What God has Done...

This is the night.

The darkest, most luminous, most mysterious night of the Triduum; the night we wait together in the dark.

We begin in silence. 
In the hush of grief. 
In the stillness. 
In the great and holy mystery.

Christians through the centuries have kept this sacred time of waiting in the dark. For some, the darkness feels like despair. For others, it carries the faint sense that God is up to something—but what that is has not yet been revealed.

So we wait together, as the first disciples waited, in the silence of this darkest night.

And yet even here, the Church dares to give us words that suggest movement. In the Apostles’ Creed, we confess that Christ descended to the dead—to hell, to the furthest reaches of abandonment and sorrow. Even there, Christ is at work.

And the Church dares to give us hope. The Book of Common Prayer tells us that the Great Vigil of Easter gathers us to hear again “the record of God’s saving deeds in history,” and to ponder them with wonder (BCP, 284–287). On this most holy night, we listen for hope.

In Genesis, God calls light out of darkness. 
In Exodus, God opens a path through the sea. 
In Ezekiel, God breathes life into dry bones. 
In Isaiah, God promises shelter, presence, and peace.

And tonight, all of it rises before us again: 
the light, 
the path, 
the breath, 
the promise.

Tonight we stand with the women at the tomb. 
Tonight we hear the angel’s announcement. 
Tonight we strain to grasp the impossible possibility of resurrection.

This is the night when we contemplate the ineffable mystery of God. And this is the night when even a different translation of Scripture can open the Gospel anew.

This year, Holy Week began with a donkey. And perhaps that is a clue.

Somewhere near Beltsville on Route 1, there is a marker for the first successful telegraph transmission between Washington and Baltimore. The words Samuel Morse sent—words suggested, notably, by a woman—were from Scripture: “What hath God wrought?”

That is the King James translation. In more modern translations, the phrase reads: “See what God has done!”

It comes from the Book of Numbers, from the strange and wonderful story of Balaam—an unlikely prophet through whom God spoke in an unlikely way: through a donkey.

And maybe that is part of the Easter message. When it comes to God, we are never in a position to assume too much. God has a way of speaking through the unexpected, the overlooked, the improbable.

A donkey at the beginning of Holy Week. 
Women at the tomb on Easter morning. 
Life where everyone expected only death.

See what God has done.

The tomb is empty. 
Christ is risen. 
And the first people entrusted with this news are women.

How’s that for Easter grace?

In a world that discounted the testimony of women, God chose women to be the first witnesses to the resurrection. God does not always work through the people the world is prepared to receive. God works through love, through fidelity, through those who remain near, even in the darkest hours.

See what God has done.

I was thinking about that yesterday when I came across some of my grandfather's writings. He had been badly wounded in France during the First World War. During his recovery in Boston, he took a writing class at Harvard. His professor—who also helped tutor Helen Keller as she prepared her autobiography—pressed him to write carefully about what he had lived through. In the folder with the final manuscript was his original paper. On it were his teacher’s edits in the margins and his original grade: a disappointing B-minus.

It made me smile. But it also reminded me that some stories must be told with care, because they are meant to be handed on.

And that is what the Church does tonight.

We tell again the story of God’s saving deeds. We tell it carefully. We tell it reverently. We tell it because it is the story that must be passed down when human hope has reached its limit and God’s faithfulness breaks through anyway.

See what God has done.

Easter does not tell the story of the easiest path. It tells the story of God’s faithfulness breaking through death, grief, and all that seemed final.

Last week, Dame Sarah Mullally began her first sermon as the first female Archbishop of Canterbury with the angel’s words to Mary: “For nothing will be impossible with God.”

That is Easter in a sentence.

Easter teaches us to expect surprise from God. To get used to holy disruption. To make room for the impossible.

I think about our building project—good gracious, see what God has done.

I think about the ways this congregation has kept faith through change and uncertainty—see what God has done.

I think about all the places in our own lives where we had nearly given up hope, and yet grace met us there—see what God has done. And now we stand at the precipice of something entirely new.

The poet Anne Hillman writes: 

“We stand at a new doorway, 
awaiting that which comes... 
daring to be human creatures, 
vulnerable to the beauty of existence. 

Learning to love.”

Learning to love. That is the heart of Easter after all. Not merely that life returns, but that love proves stronger than death. Not merely that the tomb is empty, but that Christ is risen and goes ahead of us. Not merely that the story continues, but that everything is changed.

What hath God wrought? 
See what God has done.

Choose whichever translation you prefer.

What seemed impossible has happened. 
Love has prevailed. 
And nothing will ever be the same.

Rejoice now, Mother Church, and be glad.

Alleluia. Christ is risen. 
The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia.

On Being a Disciple of Jesus in this Moment

 

Watch this sermon here.

Do any of you have certain movies or shows you’re planning to watch during Holy Week? Personally, I love the musical Godspell. Much of the music comes from our Episcopal hymnal. In his director’s notes, Stephen Schwartz writes that the first act of the show is all about the formation of a community – that through play and the telling and absorbing of lessons, the disciples grow as a unit, and that the application of clown makeup is the moment the community is set apart from the rest of society. But each individual’s journey takes its course over time. Precisely when and why this commitment to discipleship takes place is the important choice each actor must make. 

"In order to witness to and be a disciple of Jesus, every Christian has to figure out for him or herself what Christianity is all about."

That's from theologian Kathryn Tanner.[1]

We can come to church. We can listen to sermons and attend Bible study. We can ponder Richard Hooker's three-legged stool till the cows come home. We can go to seminary, get ordained, wear the collar — and still, in the end, no one else can hand us our faith pre-assembled. Each of us has to reckon, personally and honestly, with what it means to follow Jesus.

To add to Tanner's insight:  I’d say we don't figure this out alone. We figure out who God is, who we are, and how we live in light of our faith here — in community, at this table, in the breaking of bread and the hearing of Scripture, surrounded by people who come from all kinds of different backgrounds who are also still figuring it out. Like Jesus’ first disciples, our faith is offered freely to us before we fully understand it. The liturgy has been shaping us all along, even on those days we weren't paying close attention. 

As we stand at the threshold of Holy Week — and as we at St. Mark's stand at the threshold of our own significant transition — I want to ask you, in all sincerity: What is this Christian life about for you? Right now, today?

Is it about belonging to a community that holds you when you can't hold yourself? Is it about service — rolling up your sleeves and doing the work of mercy? Is it about following Jesus into the darkest of places where justice commands our attention? 

If we’re looking to define or refine our commitment, now's the time, folks. The passion of Jesus Christ is a defining moment for Christians. Today we’re reading John, first called “the spiritual gospel” by Clement of Alexandria, an early church father. At St. Mark’s, we’ve tried to point out some of the potential stumbling blocks in John’s narrative, especially in light of rising antisemitism. But there’s always more work to be done. More depth to uncover. 

I'll confess: Palm Sunday for me feels like a bit of a roller coaster. Some of you know that we have a genuine roller coaster expert in this congregation — Logan Bird can tell you everything about how they're built, which ones are the best, and which ones will absolutely ruin your lunch. So, Logan, I'm borrowing your expertise for a moment.

Palm Sunday begins like that first slow climb. It’s exciting. Jesus rides into Jerusalem — not on a war horse, not in a fancy chariot, but on a donkey. The prophet Zechariah saw this coming centuries earlier: "Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey" (Zechariah 9:9). This is not the entrance of a conquering emperor. This is something else entirely. 

St. Paul gives us the word for it in today's epistle: kenosis. Self-emptying. "Though he was in the form of God," Paul writes to the Philippians, "Christ Jesus did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave." . That word — kenosis — is the theological key to everything we will witness this week. God's power looks nothing like what the world expects. God's power looks like a man on a donkey, riding toward his own death, for the sake of love.

The crowd doesn't fully understand this yet. (Do we, really?) They wave their palm branches — echoes of the Maccabean victory celebrations — and they shout Hosanna! We might hear that as a cheer, but it's actually a plea: Save us. Save us, Lord! The air is electric with Passover energy, with rumors about the man who raised Lazarus from the dead, with the nervous attention of both Jewish leaders and Roman authorities who share one overriding concern: crowd control.

This is the top of the first hill. From here, if we dare to lean forward, we can see what's coming next. The drop is going to be fast and steep.

Maybe you're the kind of person who rides with your arms up and your eyes wide open. I'll be the one gripping the bar, white-knuckled, stomach somewhere near my throat.

But here's where the metaphor breaks down — and I think it's important to name this. On a roller coaster, we’re passengers. We strap in, the ride happens to us, and we get off at the end. 

When we hear John’s Passion narrative at the end of this service, we are in it. We are the crowd. We are the disciples. We are Peter, who swears he doesn't know the man. We are the Roman and Jewish officials, the women at the foot of the cross. We are - all of them. And all the while, our eyes are locked on Jesus.

Roller coaster ride that it is, Holy Week is an invitation to participate, to stay until the end.

I'd like to invite you to stay on the journey. Come to the services this week. Not as a passive rider, but as a pilgrim. Walk with Jesus through the Last Supper on Maundy Thursday, where he kneels to wash his friends' feet. Stand at the foot of the cross on Good Friday. Sit in the silence of Holy Saturday, that strange, liminal day when God lies in a tomb and the world holds its breath. And then — then — come to the garden on Easter morning, where Mary Magdalene meets a man she mistakes for the gardener, and nothing after that is ever be the same.

Maybe you've already got this Christian life all figured out. But if you're like me — still learning, still being surprised, still being undone and remade by the grace of God — then come along. There's no purchase necessary. No height requirement. Fair warning: it may get uncomfortable. You may feel the full weight of the story pressing up against your own life.

But you may also find yourself drawn into the heart of a divine mystery so deep and so wide that it reframes everything — what power means, what love costs, what it means to be a disciple of the one who emptied himself for the sake of the world. 

The journey is about to begin. Not a ride – more of a pilgrimage.

Will you come and see what God has done?💛

Extra Credit: My theology prof on what it means to be a disciple

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[1] Kathryn Tanner, Jesus, Humanity and the Trinity: A Brief Systematic Theology, 1. Fortress Press ed., Repr (Minneapolis, Minn: Fortress Press, 2003), xiii.

Speaking of Green...

I like the way this handmade Easter card from my friend Nancy looks beside my new basil plant. I read on the internet (so we know it must be true!) that basil grew near the cross where Jesus was crucified. 

I decided to go to a nursery on Earth Day. It was so nice outside - such a beautiful day to visit a nursery. There was so much new life. It felt like resurrection. 

As we move into the Easter Season of our Christian calendar, we have fifty days to contemplate resurrection, fifty days to perhaps get to know the resurrected Jesus in some fresh new ways. Each story we hear during this time offers something new to consider.

With my new holy basil, I decided to make something I had never made before: a pesto with lemon, walnuts, garlic, spinach, parmesan, olive oil, and basil that I tossed together with some angel hair pasta. I also sautéed some spring onions and added some fresh asparagus and frozen peas. It was a lovely, light, and refreshing dinner for a lovely Spring evening. The fresh basil added so much. What fresh, new perspectives about God have arisen for you this week?