The two men on the road to Emmaus had forgotten how to wait, they had moved on too quickly to despair; ‘We had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel’, they said. They had already given up hope, had tossed it by the wayside, in favour of despair; perhaps itContinue reading "#39wait"

I see God bowed and brooding, his arms falling around his dear earth, after cruel jeers condemned his son to death. Doubled up with grief, he came close to the jagged earth, his arms around, almost touching. And it reminds me of this year; of all the loneliness, the people in their boxes, staying safeContinue reading "#38darkness"

Mary, bowed by grief, goes early to the tomb and finds it empty. Her tears spill as her mind races; ‘Where have they taken my Lord?’ But her tears have left her blind, for as she turns in the garden, she can’t even make out the figure in front of her, alive and breathing, herContinue reading "#37mourning"

I’ve always loved Thomas, the way he acts like a petulant school boy. ‘Show me then’, he says, 'I won’t believe unless I see it.’ And then a week later, Jesus is there, and all of his undoing is there too; 'My Lord and My God’, he says. Better to be true like he was;Continue reading "#36doubt"

you were hidden in death, in grave clothes, waiting for the right time to take your first breath of rebirth. and now I am hidden in you, safe as houses, where moth and rust cannot break in and destroy, because all my treasure is in you and you are all my treasure.

Sometimes, we too, bury our hope in darkness, shove it beneath the soil with a hollow heart, but even death itself was no match for my King; life-giver, death-defier. The truth of spring coming, though we saw only black mud, truth of the blazing heat of the sun, though we felt only the chill. OutContinue reading "#34tomb"

Their very presence speaks to what is no longer there; the way that they fall, or are folded. There is the dance of life about them; the way they move themselves aside, lift themselves up, to let Life take its first breath. ‘Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is noContinue reading "#33cloths"

he made a way, his body a bridge, his death and awakening a doorway between this lowly land and the pathways of heaven. way-maker, future-forger, eye-opener, the veil was torn in two, the sea split apart, death was undone and the separation was finished, finally, once and for all. so we could come boldly, asContinue reading "#32veil"

a single seed lay down in the soil, and from it sprang life, a tree, reaching to the heavens. a single tree, cut down, fashioned into planks and then a cross bearing the weight of the blameless King, a man, who was a tree of life himself, who walked the path into death and thenContinue reading "#31cross"

these gifts we hold lightly, their warp and weft, their stretch and sway as they wend their way through our lives, threading them with just a touch of heaven’s fire. we live through them, and through them make sense of this world. we see you, God, we even draw you, in green and grace, inContinue reading "#29sacrifice"

And so we crown you over and over, in the small ways of our lives, and in the quietness of our hearts. But perhaps it matters more, then,  because you are the only one who sees it,  and you are the only one it’s for. But I can’t put it any better than Frederick BuechnerContinue reading "#28crown"

the thorny crown, a bead of blood spills, shame falls. he carries, then, all the weight of sin, and the mark of it on his body.

the pause between that other world and this. the one before the cross, where the weight of sin was too heavy to bear, and the new one that is about to dawn. ‘But now, with eager expectation, all creation longs for freedom from its slavery to decay and to experience with us the wonderful freedomContinue reading "#25silence"

Broken-down, trampled over, weeping. Alone, heart-broken, spat upon. Does this make a King? Spending himself freely on all who came to him. Present to all the hundreds who pressed in to him, wanting his healing, his teaching, or even just to look into his eyes. Obedient to his Father’s plan, because he knew it wasContinue reading "#24king"

What would it have been like, being fully god and fully man, and to feel that your father had abandoned you? Maybe that is why Jesus trembled in the garden; he knew the price of walking this path. All the world’s sin, hurled upon his back, the weight of it, unthinkable. But in that darkestContinue reading "#23abandon"

Could you imagine being fully God and fully man, asking your friends to stay a while with you, to keep watch with you, even though you knew they would fail, and even though you knew you would have to walk alone the path that was laid out before you? A death sentence that would unleashContinue reading "#22-Keep Watch"

the sacrifice of a lamb could not carry away the people’s sin, however much they tried. It was not strong enough to smash the weight of it, nothing was. And then Jesus came, who was led meekly but not weakly to the cross, for he knew that in his quiet death, he would lift the weightContinue reading "#18lamb"

Follow, not as the sheep follows, unthinking and mindless. Follow rather as a listener on foot in a vast and lonely hill country, paying attention only to the placing of the feet, one in front of the other, on the soft and craggy ground, listening to the small voice that speaks, that says, this way,Continue reading "#14- follow"