Palm Sunday-One of the
readings, Is, 50:4-9 speaks of sustaining the weary with a word. How
do you try to do just that? When have you been sustained by a word?
When do you need more than a word to sustain you? What makes you
weary?

Monday-ER ended last
week. I haven’t watched it for years. Sometimes we say that the
church is a hospital for sinners, and maybe the church has an ER
where life and death hang in the balance. Characters linger in our
minds, as we come to know them better than some of the living beings
in our real lives.

Tuesday- Calvin
believed that God condemned some from the start and others were
saved. We could not dare to know for sure which ones. For example,
should we pray for others, not in the church? What good would it do?
Calvin was a Biblical theologian. Even if logic dictated otherwise,
he attended to the bible carefully. So, I Tim. 2:1-2 exhorts us to
pray for all people. So, he prays. After all, only God is the judge
of all who wants the whole world to be saved.

Wednesday-Jocelyn and I
visited state parks for 3 days of her spring break. This is a good
time for Holy Week. Much of the ground remains bare and stark, but
signs of life are cropping up. Already the ground was blooming with
color: white, purple, green, of course. Life is insistent. Light is
just as insistent. When we entered Donaldson Cave, we were surprised
by a shaft of light enering the next chamber. In Christ, we have the
life and light of the world. Church is the park where we get to enjoy
it.

Maundy Thursday-I got a
chance ot speak with a 7^th grade Catholic girl at bible
Study last week. She had a marvelous sense of Communion as communion
with Christ. Andre Dubus struggled to get to Communion after he lost
the use of his legs. He did so, because he wanted, needed, tangible
samples of the love of God. “I placed on my tongue the taste of
forgiveness and of love that affirmed, perhaps celebrated, my being
alive, and being mortal…we can bring ourhuman distracted love
into focus with an act that doesn’t need words.”

Good Friday-In my mind
it is always cloudy and gray on Good Friday. At First Presbyterian
yesterday, they enacted the tradition of the Stations of the Cross.
It breaks down the story of the road to the cross into 14 discrete
points to pray and ponder. We rightly point to the cross. Slow down a
bit and ponder one of the parts of the story leading up to the Cross.
Try to imagine it fully. Smell the air; taste the grit; hear the
sounds; see the vision, touch the walls.

Holy Saturday-In the
faith of Jesus, he was laid to rest just prior to the start of the
Sabbath. Would it be his final resting place? Would he forever
inhabit the cold peace of the grave? Would death win its greatest
victory? Did God’s best hopes lie entombed with Jesus? Did even
God need Sabbath rest to consider the fate of Jesus? Did Sabbath rest
become the proper prelude to the new life of Easter?