’s Work
Whether you’re leading a company or fixing plumbing, writing code or raising children, your work is a sacred trust. You are God’s representative in your vocation. When you serve with love, excellence, and faithfulness, you bear witness to the One who called you.
This vocational vantage point changes how we think, serve, and lead. It dismantles false divisions, elevates all kinds of work, and invites every follower of Jesus to see their 9-to-5 as an altar of worship. It’s not a career—it’s a calling.
Jesus’ state was divine, yet he did not cling to equality with God, but he emptied himself. —Philippians 2:6–7
Father Richard Rohr reflects on Jesus’ surrender to God through a path of descent:
In the overflow of rich themes on Palm Sunday, I am going to direct us toward the great parabolic movement described in Philippians 2. Most New Testament scholars consider that this was originally a hymn sung in the early Christian community. To give us an honest entranceway, let me offer a life-changing quote from C. G. Jung (1875–1961):
In the secret hour of life’s midday the parabola is reversed, death is born. The second half of life does not signify ascent, unfolding, increase, exuberance, but death, since the end is its goal. The negation of life’s fulfilment is synonymous with the refusal to accept its ending. Both mean not wanting to live, and not wanting to live is identical with not wanting to die. Waxing and waning make one curve. [1]
The hymn from Philippians artistically, honestly, yet boldly describes that “secret hour” Jung refers to, when God in Christ reversed the parabola, when the waxing became waning. It starts with the great self-emptying or kenosis that we call the incarnation and ends with the crucifixion. It brilliantly connects the two mysteries as one movement, down, down, down into the enfleshment of creation, into humanity’s depths and sadness, and into a final identification with those at the very bottom (“took the form of a slave,” Philippians 2:7). Jesus represents God’s total solidarity with, and even love of, the human situation, as if to say, “nothing human is abhorrent to me.”
God, if Jesus is right, has chosen to descend—in almost total counterpoint with our humanity that is always trying to climb, achieve, perform, and prove itself. This hymn says that Jesus leaves the ascent to God, in God’s way, and in God’s time. Most of us understandably start the journey assuming that God is “up there,” and our job is to transcend this world to find God. We spend so much time trying to get “up there,” we miss that God’s big leap in Jesus was to come “down here.” What freedom! And it ends up better than any could have expected. “Because of this, God lifted him up” (Philippians 2:9). We call the “lifting up” resurrection or ascension. Jesus is set as the human blueprint, the oh-so-hopeful pattern of divine transformation.
Trust the down, and God will take care of the up. This leaves humanity in solidarity with the life cycle, and also with one another, with no need to create success stories for ourselves or to create failure stories for others. Humanity in Jesus is free to be human and soulful instead of any false climbing into “Spirit.” This was supposed to change everything, and I trust it still will.
Releasing into New Life
Experiencing loss creates opportunities to practice releasing our attachments to who we think we are. Richard Rohr writes:
Some form of suffering or death—psychological, spiritual, relational, or physical—is the only way we will loosen our ties to our small and separate self. Only then does the larger self appear, which we could call the Risen Christ, the soul, or the true self. The physical process of transformation through dying is expressed eloquently by Kathleen Dowling Singh, who spent her life in hospice work: “The ordinary mind [the false self] and its delusions die in the Nearing Death Experience. As death carries us off, it is impossible to any longer pretend that who we are is our ego. The ego is transformed in the very carrying off.” [1] This is why so many spiritual teachers say we must die before we die.
The overly defended ego is where we reside before these much-needed deaths. The true self (or “soul”) becomes real to us only after we have walked through death and come out much larger and wiser on the other side. This is what we mean by transformation, conversion, or enlightenment. [2]
The civil rights leader Rosemarie Freeney Harding offered a compassionate example of not clinging, even to life itself. Her daughter Rachel recounts how Freeney Harding sat with the dying:
Mama would go sit with the ones who were leaving here. Keep them company. Take food and stories and family and silence, so they could remember something beautiful in their final hours.
Death is not the end of everything. What comes after death is just as important as what comes before. Practice Dharma to leave a strong imprint of positiveness at death.
Knowing too how to make the separation: The last conversation. The last morsel of food. One has to separate completely.
When Daddy [civil rights activist Vincent Harding] died, Mama sat at the side of his bed and he asked her if she would go with him. She whispered to him, “No, fool! Are you crazy?” She was kissing him and crying and holding his hand. She told him no. Everybody tried to make him as comfortable as possible when he passed. But he had to go alone. They were waiting on the other side—Mama Catherine and them—Daddy’s people. My mama knew that.
(In my father’s house are many rooms. I go to prepare a place, that where I am there you may be.) Buddha went ahead to discover what is real. Mama brought reality into our home, gave us an example and sent us into the world to practice. [3]
Richard Rohr concludes:
Anything less than the death of the false self is useless religion. The manufactured false self must die for the true self to live, or as Jesus himself puts it, “Unless I go, the Spirit cannot come” (John 16:7). Theologically speaking, Jesus (a good individual person) had to die for the Christ (the universal presence) to arise. This is the universal pattern of transformation. [4]
Etty Hillesum had every reason to despair. A forward-thinking, Jewish intellectual, Etty Hillesum lived in German-occupied Amsterdam and wrote her now-famous diaries between 1941 and 1943. She witnessed her fellow Jews first singled out and identified by being forced to wear the Star of David on their right arms. She experienced the gradual hatred and intimidation towards Jews by the ever-present Gestapo. She lived through the antisemitic laws that forbade Jews from going to certain grocery stores, which created a curfew. At first, it was not clear where her friends were being transited to, even though rumors of mass murder were in the air. She watched as friends were loaded on trains, and eventually, she and her family were deported to camps in Poland and Germany, meeting death.
What is remarkable about Etty Hillesum is not only her chronicle of the unfolding horror in Amsterdam and beyond but also her resolute, nearly incomprehensible choice to choose life and to choose God as long as she had life. She stared at the blood dripping from Nazi Germany’s dragon’s jaws, and she still danced, to use a metaphor from Canadian folk singer Bruce Cockburn. She wrote about life and death. She wrote about coming to terms with life in the ominous presence of death. And she said:
By ‘coming to terms with life’ I mean: the reality of death has become a definite part of my life; my life has, so to speak, been extended by death, by my looking death in the eye and accepting it… It sounds paradoxical: by excluding death from our life, we cannot live a full life, and by admitting death into our life we expand and enlarge it.
Etty Hillesum and Jesus of Nazareth understood each other, I think. Etty lived as death, in its most brutal incarnation, encroached upon and stole the soul of a country. A twisted and (to use a spiritual diagnosis) demonic regime’s actions resulted in millions of lives killed.
Jesus in John’s gospel likewise dances in dragon’s jaws. He tangoes with the elite temple leaders. These are the leaders who have the power to take his life and eventually do. He provokes them. He disputes with them. He claims authoritative teaching even over their teacher Moses, their guide who had ascended heaven’s heights. He distributes bread in a hungry Roman province. He disregards religion’s rules and claims wholeness and healing for the hurt and wounded. He claims oneness with the source of being, a personal divine reality he names Father; he even dares to extend that oneness to his followers.
He faces plots on his life, such as a narrowly-missed stoning. Despite the disciples’ attempt to point out the obvious: “Rabbi, the Jews (Judean temple elites) were just now trying to stone you, and are you going to go there again?” (John 11:8), he goes Jerusalem’s outskirts again. He knows his beloved friend Lazarus will die, and he knows he will bring him back to life to reveal God’s glory, and he knows that he himself will die on the heels of claiming, of all things, “I am the resurrection and the life” (John 11:25).
And yet Jesus goes to Jerusalem… in his own time, as usual. He tells his mother at Cana’s wedding that his hour has not yet come (John 2:4) as if to say, “Don’t force my hand, even if it is to save the party by turning water into wine.” Despite his friends Mary and Martha writing a heartrending letter about their brother Lazarus’s near-death illness, Jesus waits two days before leaving to see him (John 11:6), quipping that Lazarus is sleeping, knowing full well that Lazarus is not dozing but soon to be dead.
It’s as if the vision of God’s life has so captivated Jesus’ person that he does not deem ultimate the impending threats to diminish or steal that life. John’s message through Jesus is clear: I have come so that they may have life, and have it abundantly (John 10:10). I am the resurrection and the life (John 11:25). For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes or trusts in him shall not perish but have eternal life (John 3:16).
Jesus’ life begins now and continues later. Eternal life, or “life of the ages,” is the life of heaven’s realm. It is a new age overlapping with our own. Despite anti-immigrant raids, authoritarian disappearances, economic free-fall, attacks on freedom of speech (under the guise of combating antisemitism), cruel and punishing aid cuts to… everything, including local libraries, not to mention the inherent fragility of our own bodies and the constant and often tortured struggles we carry in our own souls, we are, at this moment, nevertheless, alive!
“What will you do with your one wild and precious life?” Mary Oliver asks. Her question haunts us in the presence of death and death’s sisters, all those powers and crises that vanquish life. And yet, on the other side of that haunting question is nothing less than liberation. As Etty Hillesum wrote,
As life becomes harder and more threatening, it also becomes richer, because the fewer expectations that we have, the more good things of life become unexpected gifts that we accept with gratitude.
The disciple Thomas thumps his chest at the imminent danger Jesus and his movement face. “Let us go to Judea, that we may die with him” (John 11:16), treating Jesus’ movement as a test of typical male bravado and well-intentioned, if misunderstood, loyalty. We might laugh at Thomas, but we do the same in the presence of death: we don’t accept it; we “Rage, Rage, against the dying of the light,” to quote Dylan Thomas.
Martha, for her part, makes the mistake that most Christians have made with John’s gospel, which is to think that Jesus’ eternal life is something saved for later. Martha says to Jesus: “I know that he (my brother Lazarus) will rise again in the resurrection on the last day” (John 11:24). Jesus replies as if to say: “No, Martha. I’m not only talking about the resurrection at the end of days, I’m talking about the resurrection this day, because, after all, “I am the resurrection and the life” and I’m standing in front of you.” Martha’s mistake is the catastrophic theological mistake that leads various Christians to participate with death in their blatant disregard of life. But such thinking is heretical to true enfleshed and spirited gospel.
John’s gospel turns this logic on its head. Eternal life is not only later, to the exclusion of this life; it’s now and later, embracing this life and all its woundedness and even death itself.
To face death with the courage of life is not to deny death. It is to acknowledge death’s power fully while trusting a more whole vision. Jesus, after having seemingly ignored Mary and Martha’s pleas for him to arrive at once to heal Lazarus, is overwhelmed with grief and anger. As the early doctrinal wars decided, the Logos—the Word made Flesh—is fully human.
In the scene, Mary is weeping, and the Jewish leaders who want Jesus dead are likewise there and weeping (John 11:33-35). The combination of compassion for his deceased friend Lazarus, his grieving friends Mary and Martha, and his fury at the religious leaders’ hypocrisy and gall make Jesus weep, too (John 11:35). Jesus was “greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved” (John 11:33)—the Greek translation of which is connected to outward expressions of anger, often with gestures such as snorting. John’s picture is that Jesus is snorting in full-bodied grief and anger at death’s power and the suffering it creates. It’s enough to galvanize Jesus to switch into full-on action mode, going directly to the tomb, commanding someone to roll away the stone, and finally shouting for dead Lazarus to come out. Which he does, all bound with cloth, as a mummy (John 11:38-44).
Dare we stand in the places of death, the places of our world and lives that diminish life, and choose life anyway? John gives us a courageous vision of resurrection, of life rising again from what we once thought mistakenly was a tomb. As the Sikh activist Valarie Kaur memorably put it, “What if this darkness is not the darkness of the tomb, but the darkness of the womb?”
Author and podcaster Cassidy Hall explores the desert as a metaphor for difficult times in our lives:
Sometimes desert conditions invite us to strip ourselves of all that is unnecessary and all that hinders us from forging ahead…. The desert distills us into the absolute rawness of who we are and asks us who we want to be. The desert will always find a way to reveal the core of our humanity, in all its naked vulnerability. And we must live through the desert moments in order to survive. The words of life get us to the next day. The chosen and unchosen deserts must be crossed…. As the desert monastics suggest, the only way through the deserts of life is to remain in the practice of examining the self, to stay in theDivine’s presenceas we unveil ourselves, to truly see and be seen….
Even when I don’t want the gifts of the desert, I know they are real; with time I will be able to receive them. The unchosen deserts of my life have often been places of my most profound growth, where I’ve found liminal knowing, healing, new layers of vulnerability, and quiet blossoming. I’m reminded of the words of life that have come to me in past experiences, including the words and wisdom I’ve received from the early and modern desert monastics….
Most of the desert monastics committed themselves to some kind of rhythm combining prayer, self-reflection, and seeking the Divine. And amid this commitment, the landscape of the desert offered its own invitation into depth, growth, and the reminder that we are never alone. The desert plants, like the desert monastics, teach us again of the necessity to deepen our roots. We only carry through the deserts what we must: our reliance on root systems, communal care, and interconnection; the clarity of knowingwhat pieces of ourselves must die; and the timeless lesson to know and understand ourselves more intimately.
Through desert experiences, we learn to care more deeply for ourselves and the world:
The deserts are many. Chosen and unchosen desert encounters have opened me up to see and experience more room within myself for the whole world—to carry myself, the beloved, and the world with open hands; with compassionate, vulnerable, and tender acceptance. From here, I recognize my capacity for action in the world with deeper clarity about who I am and what I am to speak—or show up to….
In the spaciousness of solitude, we open ourselves up to the truth of ourselves. We more deeply root, examine, shed, and soften. Even in the desert moments of daily life, we are invited into renewal, when the wonder of uncertainty meets a sacred pause amid a busy day. And almost always, the desert spaces are places and moments of paradox: knowing amid the unknowing, refreshment in the parched places, life amid death, fecundity in the barrenness, midnight blooming, and acceptance of seasons.
During our Fully Alive cohort this past week, one of the attendees brought out this quote from Karl Barth.
I had forgotten it for a while, but it is good.
Barth was a pastor-theologian during World War II and began his work as a Presbyterian pastor before shifting to being a professor of theology. At one point, he was even dubbed “The Professor of Grace.”
His magnum opus, Church Dogmatics, is his attempt to give a reformulation of the Reformation for the average church worker. He did not seek to write solely for academics, although they did cling to his every word in the mid-1960s. His work was so influential that the Catholic Church even said he was the most important theologian since Thomas Aquinas (which is a MASSIVE compliment).
One commentator even said, “I know Barth’s theology to be true because when I finish reading it, I have a profound sense of joy.”
2.
“Nothing has ever been said about God that hasn’t already been said better by the wind in the pine trees.”
Now that spring is here, and warmer weather is happening, I am so glad to see cherry blossoms and trees with budding leaves. Winter can be rough when there isn’t much snow to keep it beautiful, and I admit to being significantly affected by how much sunlight I get or don’t get.
I love taking long hikes. A saunter through the woods can be as short as an hour, but it feels like a whole afternoon. Time slows down.
There truly is a spirituality to being outside in nature.
Perhaps this is the case because it was what Adam and Eve experienced in the Garden. Green is a naturally calming color, especially when paired against a blue sky
Yes, St. Francis indeed used to preach to the woods and woodland creatures, but it might be a good idea to let them preach to us as well.
3.
Abbot Lot came to Abbot Joseph and said: “Father, to the limit of my ability, I keep my little rule, my little fast, my prayer, meditation and contemplative silence; and to the limit of my ability, I work to cleanse my heart of thoughts; what more should I do?”
The elder rose up in reply, and stretched out his hands to heaven, and his fingers became like ten lamps of fire. He said: “Why not be utterly changed into fire?”
In Biblical imagery and the Christian tradition, fire is and continues to be a metaphor for God.
The great saints, sages, hermits, mystics, and holy fools of the Church speak of encountering this Fire and teach us that what we are all looking for can be found in that elusive yet ever-present Fire.
Religion is good and, in many ways, necessary, and it is a frequent tool to expose us to the Fire that is God. The unfortunate thing is that sometimes we yearn for the Fire yet settle for ritual.
This is what happens above with Abbot Lot. He has kept to the external and internal practices of ritualistic religion but missed that all those practices exist to expose him to the Fire enough that he can BECOME the Fire by participating in the Fire. And so, Abbot Joseph, who must have been a spiritual master, understood the task at hand and invited Abbot Lot to be transformed into that Fire who is God.
This aspect of the Christian faith did not make it across the Atlantic, the concept of becoming God by participating in the life of God. However, that is why these sayings of the early desert fathers are so important; they hold onto the early formulations of the Christian faith for us to pick up thousands of years later.
4.
“You will know your vocation by the joy that it brings you. You will know. You will know when it’s right.”
“3 Reform your ways and your actions, and I will let you live in this place. 4 Do not trust in deceptive words and say, “This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord!” 5 If you really change your ways and your actions and deal with each other justly, 6 if you do not oppress the foreigner, the fatherless or the widow and do not shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not follow other gods to your own harm, 7 then I will let you live in this place, in the land I gave your ancestors for ever and ever. 8 But look, you are trusting in deceptive words that are worthless.
9 “‘Will you steal and murder, commit adultery and perjury, burn incense to Baal and follow other gods you have not known, 10 and then come and stand before me in this house, which bears my Name, and say, “We are safe”—safe to do all these detestable things? 11 Has this house, which bears my Name, become a den of robbers to you? But I have been watching! declares the Lord.“
Jeremiah is one of the three Major Prophets of the Hebrew Scriptures, alongside Isaiah and Ezekiel.
Isaiah emphasizes a New Creation, while Ezekiel emphasizes a New Temple.
Jeremiah is set apart by emphasizing a New Covenant.
For Jeremiah, the Israelites so desperately lost the plot that the Lord divorced himself from being their God. Israel had gotten to the point of trusting in itself and its economic and military might that their faith became mixed and fused with the surrounding pagan religions. All of their trust was in themselves, so they began to believe their own lies and deceptions. Israel told themselves a narrative that they were the foremost nation in the world, and that became their downfall.
Israel oppressed aliens among them, did not care for the fatherless or the widow, shed innocent blood, followed (and sacrificed) to gods of their own making, and trusted their own falsehoods. They stole from one another, murdered, committed adultery, lied in court, paid respects to foreign gods, and then dared to talk in holy places about how they were a people of faith.
As a result, God turned his wrath on Israel and the Temple.
One might think that such wrath would be spared for non-believers, but in Jeremiah, the wrath is directed first toward the household of God, who should have known better than to fall into such practices of injustice.
When a nation that calls itself devout falls into practices that lack compassion, humility, generosity, understanding, welcome, and a preferential option for those at the bottom, it should not be surprising if God must do some pruning.
This CO2- (Church Of 2) is where two guys meet each day to tighten up our Connections with Jesus. We start by placing the daily “My Utmost For His Highest” in this WordPress blog. Then we prayerfully select some matching worship music and usually pick out a few lyrics that fit especially well. Then we just start praying and editing and Bolding and adding comments and see where the Spirit takes us.
It’s been a blessing for both of us.
If you’d like to start a CO2, we’d be glad to help you and your partner get started. Also click the link below to see how others are doing CO2.Odds Monkey
Steve Harvey Introduces Jesus To A Secular Audience
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Gnosticism is an ancient heresy that is still very much alive today. The Gnostics were false teachers in the early church who were deeply influenced by Greek philosophy and knowledge that exalted the spiritual and condemned the material. They taught that intangible things like the souls, spirits, and wisdom were divine, while the physical world, bodies, and matter were inherently evil. 