Easter
Dear friends,
Today we reflect on Jesus final hours. It is somber time yet a joyous one too, for Jesus will be going home and, as always, he is listening closely to God the Father and calling on the Holy Spirit. It is hard to make sense of the death and pain that Good Friday brings without remembering the grace and love that Jesus and the disciples shared the day before. That night, Maundy Thursday, Jesus invited his disciples’ to join him in worship at the table, but in a different way than he had previously. For along with prayer and gratitude for the blessings of food and fellowship, Jesus reminds them that the wine they drink is full of spirit and the bread they break and eat is like the body of God. He tells them to pay attention for as they eat and drink they are performing a sacred act whereby the divine spirit enters into them, healing them of their ignorance and greed and strengthening them to become clearer channels for God’s grace. This act of divine generosity is a wondrous miracle that changed them as it can still change us, so many, many generations later.
But after this, Jesus speaks of the further blessings they will receive when they listen and follow him into the Kingdom,
As the Father loved me, I also have loved you; abide in my love. 10 If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in His love.
12 This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. John 15: 9-12
Jesus instructed his followers, as he does us today, that love and truth are the best examples of God’s abiding grace and faith in us. He came to remind us of God’s eternal care and patience with us, in spite of all we do to ignore the spirit in our lives. This is the wonder; the sheer brilliance of how much God appreciates us, though we forget, though we behave foolishly, though we ignore the great gifts set in front of us daily. Even the horrors we visit upon those who act or think or look or believe differently than ourselves, even this and so terribly much more is not enough to stop God’s love and care for us. God’s heart breaks again and again at the pain and suffering that is in the world, but never will God leave us or reject us. People reject all the time but the spirit? It never does.
God is with us; this is the meaning of Jesus name God with us, always and forever no matter what. So do not let the terrors and rages of life take over, do not let them take you away from God.
See the Napa Register’s front page article on our Easter Sunrise Service: