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"LOVE WINS -- AGAIN AND ALWAYS"

4/20/2025

Luke 24:1-12
On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took spices and clothes and went to the tomb to properly tend Jesus’ body for burial.  They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord.

While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them. In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead?  He is not here; he has risen! Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee:  The Son of Man must be delivered over to the hands of sinners, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.’ ”  Then they remembered his words.

When they came back from the tomb, they told all these things to the Eleven and to all the others.  It was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the others with them who told this to the apostles. But they did not believe the women, because their words seemed to them like nonsense.

Peter, however, got up and ran to the tomb. Bending over, he saw the strips of linen lying by themselves, and he went away, wondering to himself what had happened.

It’s Easter Morning – Christ is Risen! Alleluia, Amen! I wish I could feel the joy I have felt on Easters past, but every time I turn on the News lately I’m greeted with another atrocity – some horrible new thing committed by our government supposedly in our name, or a couple of new school shootings, or some raving antisemite attempting to burn a Jewish U.S. state governor and his family to death in their home. I could keep listing them – we all know what’s going on in our world these days.

But – it’s Easter morning and this is a time for rejoicing even – especially? – when joy can seem out of reach. Because that is exactly the message of Easter – that JOY is! LOVE is!

The people of Israel were an enslaved people in Jesus’ time, and yet – in the middle of their enslavement there was Jesus, who lived with them and talked with them and reminded them that they were loved -- they were God’s own beloved ones. They were worthy of kindness and plenty – not because the land was their home, but because God was their God.

Hatred is alive and well today, just as it was alive in Jesus’ day, and in all the days in-between. And yet ..... we are gathered here this morning not to mourn the presence of hatred, but to proclaim that – in spite of hatred’s best efforts -- love wins!

Jesus walked among us and taught and healed among us to show us that, in spite of what sometimes seems to be, it is love which always has and always will win. Author, teacher, and spiritual leader Flora Wuellner once wrote something that has stuck with me ever since I first read it. She described Jesus’s earthly mission as being “to bring heaven, the fullness of God’s realm, into our daily lives, relationships, choices.” I love that – Jesus’s mission was less to get us into heaven, as the church has taught for 2000+ years, than to get heaven into us – to place the living love of God into us – God's living, breathing, active love in us. That’s what Easter is about.

Jesus faced plenty that was ugly when he was here among us, but he never gave up his focus on the love of the one he called Father. He saw hatred and greed and hopelessness and selfishness and envy and fear aplenty, but still, the God he knew so deeply and personally was not, in his vision, about retribution or revenge or punishment — but always about love. Love is what he came to give us ... to give, and to give, and to give – in spite of our clinging to our old fears and hatreds, and in spite of all that hatred had to throw at him, love is what Jesus gave us in return.

Love spoke in all his teaching and healing. Love hung on that hideous cross. And love it is that lives again in each and every one of us – loving and being, through and in us.

Love is why we exist. Love – I believe – is what God is. And everything that comes from God is the result of that love. Love creates. All that is flows from the creativity of God’s love. Love supports, love nourishes, love builds – and love invites – invites us to live here and now in that heaven which is the ultimate expression of God’s love. Love is why Jesus exists. Love is why Easter is so important – more important, really, than Christmas or any other holy day. Love is why we are here .....

And so hatred – for all its nagging, petty ugliness – for all its persistence in the world – for all its seeming inevitable-ness – hatred loses. Because the life-giving Creator who brought everything into being is determined to love us all into wholeness. And – as Easter proves again today, love will always win.

I took the title for this message from Rob Bell’s book, “Love Wins” which came out several years ago. That book was a huge shift in how I see our lives as Jesus people. It’s a reminder to me that God’s love is stronger than death, stronger than hate. It’s easy to lose that in the midst of the world’s news, but it’s true. Love wins. It’s not some heavy, convoluted theological dogma – it’s two short words. Easy to carry around with you every day: Love wins. I want to end today with the blessing with which Bell ended that book years ago. It lives in my house and my mind as part of that tattered array of random quotes scribbled on post-it notes and stuck up around my work desk:

“May you experience this vast, expansive, infinite, indestructible love that has been yours all along. May you discover that this love is as wide as the sky and as small as the cracks in your heart no one else knows about. And may you know, deep in your bones, that love wins.”

Christ is Risen! Jesus lives! Happy Easter!

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"COMING OUT WITH JESUS"

4/13/2025

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Luke 19:29-40
As he approached Bethphage and Bethany at the hill called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples, saying to them, “Go to the village ahead of you, and as you enter it, you will find a colt tied there, which no one has ever ridden. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ say, ‘The Lord needs it.’ So those who were sent ahead went and found it just as he had told them. Its owners asked them, “Why are you untying the colt?” And they replied, “The Lord needs it.”

They brought it to Jesus, threw their cloaks on the colt and put Jesus on it. As he went along, people spread their cloaks on the road.

When he came near the place where the road goes down the Mount of Olives, the whole crowd of disciples began joyfully to praise God in loud voices for all the miracles they had seen crying “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!”

Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to Jesus, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples! They will call down trouble on all of us.”

“I tell you,” he replied, “if they keep quiet, the very stones will cry out.”

Today is the beginning of Holy Week. It is also the last of our Sunday Messages to be drawn from the daily readings in our Lenten prayer books this year. These daily pieces have been written and compiled by the members of the God Is Still Speaking writers group. Today’s meditation was written by Liz Miller, from Granby Congregational UCC.

We are grateful to these writers for sharing their individual thoughts with us, and grateful as well to The Pilgrim Press for permission to reproduce and share these meditations with you.

Our title for today is “Coming Out with Jesus.” Miller begins her devotional by sharing a story from her personal life:
When I came out as non-binary to a teen-age cousin, he grinned and proclaimed, “Trans rights are human rights!” Then he told me it was a big deal to come out, and he was proud of me. His reaction gave me the courage to keep showing up as my authentic self long after our conversation was over.

Trans rights are a big topic of conversation in our increasingly splintered country right now so we are probably most used to hearing the phrase, “coming out” in this one context, but people “come out” in all manner of ways.

Have you ever felt the need to stand up in front of a society that has categorized you as one thing and say out loud, “No, that is not who I am” – or perhaps – “That is not the whole story of who I am, I am so much more?”

Jesus, so far as we know, was just a curious kid from Nazareth—son of the local carpenter—until his curiosity took him out into the desert to see this guy named John, preaching and baptizing in the wilderness. There he encountered the Spirit, and a voice that spoke from the heavens and claimed him as God’s own beloved son, and he believed it.

After a few weeks spent thinking about what had just happened to him, he ventured back into town and proclaimed himself as one sent to proclaim good news to the poor, to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor. That is quite a coming out statement.

From there for the next three years, he proceeded to add layer upon layer to his newly “out” persona. He was recognized as a prophet. He healed many, he rebuked demons, he told them stories that changed how they saw themselves—and he was a preacher who spoke God’s word of truth to any who would listen – and listen they did. For those who witnessed and those who listened he was no longer that guy from Nazareth. He had become a whole new being.

Perhaps he just became who he always was, always had been, but when he came to really believe it, the people did too. Maybe he needed to come out to himself. We can’t know exactly what the process was, but when he came out as his true, authentic self, the people came out from everywhere to walk with him and they followed him, letting him know that day that he did not walk alone on that trip into Jerusalem. They walked with him to let him know they loved him and they were with him.

“Coming out” can be frightening or it can be freeing. Sometimes I’m sure, it is both at once. To stand and name your own truth and refuse to consent any longer to a label that isn’t you. I’ve had a few of those moments in my life, and I suspect that you have, too. Mine happened mostly when I was younger, and they helped to shape the direction of my life. They’ve only gotten easier in the years since.

Those milestone moments in Jesus’ life were obviously more consequential than mine. They shaped the trajectory of his life and, in time, millions of other lives, as well. But all such happenings—big or small—matter.

It didn’t last that long, that joyous parade on that first Palm Sunday, and it ended in grief and sorrow with a wooden cross and a silent tomb – but Jesus refused to stop even then. They had no way of knowing it that day, but Jesus had one more “coming out” for them . . . but that’s a story for next week.

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"LOVE, GIVEN WHILE WE CAN"

4/6/2025

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John 12:1-8
Six days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany, where Lazarus lived, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. Here a dinner was given in Jesus’ honor. Martha served, while Lazarus was among those reclining at the table with him. Then Mary took about a pint of pure nard, an expensive perfume; she poured it on Jesus’ feet and wiped his feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.

But one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, who was later to betray him, objected, “Why wasn’t this perfume sold and the money given to the poor? It was worth a year’s wages.” He did not say this because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief; as keeper of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put into it.

“Leave her alone,” Jesus replied. “It was intended that she should save this perfume for the day of my burial. You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me.”

As we’ve been doing all along, today’s Sunday message is linked with the one found in our daily reading booklet and, once again, the meditation for today was written by Quinn Caldwell and taken from that booklet, Into the Deep, from the God is Still Speaking Writers Group.

I’ve expanded the brief quote that Caldwell took from John’s Gospel so that we might have the full story for our discussion. It’s a story we’re all familiar with but, like many stories taken from scripture, we sometimes finding ourselves just accepting it as “a bible story” without thinking about what it really means.

Living in a dry, semi-desert land, where the primary means of transportation for ordinary people was your own two feet, anyone arriving at the home of a friend who lived in a neighboring village was likely to arrive hot and dusty, with dirty feet and, by today’s standards, somewhat smelly. The rules of hospitality demanded that they be greeted with water to drink and water to wash—and refresh--their dirty feet. Further than this—if one could afford it—one also offered oil for the dry and cracked skin of their feet.

But this time, Mary’s offering of oil went much, much further than usual – into a another meaning entirely. A day or so later Jesus would wash the feet of his disciples, as an offering of humility, of servanthood, of love – but as Caldwell points out, Mary did it first. Perhaps Jesus learned the value of this particular kind of giving of self after first receiving it from Mary.

And the time is growing very short. Jesus is here at Mary and Martha’s home because he is on his way to Jerusalem—for the last time. This visit is only a momentary respite. When he leaves their home in the next few days and enters Jerusalem it will be to be greeted by crowds, hailing him as “King of the Jews.”

We are growing very close to the crisis point. Mary sees this and recognizes that there will not be many – if any—more chances to show her love for Jesus – the Lord she has followed so faithfully and with such loving devotion. So, as Caldwell puts it, she overdoes it, she falls to her knees and gives him everything she has to give.

She takes a full jar of nard – an expensive perfume gathered from a plant found clear off in the Himalayas, and she anoints him with it because again, as Caldwell puts it, there’s no time for subtleties as hatred and violence are headed their way; no reason to be stingy with love in a world so generous with pain – she uses her own hair to wipe his feet. When it might be your last touch you don’t want anything between you.

In those days, anointing--deliberately pouring out oil upon someone--signified God's blessing, and was used to set that someone apart for a specific holy purpose or to consecrate them for a particular role, like a king, priest, or prophet. Or in this case, a sacrifice.

Mary knows this journey isn’t going to end well. As Caldwell puts it:
“This is her last chance to do this while Jesus is still alive. It has to count, this anointing. It has to last. He needs to still be able to feel this when they’re lashing him a few days from now. When he looks down from the cross at jeering faces, he needs to be able to remember hers looking up at him with love. He needs to still be able to smell this act when he’s on the cross.”

When we take the time to fully recognize the agony of Mary’s goodbye, we can understand, so much better, the absolute joy of that meeting in the garden a few days later when Mary was shown that nothing, and no one, can separate us from Jesus – ever.

But that is another story for another week. Today we have only one woman’s need to reach out while she still can to make sure that the one she loves knows that they are loved – and needed -- and supported. Love—in one form or another--is all we have to give – so give it while it still can be given – wherever it is needed.

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"LOVE WINS -- AGAIN AND ALWAYS"

"COMING OUT WITH JESUS"

"LOVE, GIVEN WHILE WE CAN"

Rev. Cherie Marckx

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