SOME AFTER-EASTER REFLECTIONS

Year after year, I really like the first Sunday after Easter and I do so for a number of reasons:

(1) By this time, the week between Palm Sunday Easter and its many, many services are in my rear view mirror, so to speak.  My previous anxiety of whether or not everything would work as I had hoped it would has passed.  

This year, all of our services were beautiful collaborations between many gifted and dedicated people:

• the members of our three choirs (adult, bells, 
• children), our volunteer and staff musicians (organist and worship team, plus outside trumpet players),
•       all who contributed to the magnificent sanctuary decor (envisioning it, purchasing supplies, fabricating and installing props).  
•       our staff who designed our various publications (worship screens, postcard, newspaper ad, bulletins, and eNewsletter),
•       our deacons, lectors, Media Shout and sound operators, ushers, greeters, and offering counters at all of or services,
•       all who donated flowers (thank you to all who purchased altar flowers and Easter lilies!),
•       all volunteers who helped spruce up our facility during our work-day, and, lastly,

  

I am confident that our collective service touched lives in many ways, both big and small.  Together, we helped touch all who worshipped at Bethel this Holy Week and Easter with the message of God’s salvation and new life in Christ.  One never knows who is present in worship and what they may have gone trough recently.  You have been Christ to them. Thank you!

(2) By this time, I have had the opportunity to take a couple of days off to rest and relax. This year, our immediate family was strangely spread out over three different places: Kumar needed to stay at home to attend to matters relating to our upcoming move to India, Naomi (who will be turning 16 years old on April 4) has been and still is visiting with her godmother in Dallas and experiencing life at a divinity school and attending the graduate classes that my good friend Susanne is teaching (Perkins School of Theology, part of Southern Methodist University), while Anna and I were spending 2 restful days on the coast, south of Pescadero, relaxing, doing some crafts, and visiting the northern sea elephants at Año Nuevo Reserve. 

(3) My third reason for enjoying this Second Sunday of Easter is that it is still part of our Easter celebration.  We still have the sanctuary decked out in white, still get to sing Easter hymns and songs, still get resurrection readings as our lessons … but we do so surrounded by our regular family of faith.  While it is nice to see pews filled on Easter (and Christmas), it is even nicer to see churches filled with people who are part of our community year-round, with people looking for a new church home, or with people who visit, because they may be visiting the Bay Area and attending worship, because that’s simply what they do on Sundays.  From this pastor’s perspective, Easter feels a bit strange, since I am designing and leading worship services for people who judge worship by what they were familiar with some 20-30 years ago.  If they don’t find what church was then, they often complain on how church has changed and just isn’t the same anymore!!! OK, I got my judgmental two cents of my chest.  I hope you don’t mind.  J

(4) Finally, I am glad that I got to be part of yet another meaninful celebration this Holy Week – when I officiated at the wedding of Rachel (Stolan) and Chris Kasinski last Saturday at Léal Vinyeards in Hollister. What a joy to help them get hitched so soon before I leave Bethel! I wish them joy and happiness in their new life together.  It seems very fitting to me that they picked this date to begin their new life together, given that the church celebrates the new life we have in Jesus Christ.  May Christ be present in the way they live together!

Wishing you a blessed first weekend in May and second Sunday of Easter!

REFLECTIONS FOR PALM SUNDAY

After five weeks of preparation we now enter the climax of the Lenten season and what we call Holy Week.

In a way, the whole week from today until Easter Sunday should be seen as one unit – the presentation of the mystery of Easter (or “Paschal Mystery”). This mystery of Easter includes the suffering, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus and the pouring out of God’s Holy Spirit onto the disciples of Jesus to continue the work he began. For liturgical and catechetical reasons the celebration of those events is spread over a period of seven weeks. They should, however, be seen as an indivisible single experience, the central experience of our Christian faith.

Our celebration of Palm Sunday strangely mixes an atmosphere of exuberant joy and a foreshadowing of the cruel events that soon followed.  In the midst of the joy of the palms there are hints of shadow. Not everyone is spreading clothes on the ground for Jesus to walk over or waving branches. Jesus’ opponents are watching and what they see only gives greater urgency to their plot to end kill Jesus. In one way, they will succeed with a frightening ruthlessness to destroy Jesus but, of course, they will also fail utterly.  Our celebration of Palm Sunday – almost 2,000 years after his death -- is proof enough of that.

The eight days of Holy Week (from Sunday to Sunday) are packed with remembrances. We remember

• Jesus’ triumphant entry intro the city of Jerusalem as residents and pilgrims alike prepared for the Passover celebration;
• Jesus’ last supper with his disciples and his washing of his disciples' feet;
• Jesus’ struggle with fear (even terror) and loneliness in the garden, ending in a sense of peace and acceptance;
• Peter’s denial of ever having known Jesus, the same Jesus with whom he had just eaten and who had invited him into the garden;
• the kiss of Judas which sealed the fate of Jesus and lead to Judas’ bitter remorse and suicide
• the rigged trial before the religious leaders and again before the contemptuous, cynical Pilate, the brief appearance before the superstitious and fearful Herod;
• the torture, humiliation and degradation of Jesus;
• the weeping women, the reluctant Simon of Cyrene;
• the crowds, so supportive on Sunday, who now laugh and mock
• the murderous gangster promised eternal happiness that very day;
• Jesus’ last words of forgiveness and total surrender to God’s will;
• and finally, three days later, the empty tomb.

The drama of these events is truly overpowering and needs really to be absorbed one incident at a time.

Through it all there is Jesus. His opponents humiliate him, strike him, scourge him. Soldiers make a crown with thorns, a crown for the “King of the Jews.” Pilate, Roman-trained, makes a half-hearted attempt at justice but fear for his career prevails.

Jesus, for his part, does not strike back, he does not scold, he does not accuse or blame. He begs his Father to forgive those who “do not know what they are doing.” Jesus seems to be the victim in this drama, but all through he is, in fact, the master. He is master of the situation because he has mastered surrender to God.

So, as we go through this week, let us look very carefully at Jesus. Let us observe Jesus’ mind, his attitudes, and his values, so that we, in the very different circumstances of our own lives, may walk in his footsteps.

Jesus invites us to walk his way, to share his sufferings, to imitate his attitudes, to “empty” ourselves, to live in service of others – in short, to love others as he loves us. This is not at all a call to a life of pain and misery. Quite the contrary, it is an invitation to a life of deep freedom, peace, and happiness – freedom, peace, and happiness that come from surrendering our thinking, attitudes, and values to God’s providence.