Easter

Saturday of the Seventh Week of Easter, June 7, 2025

Last Day of the Season of Easter

(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)

Easter

Dear one, I have given you light.

It takes courage to hold the fire,

but courage I have also given you.

 

Do not be afraid.

I have given you an inextinguishable flame.

People can hurt you,

but they can’t harm the light.

Darkness is powerless against light;

it can’t help but welcome it.

Even in the deepest night love abides.

 

In the darkness it is me

you hold in your hands, radiant;

and I am also the darkness.

If you are beset, I am with you.

When you are alone, I am in you.

The mystery at the center of your soul

is an eternal flame. – Steve Garnaas-Holmes

After Ash Wednesday inaugurates the forty days of Lent, followed by three days of the Triduum, today is the last day of the final week of Easter, which moves through seven weeks (49 days) each year, and then comes the Holy Spirit, the Wind of Heaven, the 50^th day, the Pentecost. Add them up – 93 days of the Church Year are dedicated to remembering the trial, crucifixion, resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ. Appropriately, it is by far the longest church celebration every year.

In most of the churches I attend Easter came and has been long gone, if not forgotten, weeks ago. I like this lasting kind of Easter better. Life in these United States and around the world has moved along in the troubled veins and arteries of politics and music, drama and sports during these 93 days. Many men and women have died, and many boys and girls have been born. Our daughter Andi’s son Finn was born on Monday, March 3, two days before Ash Wednesday. He came close enough for me to think of him as an Easter baby, though. He was three months old just four days ago.

When he entered Rome, Paul was allowed to live by himself, with the soldier who was guarding him. He remained for two full years in his lodgings. He received all who came to him, and with complete assurance and without hindrance he proclaimed the Kingdom of God and taught about the Lord Jesus Christ.

So ends the Acts of the Apostles, and so ends the lectionary’s readings from the Book of Acts, which began on Easter Sunday and have continued almost uninterrupted since, for all of the days and weeks until today. For Paul, the season of Easter (so to speak) went on and on, even in Rome, confined to his own house, for two full years.

While Paul worked his crowds and preached his sermons, while he built friendships and developed doctrines that have stood the tests of two thousand years, the disciple John also wrote and prayed, preached and shared visions with many many friends. He too was a writer, and the lectionary continues to explore his writings into the weeks of ordinary time which begin in a couple of days.

It is this disciple who testifies to these things

and has written them, and we know that his testimony is true.

There are also many other things that Jesus did,

but if these were to be described individually,

I do not think the whole world would contain the books

that would be written.

I am sure these are words I need to hear, words like the ones Steve refers to in his poem below  about Pentecost, chocolate and carrots. Sometimes the Bible seems like Greek to me, but upon many re-readings God’s presence within the words, and within my own mind as I read them, becomes more and more clear. I am confident the same can be true for you.

I crave chocolate, but that doesn’t matter.

Years ago my wife craved carrots.

She ate so many her skin turned orange.

We found out it was because her body

really craved beta carotene

because she had cancer. (She lived.)

 

Sometimes we hear what we want to hear,

and un-hear or mis-hear the rest.

But maybe on Pentecost they heard

because it was something they knew they needed,

something their soul, not just their ego, craved.

Not just a treat, but life.

 

Sometimes we crave chocolate from God,

hoping to hear what we want.

But deeper, trickier, more silent,

sometimes even more foreign sounding,

is the real Word that we crave.

Your deepest craving is probably true.

 

Imagine that we are given

not just what people think they want,

but what their souls most deeply crave,

and we are give the power to share it,

so they hear, in their own language,

the grace of God. – Steve Garnaas-Holmes

(Acts 20, Psalm 68, John 14, John 17)

(posted at www.davesandel.net)

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