Above photo is of the Easter Luminarium.  Lights burned through the night anticipating the new light of Jesus' resurrection as the tomb is discovered empty at dawn.

As we gathered at sunrise to celebrate the wonder and joy of Easter morn.

Our Easter Sunday Worship Service.

Thank you to all the church members for the donation of candy, to those who stuffed the eggs after Palm Sunday's worship, those who set up and cleaned up for the event, and for the Easter Bunny who always makes time to show up for the children.

Throughout the year, the Southern New England Conference of the United Church of Christ reproduces the Daily Lectionary for use by churches.  These are the suggested readings for Holy Saturday, April 19th:  Job 14:1-14 or Lamentations 3:1-9, 19-24; Psalm 31:1-4, 15-16; 1 Peter 4:1-8; and Matthew 27:57-66 or John 19:38-42.  I would encourage you to read these short selections as part of your Lenten practice.

Today is the last day of Lent.  As I have mentioned consistently, Lent is different than Advent.  Advent intentionally prepares us for Christmas.  Lent’s 40 days culminate not with Easter, but with the cross and the tomb.  It is disingenuous to the reality of Jesus’ suffering and death for us to approach Lent with Easter’s assurance.  During Lent we should try to appreciate the psychological, spiritual and physical trauma that Jesus endured, and those are all mitigated if Jesus knew definitively about Easter.  So for us as Christians to spiritually approach the memory of the cross we need to try and do so as did Jesus, and that means Lent ends at Golgotha and, at least according to today’s Gospel, at the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea. 

Suffering and death were as real for Jesus as for any of us – maybe even more so.  The oldest extant piece of Christian literature is 1 Thessalonians.  In this Epistle, Paul lays out a contrast that my NRSV Bible chooses not to capture.  If your Bible translation is different than this, please check the footnotes.  Paul writes, “Since we believe that Jesus died (ἀποθνῄσκω) and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep (κοιμάω).” (4:14)  You don’t need to know Greek to see that these two words are different, and yet the NRSV translates them both as died.  Paul softens the death of Christians because Jesus faced its blunt force in our stead.  We can hope in the resurrection so we fall asleep in death.  Paul realizes that Jesus did not have this luxury and so Jesus’ mortality is referred to as died.

John Chrysostom was a fourth century church father.  He once preached at a funeral that the congregation should not be mourning because they have Easter’s assurance.  I think this has its problems, but the fact remains that Chrysostom is repeating Paul’s assurance that death is not permanent for us because of Easter, but Jesus on the cross does not fall asleep into an Easter assurance.  Jesus faces death and dies so that we don’t have to die without hope.

Today we remember Jesus’ death.  His dead and scarred body is inside a dark tomb.  This is where Lent ends.  I hope Lent has offered us a space for contemplation, renewal, and a reminder of the power of faith, community, and inner peace.  As Sister Anne Curtis, the Executive Director of Mercy by the Sea Retreat Center, writes, “On the Lenten journey, we are called to trust there is something amazing to be found along the way: hope. … Lent is ‘the season of hope’ because our God does not give up on us, and it is this unwavering love that enables us to stay grounded.”  That God does not give up on us is revealed perfectly in the reality of Jesus’ suffering, crucifixion and death.

But … because of the reality of Jesus’ death, death is not as fearsome a foe for us as it once was for Jesus, thus we enjoy the blessing of hope.  And so, even though Jesus could not, we are able to anticipate tomorrow’s joy.  On the holiest day of the year, I invite you to come and join us for a combined Easter Sunrise Service led by Rev. Dr. Linda Rhinehart Neas and myself at 2 Prospect Street in Hatfield, across from the American Legion at 6:00am.  Our church worship Service will follow at 9:30am.  I hope these Lenten blogs have added to your Lenten journey, and I would love to see you tomorrow as we joyously celebrate the new day announced by Jesus’ resurrection.
 
If you would like to join us for our online Bible study, please send an email to [email protected] for the Zoom logins.
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If you’d like, here is the link to the Southern New England Conference’s daily reading schedule:  www.sneucc.org/lectionary.

Throughout the year, the Southern New England Conference of the United Church of Christ reproduces the Daily Lectionary for use by churches.  These are the suggested readings for Good Friday, April 18th:  Psalm 22; Isaiah 52:13—53:12; Hebrews 10:16-25 or Hebrews 4:14-16; 5:7-9; and John 18:1—19:42.  I would encourage you to read these short selections as part of your Lenten practice.

Today’s list of readings is quite long, but today is the special day on which we should devote extra time to our relationship with Jesus.  This is the remarkable day on which we solemnly commemorate the torturous execution of Jesus, the Christ and the Son of God.  After a night of harsh treatment and abandonment, Jesus is sentenced to crucifixion.  The accounts vary, but Jesus may have been nailed to the cross around mid-morning, dying around mid-afternoon.  Many who suffered crucifixion would linger longer than these six hours, so the shortened time may indicate the compromised physical state of Jesus before the first spike ever punctured His flesh. 

Nevertheless, those six hours must have seemed like an eternity.  Crucifixion is a slow and harrowing process of execution where the victim dies of asphyxiation.  Unable to support themselves as their strength ebbs and the pain increases, the chest muscles contract and the victim cannot inhale, and death comes slowly.  This was the form of punishment the Romans used intentionally to dissuade any person who may have contemplated challenging the Empire’s authority.  For this reason, it was performed in as public a place as possible so that as many people as possible could witness the agonizing death. 

Golgotha was located just outside one of Jerusalem’s city gates.  The number of people passing by would have been exponentially greater than the city’s usual population because pilgrims had traveled to the holy city and its Temple for Passover.  The humiliation of this naked spectacle only added to Jesus’ torture.  And yet all of this was endured by Jesus because of His devotion to His ministry and to each and every one of us.  On such a day as this, extra time devoted to our faith relationship is expected for it recognizes not only Jesus’ sacrifice but the fact that it was ignored by so many.

After a ministry to and for ordinary people, and especially to the extraordinary people who were different because they were despised and ostracized, Jesus dies alone.  The oldest Gospel bereft of the changes that will come later, recounts Jesus’ complete isolation.  There is not a comforting face to be seen as Jesus looks down from the cross.  The closest sympathy was from the persistently faithful but overlooked “women looking on from a distance.” (Mark 15:40)  

Jesus could not look to the side to hear words of consolation from other victims facing the similar torture.  Instead, we’re told “[t]hose who were crucified with him also taunted him.” (15:32)  And most surprising and agonizing of all, Jesus could not even look up to feel the presence of God at that cruelest of moments:  “At three o’clock Jesus cried out with a loud voice, ‘Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?’ which means, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’”

This physical, emotional and spiritual agony culminates in a visceral scream giving vent to confused emotions that cannot find words, “and [Jesus] breathed his last.” (Mark 15:37)  His dead body is then placed in a stranger’s tomb as hastily as possible because the Passover celebration is about to begin at sunset.  As I have mentioned in previous Lenten Blogs, Jesus as the Son of God experiences death in the reality of His human nature and also in the reality of the divine nature.  We can sympathize now with Jesus’ physical suffering, but it is beyond our comprehension to begin to imagine how God is affected by the reality of the death of God’s own.

On Good Friday the church sanctuary will be open for prayer or meditation or quiet from noon until 3:00pm.  People entering are asked to respect the quiet of the church and each person’s privacy.  Realizing that many will not be able to attend during these daytime hours, the faithful are encouraged to practice their own moments of sanctuary at more convenient times and places.  This is also not a day for celebrations, whether it be dinner out, a movie with friends, or whatever.  This is the solemn day of Jesus’ death.  May we treat it with the respect Jesus deserves.

If you would like to join us for our online Bible study, please send an email to [email protected] for the Zoom logins.
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If you’d like, here is the link to the Southern New England Conference’s daily reading schedule:  www.sneucc.org/lectionary.