Easter Season

I’m glad we are getting close to Easter for spiritual reasons and for earthly reasons. First, the more personal, earthly reasons: I am glad Fleda is getting a Spring Break from school so that we will have some time together with family. I am glad the warmth of spring is arriving. My Florida blood craves it. I have already enjoyed seeing downy Sand Hill Crane chicks, Tom turkeys fanning out their tail feathers for their harem of females, and hearing owls hooting in the night, calling for a mate. My spiritual reasons for being glad to welcome the Easter season include that we are preparing ourselves to experience the power of the Resurrection of Jesus. Before we get to the day of resurrection, we focus on examining our own hearts. Some Christians observe Lent, the forty days before Easter as a time to fast or to “give up” something for Lent. I, like most Baptists, did not grow up in that tradition and just don’t “do Lent.” During this season of preparation for Easter, I have been studying the images of God that are in the Bible. I’ve been trying to teach some things about those images on Wednesday nights to help us have a clearer awareness of who God is and what God does for us.

I am thankful to new member Shane Gaster for introducing us to a service of darkness for Good Friday. Dennis Bucher and I had been talking about just such a service. It will help us experience something of the suffering, the fear, and the mystery of Jesus’ agony as Judas betrayed him, Peter denied him, the other disciples deserted him, and Roman soldiers nailed him to the cross.

Writer Ron Rolheiser points out, “Interestingly, the gospels do not focus on his physical sufferings (which must have been horrific). What they highlight instead is his emotional suffering and his humiliation. He is presented as lonely, betrayed, alone, helpless to explain himself, a victim of jealousy, morally isolated, mocked, misunderstood, stripped naked so as to have to feel embarrassment and shame, and yet, inside of all this, as clinging to warmth, goodness, and forgiveness. Good Friday, in Luke's words, is when darkness has its hour.”

On Good Friday night, April 2 at 7:30 we will gather in our sanctuary to worship God using scripture readings, music, poetry, light, and darkness.

May our Good Friday Service of Darkness bring us the consolation of having Jesus identify with our own emotional suffering. May his being with us and his sacrifice for us bind us to God, so that His warmth, goodness, and forgiveness flow out of us.