Have you ever witnessed a miracle?
Something that defies rational explanation.
Something that can only be explained by the presence of the divine.
Something that, either immediately or upon reflection, brings deep and lasting joy and gratitude.
Something like the birth of a baby.
An unexplained healing.
Survival of extreme hardship.
Miracles lead to a changed perspective, a new lease on life.
When they are happening, though, they feel impossible, disorienting, scary.
Didn’t we start this service proclaiming Jesus as the King of kings? Shouting ‘Hosanna!’ and making lots of noise as we processed with waving palm fronds?
How did we get from a triumphal entry into Jerusalem to Jesus tried and convicted, executed and entombed in one service?
Is anyone else feeling a bit of theological and emotional whiplash?
In the gospel we read outside, the people wave palm branches and throw down their cloaks while Jesus rides a donkey into Jerusalem. At the time, Israel was occupied by Roman forces, who demanded high taxes and ruled with fear of harsh punishments like flogging, breaking limbs, or death by crucifixion. Jesus’ compassionate teachings about God’s love and forgiveness for all people, no matter their station in life, resonated with the regular people. Exhausted and oppressed by a brutal and long Roman occupation, they are ready for the long-awaited new ruler of Israel. The One promised to restore the land of milk and honey to God’s people.
“Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit” (John 12:24)
Wheat is often used as a symbol of rebirth, or new life, or sometimes of the life of a community. A few years ago, the kids and I planted a tabletop container of wheat at the beginning of Lent. Nothing happened for the first two days. On the third day, we noticed that the seeds were swelling and starting to put out little roots. By the fifth day, there were little green shoots pushing up out of the soil. In the second week, there were days when you could almost see the shoots growing, reaching for light. Four full weeks into Lent, the wheat grass was about 10 inches tall. The fruit of our wheat garden was the fruit of reflection, of patience to watch it grow, of wondering at God’s amazing creation.
Before watching that wheat spring up in the middle of our dining room table, I never really understood how the symbolism of wheat connects to Easter. Now I know!! It takes three days for wheat to germinate. Three days to die and come back to life.
Readings for this week
Have your eyes adjusted yet?
How are your other senses feeling?
We describe this worship service as In the Gloaming. Gloaming is most often used to refer to twilight, that time between sunset and darkness. It can, however, be used to refer to the time around dawn when the sky is lightening before the sunrise. Gloaming describes the way objects appear to glow like coals in the changing and indirect light.
Have you heard the saying, “Good fences build good neighbors”?
It comes from the Robert Frost poem, “Mending Wall.”
The poem is about the conversation and mutual effort of neighbors meeting in the spring to walk the line of a stone fence between their properties. Each walks on their own side, patching holes, re-stacking stones that have fallen, adding new ones from the field, doing the work of maintaining an old New England stone fence.
