Becoming a Metaphor

 

PROPERS:          LAST SUNDAY AFTER THE EPIPHANY, YEAR A

TEXT:                MATTHEW 17:1-9

PREACHED AT ST. PAUL’S CHAPEL, MAGNOLIA SPRINGS, ON SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 2023.

 

ONE SENTENCE:        A goal in life is to become “like” – a metaphor for the Gospel.  

 

            A good friend of mine during my thirty years of service in the Diocese of Mississippi was the Reverend James Beauregard Roberts. He went by “Bo.”

 

            Bo is an icon in Mississippi. He was rector of what was tiny St. Mark’s Church in a portion of Gulfport known as Mississippi City.  He arrived there a couple of months before Hurricane Camille destroyed the church – rebuilt it, and saw it grow.

 

            He was rector there at St. Mark’s for 45 years – through four bishops.  He led the rebuilding of the church after Camille and Hurricane Katrina.  It grew to be one of the largest parishes in the diocese.

 

            Bo is a noted raconteur.  His stories are legend.  His humor is memorable.  There is no short conversation with Bo.

 

            Conversations with Bo always begin with “It’s like this…” He compares one situation to another. All situations have an analogy.  Bo tells the truth through images. He speaks in metaphors.

 

            Metaphors can be defined simply as “the quality or truth of one thing being carried over to another.” Bo is a master of that. Metaphors – truth pointed toward something else.

 

            Which brings me to scripture.

 

            There are many levels of truth in scripture.  Don’t get sucked into that argument of primarily literal truth. That understanding removes so many layers of meaning to scripture. For example, is the important truth of the creation narrative in Genesis 1 the understanding that God created the world, the cosmos, and all that has ever existed in seven, 24-hour days? Or is a different understanding – that God is the source of everything – that is most important?

 

            Jesus spoke in metaphors – the Good Samaritan, the Wheat and Tares, the Prodigal Son, the Mustard Seed, the City on a Hill, the Pearl of Great Value, the Lost Coin – all great examples.

 

            As you might have noticed, I find great value in the metaphorical meaning of scripture. I find it a most instructive way to find the truth in scripture. The passage means this. To hear the metaphorical meaning is to access the scripture’s meaning for us today. At least 2,000 years later.

 

            So, it is with today’s gospel. This passage is known as the Transfiguration.  We hear the story each year on the Last Sunday after the Epiphany – as we prepare to enter Lent.  And we hear it, too, on one of the primary feast days of the Church – August 6, the Feast of the Transfiguration. It draws us again and again to God’s movement among people.

 

            In the passage, Jesus climbs a high mountain with what I call his Executive Committee, Peter, James, and John. There he is transfigured before their eyes; as one translation describes it, “whiter than any fuller could bleach them.”  Mysteriously and miraculously, he is joined by two prominent Jewish sages from hundreds of years before – Moses and Elijah.

 

            The message seems to be that Jesus is on par… equal to… these great figures so revered by the Jewish people. To many, that emphasizes Jesus’ status as messiah, and it does.

 

            But to me, more meaning can be found in the message that God transforms. God can take our limited, finite being and transform us into people that are able to manifest his renewing, redeeming power despite our human nature. We can bear witness to his redeeming power.

 

            When our lives are so transformed – when we turn back from destructive, alienating ways, ways that are as unique as each one of us – we, too, become metaphors.  We become someone or something that points toward a power which alters, changes, renews, and makes whole something which was previously self-defeating and limited.

 

            We become like Jesus. A metaphor.

 

            We have all known someone who we described as godly… as holy… as pointing toward what we would aspire to.  A message of the Transfiguration is that God can do that. The power on that mountaintop is available to you and me.

It's Complicated

PROPERS:          SIXTH SUNDAY AFTER THE EPIPHANY, YEAR A         

TEXT:                DEUTERONOMY 30:15-20

PREACHED AT ST. PAUL’S CHAPEL, MAGNOLIA SPRINGS, ON SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 2023.

 

ONE SENTENCE:        We typically do not make a single choice, but multiple choices which have a compounding effect.

 

            Life is a series of choices. They are like building blocks, determining what we become.

 

            The poet, Robert Frost, described the cumulative effect of those choices in his poem written in 1915:

 

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth…

 

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

 

            That poem has led to some monumental choices over the years.  But, as you likely know, life is a series of choices.  And those choices have a compounding effect.  They may lead us higher and higher, or perhaps take us lower and lower.

 

            There is a practice in engineering which applies to other aspects of life.  It is called Root Cause Analysis. As I have applied it in congregational consulting, it posits that there are typically multiple causes for issues of conflict, decline, or controversy in congregations.

 

            Root Cause Analysis has been applied or can be applied to many situations to show why things have gone off the rails. In the deep investigation, root cause analysis showed that there were many actions, inactions, or factors which led to the massive tragedies of September 11, 2001.

 

            Root cause analysis could be read into the compounding decisions in the Viet Nam conflict, as described in David Halberstam’s Pulitzer Prize winning book, The Best and Brightest. We could apply those same principles of multiple causes to Watergate and the staggering death toll of COVID.  In each case, there was a cascading effect caused by choices which were made.

 

            Our lives are built on such choices.  There may be a primary cause for success or failure… of employment… of health… of relationships… but there are always many choices which lead us to that point.

 

+ + + 

 

            Moses and the wandering Hebrew people are standing on the plains of Moab today.  They have been there for a long time, in the arid area of today’s south Jordan, near the eastern shore of the Dead Sea.

 

            Moses will soon climb the hills of Ammon, to the north, from which he will look across the Jordan Valley into the Promised Land from Mount Nebo.  There he will die.

 

            But first he wants to finalize his teaching.  He has conveyed the Law he has been given.  It began with the Ten Commandments and has been completed with oracle after oracle of minute directions for the ordering of life and community. Hear his words from today’s first lesson:

 

“I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying him, and holding fast to him; for that means life to you and length of days, so that you may live in the land that the Lord swore to give to your ancestors, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.”

 

            Moses has given us a choice – as to our primary allegiance in this life.  That is an important decision, and one we have the opportunity to affirm on a weekly basis, even a daily basis.

 

            But like 9/11, the Viet Nam War, Watergate, and COVID, our daily decisions have a cumulative impact which lead us either toward or away from a life of ongoing sanctification.

 

            A friend once gave me an image that is enormously revealing to me: The unbaptized corners of our hearts.  Our choices should call us to bring those unbaptized corners into the light of Jesus’ redeeming love.

            With such choices, we build block-by-block. 

The Law of the Heart

 

PROPERS:          FIFTH SUNDAY AFTER THE EPIPHANY, YEAR A         

TEXT:                MATTHEW 5:13-20

PREACHED AT ST. PAUL’S CHAPEL, MAGNOLIA SPRINGS, ON SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2023.

 

ONE SENTENCE:        The superseding of the Law comes through a converted heart that obeys the essence through conversion.  

 

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished.”

 

            In Judeo-Christian practice, the Law originated at a place I recently visited – the craggy, extinct volcano in barren northernmost Egypt named Mt. Sinai.  It was there, scripture tells us, that Moses communed with God and received the Ten Commandments.

 

            Over the millennia, the Law developed further in the Books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy and the writings, to this day, of Jewish sages and rabbis. The Law, as it exists today, applies to every imaginable aspect of human existence.

 

            So, what does it have to do with us?

 

+ + + 

 

            Jesus says today, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law.” Yet, each of us likely violates the tenets of the Law multiple times each week.

 

            One of the delights of living on the Eastern Shore is the ready access to seafood.  Just this past week, Nora and I enjoyed roasted shrimp at our favorite restaurant, Red or White in Fairhope.  I thoroughly enjoy crabs, mussels, and oysters – though I wonder who exactly ate the first raw oyster.

 

            My other temptation is barbecue – pork, especially.  It is a delight when Randy and Von Nix or Jim and Lisa May smoke a pork shoulder for this congregation’s enjoyment. I had some this past Friday on the way to Atlanta. Even though I am not as good at it, I like to slow cook pork on my home smoker – whether it is pork shoulder, pork butt, or ribs.  I have always loved it.

 

            But all this, and much, much more, is explicitly prohibited by the Law.  Did you drive a car yesterday?  Not allowed. Did you cook lunch or dinner yesterday? Not okay. Did you work or shop yesterday? Out of bounds. 

 

Remember, according to the Law, the Sabbath was yesterday. Today is not the Sabbath.  Today is the Lord’s Day – the Day of Resurrection.  Does that free us from the requirements of the Sabbath found in the Law? According to the Law, maybe not.

 

Jesus loved the Law.  For him, it was a gift from God to order lives and to bring structure to communities. But he viewed the ways it came to be interpreted and the manner in which religious authorities applied it to be burdensome. The target was not the conversion of the heart, but adherence to every jot and tittle of the most minute interpretation.

 

For Jesus, the volumes of the Law, it’s very essence, could be greatly reduced: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.” In his day, Jesus was not alone in that interpretation.  Other rabbis of his day said the same thing.

 

I suspect most of us think we adhere to this summary. But it is not a goal we reach, but something to which we aspire throughout our lives.  The more certain we are that we have reached that standard, the less likely we are to have gotten there.  It is a lifelong process of sanctification, always striving to move toward the goal of holiness.

 

A way I interpret it is to intend the best for each person and each thing I do. It is not something I realize.  I fall short mostly.  But I seek it.  

 

Pork, shrimp, mussels, and oysters? Doesn’t matter.  The heart is what matters.

The Power of Purple Passages

 

PROPERS:          FOURTH SUNDAY AFTER THE EPIPHANY, YEAR A    

TEXT:                MICAH 6:1-8

PREACHED AT HOLY TRINITY, PENSACOLA, ON SUNDAY, JANUARY 29, 2023.

 

ONE SENTENCE:        The essence of a faithful life is found in a few simple words from the prophet Micah.

 

            The fall of 1984 was perhaps the time of greatest anxiety in my life.  It was my first semester of seminary at the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee.

 

            Nora and I had left our hometown of nine years to venture north.  We had left a congregation which was an anchor for us.  We had both left productive jobs.  We had left our home in Northeast Jackson.  And we had two young children in tow.

 

            It was a challenging time.

 

            I had been away from fulltime studies for nine years.  I was unsure of my academic abilities – especially in a challenging graduate environment.  It was a very vulnerable time.  My weight dropped precipitously.

 

            It did not help that nearly all the chips were on one course – the study of the Old Testament.  Some 80 percent of our class time was focused on that one course.  That course would decide my academic fate in my first semester of a three-year regimen.

 

            The professor was an Old Testament bear of a man.  His name was William Augustin Griffin.  He had taught Old Testament at Sewanee for thirty years.  He had taken the previous year off as he struggled with a health issue.

 

            But now he was back. A towering man with a booming voice.  His ruddy, florid complexion made him even more intimidating.  He was the personification of an Old Testament prophet.  And he brooked no nonsense.  He was the focus of his classroom.

 

            During that first semester, we studied Genesis and Exodus to a great extent.  We delved into the prophets as well. We came to know the timeline of the Old Testament and the key figures of its many stories. I gained a love of the Hebrew Scriptures that I never lost.

 

            We took copious notes.  Page after page after page.  But occasionally, we knew to put our pens down and just listen.  Mr. Griffin was preaching.  And it was magnificent.  His voice boomed with passion.  We could almost see coals of fire in his eyes.  His message was always clear.

 

            I came to love Mr. Griffin. The ferocity of his teaching was not aimed at students but reflected his passion for the subject.

 

            One way in which we came to know his essential emphasis was his identification of what he would call purple passages in the scriptures. Those passages, perhaps more than others, disclose the essential nature of God.

 

One, of course, was from the climax of the Joseph saga in Genesis, chapter 50.  Isaac has died, and Joseph’s brothers who many years earlier had sold Joseph into slavery, fear retribution from Joseph now that their father was gone.

 

            Joseph, instead, responds with grace that reflects the nature of God: “No, brothers, you meant it for evil against me, but God meant it for good.”

 

            That was one.  Others could be found in other passages of scripture.  One of my favorites is from the 38^th chapter of Job.

 

            But we have one of the most disclosive purple passages in the first lesson today – a reading from one of the minor prophets, known as The Twelve, in the Book of Micah.

 

            Micah is offering the voice of God, recounting God’s actions in history to save his people.  And he is giving voice to the responses that God expects as thanks for his salvific actions.  It is quite simple:

 

He has told you, O mortal, what is good;
and what does the Lord require of you

but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God?

 

            As one of the ancient rabbinical sages said, “Go and do likewise.” In those few words, the prophet Micah has summarized the call to those who proclaim their faith -- to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.

 

            It’s really not hard or complex.  If we live a life that reflects that simple teaching, we needn’t worry about the complexities of the Law or its various applications over the millennia. We will truly have understood God’s purposes for us, and we will walk in the light of faith. 

The Big Effects of Small Things

PROPERS:          CHRISTMAS 1, YEAR A      

TEXT:                LUKE 2:1-20

PREACHED AT ST. PAUL’S CHAPEL, MAGNOLIA SPRINGS, ON SATURDAY, DECEMBER 24, 2022.

 

ONE SENTENCE:        Small things that escape wide notice can have a dramatic influence on our world.

 

            It is amazing how seemingly small forces can have dramatic influence on our lives.  It’s also amazing how monumental events become insignificant and insignificant events can become monumental.

 

            My mind goes to largely invisible forces influencing our lives.

 

            We all are familiar with Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity – a theory he described in a paper he wrote while a Swiss patent officer in 1905.  That theory and his subsequent writings described the large physical forces which control the cosmos – gravity, planets, and other such things.

 

            But I suspect that few of us are familiar with quantum physics – the submicroscopic forces which animate the world which underlies our existence. I can truthfully say that I do not understand its many applications and implications – such as the vibrating strands of string theory – but I know that these tiny, subatomic forces make us and our world what we are. They mold and form the atoms and molecules which create everything that we are and encounter.

 

            Small things have big influences.

 

+ + + 

 

            Events, too, can have long-term effects – even when they are small.

 

            In 1744, an English composer premiered his English oratorio to an audience at Covent Garden in London.  He had previously composed Italian operas, and this oratorio was an early foray into English music.

 

            His concert was not well-received.  Its reviews were mediocre. Although his oratorio was scheduled for six performances in the next year, he was forced by the lukewarm reception to reduce the number to three. His musical offering had been received underwhelmingly.

 

            Contrast that reception with the Beatles’ more than two centuries later.

 

            Yet that mediocre reception was not the final word.  The small event became much larger. Today, Handel’s Messiah is being performed around the world.  It is a staple for Christians of both Christmas and Easter.  We cannot hear the Hallelujah Chorus without knowing precisely what it is.

 

            I feel the same way about a small part of that work – the Pastoral Symphony.

 

            From a seemingly insignificant event a massive influence emerges.

 

+ + + 

 

            Think of major events in world history: D-Day, the fall of Rome, the Battle of Hastings, the Eruption of Krakatoa, the Russian Revolution, the Salk Vaccine, the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, Reagan and Gorbachev in Reykjavik, the Bubonic Plague. Maybe even Alabama’s national football championship, or Auburn’s national football championship.

 

            All of these were major events.  They sent ripples out through world history. But ultimately those ripples receded. The effects diminished.

 

            Now, think of a contrast with this night.

 

            In an insignificant part of the world… in an occupied country… in what was a tiny, remote village… in a crude stable… prompted by a census that history does not record… a man and woman, recently married, 150 miles from their home… welcome a newborn child.

 

            The world did not notice. It is not found in world records. But that small moment… half a world away… became the pivot point for human history.

 

            It is because of that event that tonight much of the world is celebrating.  That tiny village is the epicenter of Christian devotion.

 

            And none of us… no, not one… can say that we have not been affected that that small event in history. And by that moment, we have all received grace upon grace.

  

Give What is Needed

PROPERS:          PROPER 22, YEAR C  

TEXT:                HABAKKUK 1:1-4, 2:1-4

PREACHED AT ST. PAUL’S CHAPEL, MAGNOLIA SPRINGS, ON SUNDAY, OCTOBER 2, 2022.

 

ONE SENTENCE:        The principle of giving is to “to give what is needed, and not what you need to give.”       

 

            I remember with great clarity Monday morning, August 29, 2005.

 

            I was Canon to the Ordinary in Mississippi then, and had been scheduled to supply at Christ Church, Bay St. Louis, the day before.  It was not to be. A storm was looming off the coast. Hurricane Katrina was threatening the area. Reluctantly but wisely, we cancelled our travel plans. We were not going to race a hurricane.

 

            Nora and I were in our home at 901 Gillespie Street in Jackson that morning.  We were 160 miles north of the coast.  The winds and rain came – as you know, sideways.  The lights flickered and then went off. Branches, trash, and debris flew past our house in the 100 mile per hour winds. A neighbor’s ancient oak tree crashed down on our house, piercing the roof over our dining room.  Another neighbor, a few blocks away, died in her bed when a pine tree cut her home in-two.

 

            I was able to look around and say, “It could have been worse.”

 

            Then three days later Bishop Duncan Gray and I traveled to the coast.  I could not believe what I saw.  The first word that came to mind for me as we looked at the wreckage that was the beachfront was “Hiroshima.”

 

            Six Episcopal Churches along the Mississippi Coast had been destroyed – including a beautiful white wood-frame church we had built 12 years before when I was vicar of that congregation.

 

            To this day I cannot adequately describe the destruction I saw.

 

+ + + 

 

            Quickly, very quickly, aid began to arrive. It was meant to assist our recovery.

 

            Some was very helpful. Some posed challenges to us.

 

            Within days of the storm, a tractor-trailer truck arrived at a recovery site we had established. It was full to the brim with unsorted, used clothing. Clothing that people no longer wanted.

 

            Many churches sent Books of Common Prayer, though most were missing pages 355 through 365.  They had been discarded by the congregations and sent to us because the pages of the Holy Eucharist were no longer there.

 

            Two women from Virginia offered to finance the building of a home for the headmaster of an Episcopal School in Long Beach.  But weeks of discussion and time-consuming haggling about specifics led to their not funding the project.

 

            But those instances were the exceptions rather than the rule.

 

            A prosperous Mississippi businessman made an offer to Bishop Gray.  He would give $750,000 to assure that all coastal Episcopal clergy remained employed for six months.  That generous gift allowed those destroyed congregations to continue ministry to their flocks.  Pastoral care was assured. Not a single priest left a cure.

 

            People around the country began to send the most fungible of all donations – cash. Many thousands sent generous checks of various amounts. Others sent gift cards to Walmart or Home Depot.  Truckloads of bottled or potable water were sent to thirsty communities.  Free-standing kitchens popped-up on the coast to feed hungry and homeless people.

 

            The Church Pension Group, six months later, funded a conference in Orlando for all the impacted clergy and their families, to assist in their recovery. The pension group also funded a full-time pastor to represent the bishop to all the communities on the Gulf Coast.  The problems he would help those congregations solve were several years in arising.

 

            One of my colleagues and I were asked to address a national conference about lessons we had learned from the bitter experience.  My thoughts congealed around a basic motto: “Give what is needed, not what you need to give.”

 

+ + + 

 

The first lesson today was selections from the Book of Habakkuk.  Habakkuk is the eighth of the minor prophets in the Hebrew Scriptures. You can easily tell that his days were not easy:         

 

O Lord, how long shall I cry for help,
and you will not listen? 

Or cry to you "Violence!"
and you will not save? 

Why do you make me see wrong-doing
and look at trouble? 

Destruction and violence are before me;
strife and contention arise.

 

Habakkuk lived and prophesied in difficult times – in the years just before brutal armies from Babylon – modern-day Iraq – conquered Judea and laid waste to the Holy City of Jerusalem.  The Jewish people had to learn through those traumatic experiences that their gifts, their perseverance, and the grace of God – God moving in their midst – would bring about better days.

 

            So, it was.

 

+ + +

 

            Last year at this time, we, as a parish, faced a fork in the road.  For months the parish had languished with unhealthy finances. We were without a permanent rector.  Covid still cast a dark shadow over us.

 

            But you gave what is needed, and not what you needed to give. The parish has been revitalized and blessed. The ministries are lively. Outreach is at our heart. Education, fellowship, and worship abound.  Attendance is very good.

 

            But we are still in the midst of we might describe as “interesting times”.  The challenges are not fully abated. And your response is vitally important.  In the days ahead, remember how the Mississippi Coast was rebuilt… How Judea came back from captivity in Babylon: Give what is needed and not what you need to give. 

Mini-Easters

 

PROPERS:          PROPER 13, YEAR C  

TEXT:                COLOSSIANS 3:1-11

PREACHED AT ST. PAUL’S CHAPEL, MAGNOLIA SPRINGS, ON SUNDAY, JULY 31, 2022. (My last Sunday at St. Paul’s)

 

ONE SENTENCE:        The bottom is not the end; it is the beginning of God’s redeeming work.                 

 

            In the years which preceded her stunning success with a series of novels about a young wizard, J. K. Rowling’s life was anything but easy.

 

She was a recently divorced single mother living on public assistance in Scotland. As if to add insult to injury, her beloved mother died, leaving Rowling feeling alone with her young daughter.  She pondered her dismal outlook as she awaited a bus to carry her across town.

 

Life had been difficult – maybe even cruel.  She lived the life of the faceless masses. She was at rock bottom.

 

But Rowling had a sense of perspective on her desperate circumstances. She didn’t sugar-coat it. “Rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life." 

 

She had been to the bottom, and the foundation was solid. It is wisdom that many, many people – some in our midst today – know from 12-step programs.

 

+ + + 

 

            I have spent considerable time and energy pondering what I would say to you on my last Sunday as your priest.  How would I encapsulate the essence of my faith, forged out of 35 years in active ministry?

 

            I went back to the beginning – to the summary of my belief from the beginning.  I call it existential redemption.God works through all circumstances to bring about new life. Mini Easters, I call them.

 

            Paul would loved to have written about my early life.  He came close in the lesson from Colossians today.  My life served as an example of what Bishop Gray, Jr. said many years ago: “No one’s life is a complete loss.  They can always be a negative example in a sermon.”

 

            Without going into detail, I was lost, wandering, and seeking to hide the holes in my psyche.  Yet, against all odds, I believed.

 

            My life began to change 50 years ago this past Thursday, when I met a slender, beautiful, strawberry blonde at a political gathering at the Buena Vista Hotel in Biloxi (Our daughter, in the sixth grade, had to write her autobiography. She had to tell how her parents met. She wrote simply, “My parents met in an old hotel in Biloxi.”  We told her she had to change it.)

 

            My renewal had begun but was nowhere near finished.  For years I wrestled with demons – mostly internal – and a sense of direction.  The gift of children was a great joy.

 

            I perceived the whiff of a faint call to enter seminary, which I did at age 32. But the bottom had not been reached.  After my first year, I remember sitting on the wind-swept brow of Sewanee Mountain wondering how I could be worth anything as a priest.

 

            All that I heard in response to my plaintive tears was the rush of the wind.  The bottom had been reached.

 

            Over the next two years, aided by Nora and good friends, God forged me into a person he could use to share his good news.  During my senior year, my mother died, and a dear friend perished in a helicopter crash.  Despite the losses, I began to see glimmers of new life coming into my own life.  Forged – with its focus on heat and force – described the process well.

 

            A frightened, doubt-filled young man was ordained at St. Andrew’s Cathedral in Jackson, Mississippi, on May 30, 1987.  And it is a testimony to the grace of God that I have been used over the past 35 years to share the good news of God’s redeeming power.  

 

It is more of a testimony that I have been blessed by agents of grace and mercy in many of the saints I have encountered over the years.  Many have gone to their eternal reward, but their impact on my life lives on.

 

A blessing. More specifically, to share the good news that God seeks to bring new life in all circumstances, to all people.

 

            To be clear:  I have fallen short.  I have made mistakes.  My words have not always been the right ones.  There has been a tragic remainder sometimes.  But God’s grace has always been the goal.

 

            The tomb is empty.  Maybe not the way we wished, but empty just the same.  The only thing that keeps some form of new life from emerging from the figurative or literal grave is standing in the way of his movement.  We can continue on the pathway of loss, bitterness, anger, brokenness, and alienation if we wish.  But God invites us to discover new life.

 

            As St. Paul wrote so clearly in his Letter to the Colossians: “If you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth, for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory.”

 

            No matter what life deals us, we are new creations… new beings… the old self is dead. Life will never be the same.

 

            It has been an unspeakable joy to share this journey with you.  God bless you all.