Sunday, April 20, 2014

Disturbing Promises and Whispered Alleluias



There is something wildly out of sync with the gospels' version of Easter and our own. All over the world we’ve got festivals and parades, cantatas and vigils, trumpets and choirs, sunrise services and shouted Halleluiahs!  And we’re not being sarcastic or ironic at all
Our Easter is brimming with confidence.  Easter is fanfare and glory, flowers and fancy hats; it’s the service that our music minister uses the word “bombastic” about, in a good way.  We Christians do up Easter good.

But the first Easter wasn’t that way at all. 
And even in all the ways the gospel accounts differ about Easter, one thing that is similar through them all is the hushed, confusing, unsure nature of it.  It’s scary and strange and nobody knows what to make of it.

We are all about grand finales.  The giant firework show at the end of the 4th of July display is how we operate in all things.  Our romantic comedies always wrap up with the wedding, and we’re all a sucker for a happy ending.  
And maybe we’ve turned Easter into a happy ending.  The dessert after the veggies. 
Jesus was born and grew up, and taught and healed, was amazing and misunderstood, and then he died a terrible, tragic death…and then he rose from the dead! The end! Love wins!
And it does win.

But not the way we think.
So we sit in church on Easter and know that its supposed to feel victorious and triumphant, and sometimes it does, but how many of us have niggling in the back of our minds the children who haven’t yet been pulled out of the sunken ferry boat in S. Korea?  
How many of us just lost someone we love and wonder what the point of all this “Jesus saves” business is when cancer seems more powerful any day of the week? 
How many of us have watched marriages crumble before our eyes and treasured friendships utterly fall apart, and struggled endlessly to find a job, and can’t quite make the bills this month, and are watching someone we care about bowed down with depression, or fighting a gripping addiction, or battling that big secret ourselves, and wonder what this fantastic, bombastic celebration has to do with any of that?

Easter has some big shoes to fill. 
Some big expectations to dash.

But the story before us today is a wondrously honest one, in that it doesn’t quite do up Easter like we would if we were the architects.  

The gospels, for all their attempts to share the resurrection story in the most convincing way- indeed, it is the hinge point of everything- they don’t actually say a word about the resurrection itself.  They show Jesus die in excruciating detail – everyone saw it; it was a publicly-shared, corporately culpable event.  But now resurrection happens like a whisper, a wait, what did you say? a message passed along with hand on shoulder and heads leaned close, you’re not going to believe this, but…
They say he’s not dead. They say he’s alive. 
The tomb is empty. No, I saw it myself.  Grave clothes just laying there.

Where did they take his body? That’s the first response. 
And that’s the only logical conclusion.  Where have they moved the lifeless, dead body?  There is no other possibility.  When things are dead, they are not coming back.
And the rumors swirl, and nobody is completely buying it on an empty tomb and some far-fetched angel gossip.

Yesterday I wondered throughout my Saturday what that vast, gaping Sabbath day was like for Mary and the disciples.  Not even work to distract them.  All those followers of Jesus who had watched him die the day before, as we heard the story unfold Friday night, leaving after the loud noise and the shaking earth into the darkened evening and the emptiness where he once was.
Everything died with him.  
All their hopes for the whole world, not to mention their own lives, died along with him.
They didn’t know Sunday was coming.
This was now reality. Defined by death.
Where you grieve, learn to let go, figure out how to move on in the world without hope, without that person, that dream, that way you saw yourself, that possibility, that bill of health.  Dead.  Over.  The gaping hole of emptiness defining the future from that moment onward.  And sometimes that day lasts a really, really long time.

So when Mary came to the tomb that day it was for only this purpose, this moving on without purpose. This sitting in loss.

And so, when she sees Jesus she doesn’t recognize him. Of course she doesn’t.
She’d seen him die.  He was dead.  And the rolled away stone and empty grave clothes and racing disciples, and even the question of the angels – they did nothing to clarify any of it.  Jesus being there, alive, was impossible.
So when he stands before her, she thinks he’s the gardener.
Please, she begs him; tell me where he is.

And then he says her name, Mary.
And in that encounter, whatever she knows to be true about how the world works, and what she’s experienced before, and what is real and what is impossible, is thrown on end. 
And because he sees her and calls her by name, and she recognizes Jesus.

The tellers of these tales aren’t so concerned, as we are, with how it happens – they don’t want to convince you to believe in the idea of resurrection or come to their version of our religion. 
They are telling you the stories of people seeing Jesus.  
People’s lives being changed by Jesus. 
Believing in his resurrection is just a side-effect.  It’s not the goal and it’s certainly not the point.   Whether or not you buy it doesn’t change the reality that Jesus comes to us.  
And we don’t always – ok, almost never- recognize him right away, especially when we’re looking for the dead Jesus of black and white bible stories and simple answers, or the dead Jesus of martyred sainthood and powerful example.  This Jesus is one who’s been through death, who, in fact, is right there with all who are in it now.  And life looks really different after its been through death.  Suffering changes you; taking on our suffering changes God.
 
So Jesus looks different.
He looks like the gardener tending to life in the early morning dirt near a tomb, or the unknown traveler on a long, dusty road in honest conversation, or the famished guest at the table, holding out his broken hand to your doubt, or the one cooking breakfast on the sea shore while you’re head is in the nets and the work, and the your eyes are on the task in front of you.
So we may not recognize Jesus right away, but nonetheless, Jesus recognizes us and calls us by name.  

And so Easter actually unfolds gradually, not like the Christmas Angels’ triumphant alleluia! filling the night sky, heralding God’s entrance into humanity, but a breathless moment here, a surprising encounter there, a sudden setting aside of reality as it was for reality as it has come to be in a dead and risen God, where hope can spring unbidden and unexpected from abject despair, and new things are born when we’ve given up hanging onto what has died.

In weakness, God entered into all that defeats us and submitted completely.  And it defeated God too.  And all was lost.
Until it wasn’t.
Until love crawled out from under defeat and reached out to Mary in the garden and told her that a new set of rules now governs the game.
Instead of saving us out of misery, Easter drags God into it.
And with the risen Jesus right there in it with us, the end of the story is decided, and there is no death so great that life is not greater, no hatred so powerful that love will not prevail. 

So here’s the plan, I think.  
We are going to sing it out big and do it up good.  
We are going to bring out our trumpet and our dancing shoes, and in the face of a world mired in death and heavy with sorrow and broken with injustice and pain, we are going to celebrate that we are not in this alone, and that death does not get the last word. 

We are going to raise our voices in loud lament for the places death dominates – we are going to grieve, oh, we will grieve, with those whose pain is real and raw and whose horror is stark and unyielding.  Because that’s where Jesus is right now; and that’s what Jesus is doing.

But as silly or skeptical as it might make you at first blush, we are also going to rejoice, and celebrate, and proclaim death’s defeat – not because we’re naïve or indifferent, but because Easter is not some grand finale, happy ending that wraps up every loose end or heals up every wound. 
Oh no, Easter just complicates everything, really. It breaks it all open and thrusts us back into the messy world where God is relentlessly present and the Spirit is always moving and we could come upon the risen Jesus at any moment

And, I am going to give you one more disturbing promise before we’re finished here, and its not that you’ll suddenly be able to wrap your mind around resurrection or you’ll have some kind of perma-faith, festive and joyful. 
No, it’s the true promise of Easter, and that is this: Jesus will meet you. This year, this week, this month, perhaps this very day, you will be encountered by the Risen Lord.  You may not recognize him at first, most likely you won’t. He might look like a neighbor, or friend, or stranger, or enemy.  Jesus might meet you in a hard-struggled reconciliation, an unearned forgiveness, a glimpse of selfless generosity, the freedom of unfettered joy, or a soul-cleansing, sobbing release, or Christ might come to you in a deep, knowing silence that fills you with peace.  Something or someone that suddenly helps you feel the bigger picture, the love that holds us all and will never let us go.

You might not even realize it was Jesus until you’re telling someone else about it.  Or until you’re listening to them tell you about some encounter they’ve had and suddenly you’ll know – that was Jesus! – right there, in your life, calling your name! 

And it feels hushed and sacred, and confusing and thrilling, because it invites you to wake up and join in deeper, where things break you open more, and fill you up more, and you share life with others, and let them share it with you, and you resist evil and easy targets and apathy, and hold out for hope and love, trusting that they are the last word in this new reality.

And finally, for those of you who are waiting in the darkness after the death, the shadowed Saturday of grief and impossibility- you may be there for a long time.  But it will not be forever.  And it will not define you.  Because our God brings life out of death, and love gets the final say.

So let’s sing our Easter hymns, and lift up our heartfelt prayers, and leave here as people ready to be encountered by our Risen Lord, whenever, and wherever he may meet us.
Alleluia! Amen!

Friday, April 18, 2014

Good Friday...good?




You asked me today what makes Good Friday good.

And I remembered this.

Several years ago, when you were just a baby, I was teaching a class of four and five year olds, preparing them to sit in worship with their parents.  So far things had gone fairly well, the wiggling and giggling posse had learned about worship, had sung a few hymns, had talked about baptism and we were on to communion.  

Then out of nowhere, little Bria Fisher in all her pig-tailed glory scrunched up her nose at me and shot her hand up in the air and said, ardently and honestly, 
"Miss Kara, Why is it a GOOD thing that Jesus died?"
Why indeed, Bria!

The whole class suddenly stopped squirming and listened intently as I bumbled and stumbled, suddenly starkly aware of the utter foolishness of our claim in faith.  Why is it a good thing that Jesus died? (What was I doing talking about death and body and blood with a room full of four year olds??)

It took me a week to have a real answer for Bria.  
The following Sunday I sat down with Bria and her mom and I told Bria that she had really thrown me last week and I was not happy with how I had answered her very good question.  
Why is it a good thing that Jesus died? 

If she would allow me, I said, I would like to give it another try.
And then I asked Bria, Do you know anyone who has lived forever?
No, she answered.
Can you think of anyone who will never die? 
Will your grandpa die?
Yes.
Will your mom someday die?
Yes.
Will you and I die someday?
Yes we will. 
Everyone dies. 
Everyone has to die.
Death is part of being human.
As sad as it is, it’s part of what it means to be alive.
 
But what about God? I asked. 
God doesn’t die! She answered. 
No God doesn’t die! God is forever!  God doesn’t have to die!
But here’s what is so amazing about God: God chose to die. 
God loved us so much that God wanted to be there for us, and with us, because we belong to God.
So God chose to become human with us.  To live life just the same as you and me.  All the good parts and the hard parts, right with us.
And that meant that God also chose to die, just like us. 
But you know what else that means?
What?
It means that now there is nothing, nothing scary, nothing sad, nothing ugly or wrong, that will happen to us in life without God being there, loving us. 
When we are afraid, God is there.
When we are sad, God is there, loving us. 
And what about when we are angry?
And what about when we hurt other people and say mean things?
Does God still love us then?
Yes, always, no matter what.
We belong to God. 
Always and forever, through our whole lives. And one day when we do die, God is with us, loving us, forever and ever. 

This, my beloved, is power. This is the power to face reality and live honestly.  To look at the darkness in the world, and in ourselves, and call it what is.  Because God went there, God is there. To the places of total godforsakeness, that's where Jesus goes.  Life is hard and scary, and filled with pain and sadness.  But we are not alone.

What will separate us from the love of Christ? asks the Apostle Paul. 
Will hardship, or distress, 
or persecution or famine 
or nakedness or perile or sword? 
No, I am convinced that neither death nor life 
nor angels nor demons nor rulers 
nor anything present or things to come 
nor powers nor heights nor depths 
nor anything else in all creation 
will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. 


So here we will sit, my dear, in the terrible goodness of Good Friday.  
We will sit here together, noticing all the death - and there is so much!- we will notice it, and we will call it what it is, and we will know that God is in it too. 
And we will wait. 
We will wait for the hope of Easter.

Saturday, April 12, 2014

Palm Sunday Parade

Palm Sunday, by Kai Althoff


The Lenten stories of Nicodemus, the Woman at the Well, and Lazarus, revisited
by Lisa Larges & Kara K Root


The hallway is decorated for a parade, streamers are across the ceiling, confetti is on the floor. Palm shrubs line the walls, and branches are scattered around.  The congregation walks through the hall to reach the sanctuary, where they gather for worship.
Partway through the worship service, loud, raucous crowd sounds are heard coming from the hallway, cow bells, shouting, cheering.  The sounds of Mardi Gras are seeping through the cracks in the door. (A recording is playing in the hallway).

The door opens, and Nicodemus slips into the sanctuary.  He is dressed in a professional suit, with an official-looking badge clipped to the front.  In his arms, he holds a sleeping baby.

 Nicodemus

 Oh!
I didn’t realize anyone else was in here.
I had to get away!
I couldn’t bear it any longer.
I’m still one of them, after all, so what can I do?

There was that one time when I tried to speak up for him, I said, “Shouldn’t we at least give him a hearing? “ [John 7:50]
Now I worry, was that too much?
I think to myself, It’s too dangerous to try to defend him. I can just be quiet and say nothing.

So there I am with them, watching as he comes in to town. Seeing the joy on the faces. Seeing him there, calm, dignified.
Is this what he meant when he said, “The wind will blow where it will?”

But I can’t show joy.
I’m with them.
They’re all busy scanning the crowd, taking down the names of people they recognize. And as always, the talk turns to, what charges can we bring against him, in order to, as they say, “dispose of the problem.”

And, suspicion is everywhere.
It’s wormed its way in to me.
The longer I say nothing, the more I imagine they must be suspicious of me too.
“Why are you so quiet?”
Nicodemus, are you one of them too?”
But, I’m sure no one knows that I had talked to him.
At least, I think I’m sure. I went out at night.
The whole house was asleep. I made sure no one was following me.
And it was just him and me, there in the middle of the night – the soft evening wind tossing the branches of the trees. I kept looking around to see if anyone was there, but it was just the wind.

“The wind blows where it will,” he said, “You don’t know where it comes from, or where it will go.”
True enough, I thought to myself.
He said that the Spirit of God was like that too.
I don’t know what that means.

But what troubles me even more, the words that stay with me, what I keep thinking about when they’re talking about his death, is what he said about being born.
You must be born again,” he said.

And it was funny too, because just days before, my daughter had given birth to my first grandchild.
This is the one. She’s beautiful, isn’t she?

I know, I know, a man holding a baby … but, I’ve been doing a lot of things that are beneath my station.
The whole family rejoiced when she was born. Not a son, no, but still we rejoiced. And, I think it was then that the dark mood came over me.

Maybe I was just more painfully aware of it – my own despair was so much more evident to me against the foil of the joy in our house.

“What kind of a world is this to bring a baby in to?”
The thought raced and raced around inside my head.
“What are we doing, bringing these babies in to this world?”

I mean, what will there be for her? 
Roman soldiers all around; and if it isn’t the oppression of Rome, then there are the busy-bodies like me, “laying on the people burdens too heavy to bear.” That’s something else he said.

I used to believe that it was necessary.
If we were only righteous enough, pure enough, then ….
Then what?
Then God would smile on us?
Then we would believe that we were not like the Romans, and believe it so strongly that we would overthrow them?
I used to believe this. Something like this. Do I still believe it now?

I mean, look at her. So small and beautiful, and so very vulnerable. So very vulnerable that it fills my heart with terror. If only I could shield her from any suffering, for the pain that will lie ahead for her. If only I could shield her from worry and want. If only I could tell her that if she followed all the rules – followed them strictly enough – followed them to the very letter – that she could wall herself off from loss and sorrow.
But, the hard thing is that I no longer believe it.
And that makes me afraid.

It’s the same fear I felt standing out there with my compatriots, the rulers of the Synagogue, as we watched him and made our plans. Surely he must know.
And I want to believe him. But I’m not sure I can.

If it happens, and I know it will – if we have our way and we stone him, or, as some are suggesting, we get Herod or Pilate to crucify him, then my heart will break open all over again.

Looking at him there, and hearing the talk around me, he seems just as vulnerable as this baby here in my arms.
Is that what he meant?
Is that the Messiah?
Am I to be as vulnerable as this one?
Am I to be as vulnerable as he is on his way to a certain death?
Is that what God, the Holy one, the Ruler of the universe is calling me too?
Am I, are you, to be as vulnerable in the world as this one?
How can we be born again?

Nicodemus turns, shushing and bouncing the baby, and exits the sanctuary.  We hear the crowd sounds loudly as the door opens and closes again.

 Suddenly, the door slams open.  A woman dressed in “tour guide” clothes with binoculars around her neck, a sun hat, a fanny pack and sensible shoes, carrying a clipboard, erupts into the room.

Samaritan Woman from the Well

(Bursts in, out of breath)
Oh!
Hi!
You haven’t seen a couple of boys run through here, have you?  I’m sure they’re around here somewhere, but their mama’s gotten a little worried and I thought I’d rustle them up for her and put her mind at ease.
Besides, he is coming soon, and they won’t want to miss him!

Whew! (bends over and catches her breath. Stands back up and continues, smiling)
I knew it would be a little tricky, bringing a whole group and all, but I couldn’t have held them back if I’d tried, and I wasn’t about to miss this either. 
So what, there are a few stares and whispered comments!  I suppose a big old vanload of Samaritans doesn’t roll into Jerusalem every day. It’s not like Judeans are taking pre-paid pilgrimages to our Mt. Gerizim to worship!  Ha!

But, really, how could we miss this?
Besides, we’re under strict orders to bring back every detail; the rest of the town is waiting with bated breath, and they sent along notes and homemade goodies to pass on to him.  So here we are then, in this place packed with Judeans! 
And Wow! are they ever hyped for this parade!

(Pauses) Only, I wonder a little bit if they all know what they’re getting into.  (giggles)

(whispers conspiratorially)
It seems like, from what I am hearing out there, that people still think this is about their temple.  Their idea of Messiah, their version of truth, and worship, and God.  The Jesus they’re all whispering about up and down that street doesn’t sound like much the one I know.  It’s like some of them think he’s going to fit right into their script, and if that’s what they think, then WOW, are they in for a shock!

We mountain-worshipers understood the way God had meant for it to be, and we never wavered, for centuries, same as these temple-worshipers here.  But that day he came to my town, to Jacob’s well, and asked me for a drink… that day changed everything for us.

God is Spirit. he said, and true worshipers worship in spirit and truth.

I wonder how many people out there think they’ve got it figured out. How many think they know what God wants from them – even if they can’t or wont do it, they’ve got some idea of what it is.  I wonder how many are looking around at the others and thinking what they’ve got wrong.  A good number are thinking that about us anyway.  
What if they knew he stayed a couple nights with us? Ate at our tables? Taught in our holy place? Those boys that ran through here a minute ago, he played soccer with them till the sun went down. What if they knew that he prayed with us? Hugged us goodbye when he left?
What would they all think of him if they could have seen him then?

The world gives us simple choices- you are either right or wrong. Good or bad. Period.  You can’t be both, and you can’t all be right and good.  So we draw our lines in the sand and glare at each other across them and nobody budges.

But he cut through all of that.  He dances his careless footprints all over our lines in the sand. It wont even matter how you worship or where you worship, he said. What matters is who you worship. And I am right here. With you.

Right here, with you.
In the heat of the afternoon, in traveler’s clothes, in need of a drink, how many of those folks out there would give him a second look? That’s not Messiah material, my friends.  And yet, there he sat, like any ordinary person, like a person in need, the savior of the world, asking me for a drink.

I had never imagined in all my life I would meet the Messiah. I had never thought God would come near enough, (to any of us, let alone someone like me) to make any kind of difference. We put our head down and do what we can to make it through this life, don’t we?  We stay on our side of the lines, and hope at the end of it that God isn’t disappointed with us.   That’s pretty much how it works, right?

I never mattered to anyone. Nobody’s fault, really, I just never seemed to be worth much and that was just that.  But I know how to hang on and take care of myself. All those husbands, the ones who cared, and the ones who didn’t, and the ones who felt they had to prove that they couldn’t care less.  And I outlived and outlasted them all.  But make no mistake, I knew my life wasn’t meant to amount to much, especially when it turned out I couldn’t bear children.  And I had accepted my fate.  Like a cockroach. You could beat me down but you couldn’t kill me.  I’m quick and I keep to the shadows.  And besides, you can’t kill what isn’t really alive to begin with anyway, right?

But now look at me! Holy Bagumba!  Talk about alive!  I am responsible for this whole tour. I am their leader, friends, and on this little soiree, the buck stops with me.

He changed my life that day.  He changed our whole town.  We all came alive.  And He is going to change everything.  And nothing, nothing will turn out like you think it will. Like they think it will.  Just you watch and see.
So Go ahead and celebrate! Celebrate and let go of your expectations!  It’s all far more wonderful than we can imagine!

Because, guess what?  Suddenly it’s not even about right and wrong and good and bad at all, it’s about life, and it’s for everybody, and nobody is exempt, and nobody misses out, and we don’t get to decide who’s worthy to receive because not a single one us of is, after all, and that doesn’t slow him down in the least from bringing it to us anyway.

Listen to me: God is going to overthrow the whole lot of us, and we’re better off for it!
So sit back and watch the show!
Better yet, jump in the van with us! We’ve got room, some extra sandwiches, and a spot reserved right at the top of the road by the temple! 
(Turns to leave)
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the Highest! Wahoo!!!! WAHOO!!!
(Turns back)
Oh!, And if you see those boys, you tell them their tour leader is looking for them; and if they’re still planning on giving him that soccer ball,  they’d better skedaddle back.  Because they DO NOT want to miss him.

(Leaves in a joyful explosion)




The door opens again – again we hear the crowd sounds from the hallway, and a man slinks in, hat pulled low over his face, hiding a big fake mustache and dark glasses.

Lazarus
(pauses and peeks back out into the hall and then turns around and sees congregation)

Pardon me. I came in here to get away from that crowd. I worry that someone is going to recognize me.
[Takes off dark glasses]

Just promise me you won’t tell anyone that you saw me, or where I am.
[Takes off hat and mustache, as he continues to talk]

It’s impossible to go out any more without wearing a disguise.
You won’t believe what’s happened to me since that day. You wouldn’t believe the nerve of some people.
They’re sure there’s some kind of trick somewhere. And you can’t really blame them. I guess I would have believed the same.

Some people confine themselves to just staring at me, but some of them don’t even lower their voices when they talk about me. “He’s the dead guy. You heard about him, right?
Dead three days, and then that Galilean Jesus called him out of the tomb.”
I think they think I can’t hear them.
Like lots of people they think maybe somehow I’m still dead. See this scratch here? That’s where a stranger came up and cut me with a knife. Wanted to see if I would bleed, I guess.
I’m not kidding you.

If I went out there and people knew it was me, you’d see. People stick me with pins. They pinch me. They poke at me. They get up close to me and stare in my face to see if I’m really someone else. They tear at my clothes– I guess they think they’ll find a skeleton underneath.

And you know, maybe I could get used to it, or learn to put up with it. I think it would subside in time. But what really makes it hard is the questions, and I don’t know that they will ever stop.

One of the first was a father.  “ Please,” he said to me, tears running down his face, “My son, dead now 4 years, and every day I want to know that he is in a better place. Tell me what it’s like on the other side.” He’s squeezing my arm hard, “Tell me he’s at peace!”

It’s not the speculation that gets to me – the scribes and Pharisees arguing with each other about the afterlife. It’s the others. The ones who carry their grief so strong in them. They just want to know. And they come asking me, because I’ve been to the other side, and I’m back again.
The terrible part is that I have nothing to tell them. I have nothing to tell them, because I don’t remember.

I don’t remember death.
I don’t remember anything about those three days.
I can just barely remember that pull I felt when he called me.
I can’t remember how I got myself up, but I vaguely remember stumbling forward, and the hands all over me, and the relief as the cloth was pulled away, and the faces of my beloved sisters swimming in front of me.

All of that is like a dream to me now, blurry and indistinct.
I can’t tell you anything about death.

But I can tell you about dying.
I can tell you what it was for me, anyway, because dying I remember.
I remember the pain.

Pain so strong it took away everything. Pain that made the whole world recede. Pain that consumed my whole mind. But through the whirlwind of pain, I knew they were there. I could feel their hands, like small islands of peace in a horrible storm.
I can feel them there, one on each side of me.
I can hear their voices above the din of the pain.
“I wish he would come.”
“Don’t worry; he’s going to get here soon.”
And then one of them is speaking to me,
“Hold on dear brother, he’s going to be here very soon, and it will be better then. Please, hang on, he’s coming.”

And then there are silences.
And then, it’s Martha, reciting the Psalms to me.
I think of her.
I think of how she’s learned to stop trying to manage everything.
Now she just sits with me.

I remember feeling something warm on my skin, and I know it is one of them.
Is it Mary? Crying? Her tears falling on to me?

I feel myself going further and further away from them.

And, I know this, if my sisters, Mary and Martha, hadn’t been there with me, it would have been pure terror. But, I drew my strength from them. They were my comfort; they helped me pass through my dying in to death.
(Pauses)

I can’t help thinking about him out there in the crowd.
I know that death can’t be far away for him now.

Yes, I know. The crowds, the Hosannas.
But the crowd could turn at any moment.
And the leaders are after him. It’s because of me, and what happened back there.

I’ve talked about it with Mary and Martha.
They agree, I can’t feel guilty about it.
Mary says that whatever happens will be for the glory of God.
Martha says that there would have been something else they would have gone after him for.

But I know what lies ahead for him.
I wonder, Who will hold his hands?
Who will wipe the sweat from his forehead?
Who will be there with him?

But this is what I hold onto now.
Whenever I think about death, his, or the one that will finally come for me, I think about the table in our house. I think of us there, Mary, quiet and thoughtful, Martha, alert to every need, and me, their brother. It’s the three of us, and he is with us for an evening. And for a while, life is pure sweetness.
It is sacred, it is …. Yes, I would say it is holy.

It’s not the crowd outside, with their volatile hosannas. 
It’s not his calling me back from death, or any of the other signs he performed. 
And it’s not his teachings, wise and true and often inscrutable to me. 
It’s those moments around the table, when I knew, knew with a certainty, that he is the Messiah.

(Puts costume pieces back on. Takes a deep breath, and leaves)

After Lazarus leaves, the crowd noises grow louder. Then we hear the soundtrack from the hallway:
Hosanna! Hosanna in the Highest! Blessed is the One who comes in the Name of the Lord!
Hosanna in the Highest Heaven!

Crowd noise recedes.  There is silence for 10-15 seconds.
 Suddenly we hear pounding on the door and a gruff loud voice: “Is he in there? Where is He? Where is this ‘King of the Jews?’”

The service ends with song and benediction.

When congregation leaves the sanctuary, the hallway is filled with post-parade debris: wrappers, crushed palm branches, crumpled newspapers, crushed soda cans, etc.

How to Repent (It's not how you think)

Psalm 46 ,  Jeremiah 31:31-34 When I was in college, I spent the large part of one summer sleeping on a 3-foot round papason chair cushion o...