An Easter Prayer by Walter Brueggemann

…On our own, we conclude:
that there is not enough to go around
we are going to run short

of money
of love
of grades
of publications
of sex
of beer
of members
of years
of life

we should seize the day…
seize the goods…
seize our neighbor’s goods
because there is not enough to go around
and in the midst of our perceived deficit;

You come
You come giving bread in the wilderness
You come giving children at the 11th hour
You come giving homes to the exiles
You come giving futures to the shut-down
You come giving Easter joy to the dead
You come … fleshed … in Jesus

And we watch while
the blind receive their sight
the lame walk
the lepers are cleansed
the deaf hear
the dead are raised
the poor dance and sing.

We watch … and we take

food we did not grow and
life we did not invent and
future that is gift and gift and gift and
families and neighbors who sustain us
when we do not deserve it.

It dawns on us, late rather than soon, that
You give food in due season
you open your hand
and satisfy the desire of every living thing.

By your giving,
break our cycles of imagined scarcity
override our presumed deficits
quiet our anxieties of lack
transform our perceptual field to see
the abundance...mercy upon mercy
blessing upon blessing.

Sink your generosity deep into our lives

that your much-ness may expose our false lack
that endlessly receiving, we may endlessly give,

so that the world may be made Easter new,
without greedy lack, but only wonder
without coercive need, but only love
without destructive greed, but only praise
without aggression and evasiveness...
all things Easter new...

all around us, toward us and by us
all things Easter new.

Finish your creation...
in wonder, love and praise. Amen.

Psalm 96

Sing God a brand-new song! Earth and everyone in it, sing!
Sing to God—worship God!

Shout the news of his victory from sea to sea,
Take the news of his glory to the lost,
News of his wonders to one and all!

For God is great, and worth a thousand Hallelujahs.
His terrible beauty makes the gods look cheap;
Pagan gods are mere tatters and rags.

God made the heavens—
Royal splendor radiates from him,
A powerful beauty sets him apart.

Bravo, God, Bravo!
Everyone join in the great shout: Encore!
In awe before the beauty, in awe before the might.

Bring gifts and celebrate,
Bow before the beauty of God,
Then to your knees—everyone worship!

Get out the message—God Rules!
He put the world on a firm foundation;
He treats everyone fair and square.

Let's hear it from Sky,
With Earth joining in,
And a huge round of applause from Sea.

Let Wilderness turn cartwheels,
Animals, come dance,
Put every tree of the forest in the choir—

An extravaganza before God as he comes,
As he comes to set everything right on earth,
Set everything right, treat everyone fair.

from The Message

I believe in all that has never yet been spoken.
I want to free what waits within me
so that what no one has dared to wish for
may for once spring clear
without my contriving.

If this is arrogant, God, forgive me,
but this is what I need to say.
May what I do flow from me like a river,
no forcing and no holding back,
the way it is with children.

Then in these swelling and ebbing currents,
these deepening tides moving out, returning,
I will sing you as no one ever has,
streaming through widening channels
into the open sea air.

"1,12" from The Book of a Monastic Life by Rilke

contributed by Robin

The Celebration Goes On

"I regard it as absurd and unjustifiable that we should spend forty days keeping Lent, pondering what it means, preaching about self-denial, being at least a little gloomy, and then bringing it all to a peak with Holy Week, which in turn climaxes in Maundy Thursday and Good Friday....and then, after a rather odd Holy Saturday, we have a single day of celebration.

... It ought to be an eight-day festival, with champagne served after morning prayer or even before, with lots of alleluias and extra hymns and spectacular anthems. Is it any wonder people find it hard to believe in the resurrection of Jesus if we don't throw our hats in the air? Is it any wonder we find it hard to live the resurrection if we don't do it exuberantly in our liturgies? Is it any wonder the world doesn't take much notice if Easter is celebrated as simply the one-day happy ending tacked on to forty days of fasting and gloom? It's long overdue that we took a hard look at how we keep Easter in church, at home, in our personal lives, right through the system." N.T. Wright

He is risen

He is risen indeed!

Inbetween

Our Saturday is different.

Ours sits

between a Friday called "Good"

and

a Sunday called "Resurrection".

but they had lost

everything.

their teacher

their friend

their hopes for Israel

their hopes for their souls

hopes bound up in Jesus.

now

betrayed

bound

beaten

and

crucified.

their (can't be) Messiah

DEAD .

hope crucified.

and yet

underneath all rational thought

a small soul-seed of hope

undetected

but stirring and sprouting,

pushes through

layers of despair

defying even the laws of nature.

in their hearts,

the faintest longing

hope.

But we,

we know the whole story.

we think we know the whole story.

Sunday comes,

He rises.

we rejoice.

yet, underneath seasonal rejoicing

there is something else we know

there are places in our lives

our families' lives

our friends' lives

where Sunday has not come

where Sunday just is not coming

where Sunday will never come

how can it?

the darkness is too great

the despair too heavy

this Saturday (and every Saturday) as we wait...

maybe in us too...

underneath all rational thought

a small soul-seed of hope

undetected

but stirring and sprouting,

pushes through

layers of despair

defying even the laws of nature.

in our (!) hearts,

the faintest longing

hope

contributed by Aimee

Good Friday

They went out and followed him,
those who had sat with him at the table.
He led them to a garden
where he prayed while they slept,
prayed while they slept,
prayed while they slept.

He was kissed,
and because he was kissed he was arrested,
and when he was arrested, his friends fled,
some to go into hiding,
one to stand beside a bonfire,
and say I never knew him,
I never knew him,
I never knew him…until a cock crowed.

He was brought before the religious authorities
and accused of the sin of blasphemy
and of threatening insurrection.
Having no power to deal with him,
they handed him over to the state governor,
who listened to the accusations
and then asked the accused:
what have you to say?
what have you to say?
what have you to say?
…to which the response was silence.

He said it all.

He was not found to be guilty of any criminal
charges,
but because he was an embarrassment,
it was decided
that his own people should determine his fate.
This they did shouting,
crucify him!
crucify him!
crucify him!

He was cursed and spat on,
whipped and humiliated.
And on his shoulders a gift was placed,
which he accepted with grace.
Under the weight of this gift,
he stumbled and fell
stumbled and fell
stumbled and fell…
all the way to Calvary.

On top of a garbage dump,
he was nailed to a cross of wood
and left to die,
while soldiers gambled,
critics joked,
religious leaders smiled with satisfaction
and his mother watched and waited,
watched and waited,
watched and waited…
until the end she saw a sign of the beginning.

Savior of the world,
what have you done to deserve this?
And what have we done to deserve you?

Strung up between criminals,
cursed and spat upon,
you wait for death,
and look for us,
for us whose sin has crucified you.

To the mystery of underserved suffering,
you bring the deeper mystery of unmerited love.

Forgive us for not knowing what we have done;
open our eyes to what we are doing now,
as, through wood and nails,
you disempower our depravity
and transform us by your grace.

AMEN.

(Source: Iona Community, Stages on the Way)