Holy Love

"Power Play" by the Rev. Lisle Gwynn Garrity of A Sanctified Art, LLC

We are headed for my favorite week of the liturgical year: Holy Week.

We pastors have a few other unseemly nicknames for one of our busiest weeks of the year, but in truth, there is nothing quite like telling the story of the final week of Jesus's life.

I remember in college, one of my professors drilled into us that there would be no Christianity without the final day of Holy Week: Easter. Without the empty tomb. Yes, the cross is necessary to get to it. However, if Jesus had only died on the cross, he would have been executed for blasphemy and sedition, have been abandoned by all his male disciples (save one), and would have descended into protracted ignominy.

Except, that is not what happened, is it?

The first two statements are true enough. But rather than becoming just another cast off of the Roman Empire, the stone did roll back that first day and Christ did become victor over death, sin, and anything else that stands against God's self.

There are countless reasons why Jesus died on the cross. But at the heart of it all is the profligate nature of God's Love held in contrast with the extremes we humans will go to denigrate, ostracize, and dominate one another. And God chose to take all that onto God's self so that whatever the world may think, whatever the church may teach, whatever ways we continue to break our relationships with one another - nothing will ever separate us from the Love of God again.

I am convinced that God loves us more than we can imagine. And that, while it may not always feel like it, God will never leave us. So we can be brave and courageous as we make tenacious, good trouble in a world that would try to dominate us, too. To stand for our neighbors. To sit with the broken. To rise even when all hope seems lost.

Blessings,

Rev. Janie