Hard to Believe Hope (Midweek Message)

He Qi, Risen Christ with Fish

Hard to believe Hope

Fr. Tony’s Midweek Message

March 23, 2016

Tomorrow is Maundy Thursday, the start of the Three Holy Days that retell in liturgy and story the compassion and passion of the Christ, and that great reversal of derailed humanity and nature, the Resurrection.    The story comes as a package:  last supper, passion, death, resurrection.  And in this, there is a great truth:  in the final analysis, we cannot separate our pains and sufferings from our joy. 

Madeleine L’Engle wrote the following about how hope begins in the despair of crucifixion: 

“But God, the Good Book tells us, is no respecter of persons and the happy ending isn’t promised to an exclusive club, as many groups, such as the Jehovah’s Witnesses believe.  It isn’t—face it—only for Baptists, or Presbyterians, or Episcopalians.  What God began, God will not abandon.  He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion…  God loves everyone, sings the Psalmist.  What God has named will live forever, Alleluia!  The happy ending has never been easy to believe in.  After the Crucifixion the defeated little band of disciples had no hope, no expectation of Resurrection.  Everything they believed in had died on the cross with Jesus.  The world was right, and they had been wrong.  Even when the women told the disciples that Jesus had left the stone-sealed-tomb, the disciples found it nearly impossible to believe it was not all over.  The truth was, it was just beginning.”

I invite you all to observe a holy Three Days.  See you in Church. 

Fr. Tony+