Love comes

So Joseph took the body and wrapped it in a clean linen cloth and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had hewn in the rock. He then rolled a great stone to the door of the tomb and went away. Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were there, sitting opposite the tomb. (Matthew 27:59-61)

Lovingly, they’d wrapped his body. Now, there is nothing more to do, so they sit in the silence, the two Marys, staring at the stone that seals Jesus’ tomb, then at their feet, waiting for ... nothing, for what good can come now? But still, unable to pull themselves away.

Their eyes blank, their hearts hollow, their minds lost in thought that is no thought, only the longing for what they cannot have—him, Jesus, his smile, the sound of his voice, his laugh, the way his eyes caught sunlight glistening on Galilee’s sea.

They want to feel the way they felt when he was with them. They want to know this, this ... indescribable love flooding their hearts one more time, this love that made them more alive with joy and gratitude than ever before. They ache for the Love who filled and loved them beyond any expectation.

But now all they can do is stare at the gray stone that holds him in, its dead weight drawing their hearts into depths from which they might never rise.

Maybe, they just need to wait. Maybe time will heal their wounds. But does it ever?

No, time doesn’t heal. Love does, the Love they knew in themselves when they were with him.

But that is gone, so they wait ... for nothing, staring at the dust into which his life is cast, not knowing there is another chapter in the story of what love does.

They do not yet know the Love in Jesus can pass through locked doors and enter closed hearts. They do not know that it has the power to penetrate their darkness with a light that is the glow of eternity.

They do not know that the One who is Love, the One who came to them, will come and engulf their hearts with a warmth sweeter than a spring day. They do not know tears will glisten in their eyes again, not with sadness but laughter, as they discover God is greater and better ... and life more graced and beautiful ... than they ever imagined.

So they sit and wait, not knowing Love will come. He always comes. He always will.

So we wait ... in every darkness knowing, Love will come ... for us.

 We adore, O Christ, and we bless you.

By your holy cross you have redeemed the world.

Pr. David L. Miller

 

 

We know

 So Joseph [of Arimathea] took the body and wrapped it in a clean linen cloth and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had hewn in the rock. He then rolled a great stone to the door of the tomb and went away. (Matthew 27:59-60)

We know this moment. We’ve lived it.

I remember friends at the open graves of their children, and my mother on the hillside of Elmwood Cemetery, their feet fixed, not wanting to move at the close of the service, while a voice within me or from outside spoke words that still echo in the crashing silence of the heart.  “We can’t just leave him here.”

But we had to, and we did, as all of us have too many times and in too many places, each time standing there trying to remember ... everything ... lest we forget the sound of their voice and how we felt when we were with them, trying to hold it all in our minds lest the love we had given and received be lost in the wash of time.

So we know the hearts of those who surrounded Jesus’ body. They know ... this is the last time they will touch him, look into his face, stroke his arm, brush hair from his brow, hold his ruined hands and kiss his cheek.

They do not hurry as they wash his body, lifting and turning him from one side to the other, reaching beneath and above his dead weight to wrap him in clean, white cloths, folding in spices as they go. Not speaking or wanting it to end, they know ... they will see him no more.

The glint in his eyes is gone, the light in their hearts extinguished. Hope lies dead on the slab, so they lay it to rest not knowing when laughter will come again, if ever.

 Maybe time will heal their wounds, but it doesn’t, not really. Only love does. The Love Jesus is ... and always will be.

We adore, O Christ, and we bless you.

By your holy cross you have redeemed the world

Pr. David L. Miller

Love wins another round

 

Joseph of Arimathea, who was a disciple of Jesus, though a secret one because of his fear of the Jews, asked Pilate to let him take away the body of Jesus. Pilate gave him permission; so he came and removed his body. (John 19:38)

Love and fear are mortal enemies. They compete for the human heart. When one ascends the other subsides.

You see it as Joseph asks for the body of Jesus, seeking the approval of Pilate who could have him arrested for being Jesus’ friend and follower. The fears that held Joseph back are gone now. There is something he absolutely must do, and he knows it.

No external force compels him. But the insistent voice of love within him cannot be denied, lest he deny himself. His soul is at stake.

Once he shied from public association with Jesus, but now love wins, which is the only victory Jesus ever wanted to win, defeating the fear that binds the love within us from seeing the light of day.

Just so, Joseph takes leave to remove Jesus’ body from the cross and mourn his loss. Meanwhile, Pilate takes a deep breath and congratulates himself for disposing of this mystery man, hoping he will be disposed somewhere beyond sight and mind where he will cause no further trouble.

It’s ironic. With all his power and the legions of Rome at his disposal, Pilate remains ruled by fear, while Joseph has become a free man.

So it goes. In the battle of love with fear, the wounded heart is always the winner

We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you

By your holy cross you have redeemed the world.

Pr. David L. Miller

 

 

What love does

 What love does

When it was evening, there came a rich man from Arimathea, named Joseph, who was also a disciple of Jesus. He went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus; then Pilate ordered it to be given to him. (Matthew 27:57-58)

There are always those you do not see. They labor behind the scenes or in the shadows doing what needs to be done long after others have returned to the warmth of home or the embrace of friends to release the burdens of the day.

Joseph is there, doing what love does, unnoticed, except for Pilate’s minions shuffling about the foot of the cross, impatient to be released that they might drink away the grisly duties of the day.

When Joseph appears they depart, and he does what must be done.

Pulling at Roman nails, ragged and thick, he pries them from Jesus feet, having been nailed atop each other to the splintered wood. Finished there, he works on the hands, wresting the nails from between major bones in Jesus’ wrists, blood staining his cloths, if there was any left to flow from the wounds that drained Jesus dry.

How did Joseph do it, his heart wrenched by the disfigured form of his friend? Surely, tenderness marked his movements as he removed the tortured body of his teacher mutilated beyond recognition

And he must have had help. A different telling of this story mentions Nicodemus who lent a hand, gently bearing the body to earth, as if any further hurt were possible.

They work silently in the darkness after everyone else had gone home. Their stomachs in knots, unable to speak, nodding back and forth to guide their actions, doing what love required them to do.

Like millions before and after him, Jesus was deemed expendable by the heartless and powerful who ate their dinner that night and retired into the evening, ignoring what Joseph was doing out there in the darkness.

Bu isn’t that the way it is? The truly important things, the gestures that make life graced and beautiful so often happen in the shadows where no one sees or is watching ... what love does.

Pr. David L. Miller

We adore, O Christ, and we bless you.

By your holy cross you have redeemed the world

 

It is finished

 A jar full of sour wine was standing there. So they put a sponge full of the wine on a branch of hyssop and held it to his mouth. When Jesus had received the wine, he said, ‘It is finished.’ Then he bowed his head and gave up his spirit. (John 19:29-30)

Twelfth station of the cross: Jesus dies on the cross

Few moments are more holy than when a human soul breathes a final breath and passes from the labor of this life into the silent mystery of the Love who bears us home.

More than once or twice, I have known the privilege of bearing witness to a final word, a final breath, holding a hand that could no longer hold mine.

Each time, grace and grief entwined as one, awakening gratitude and prayer. “Thank you for this life now lived. Thank you for the grace of this moment. Thank you for the love unimaginable into which you bear us.”

Gratitude and grief entwine here, too, as Jesus hands himself over to the Loving Mystery he so often called Father. “It is finished,” he whispers, and hangs limp, done.

But his words are not the dying gasp of an exhausted soul, drained and defeated by the incessant cycle of human cynicism and brutality.

No, he loved his own and loved them to the end. It was the one labor of his life, carried out in the face of scorn and perplexity, and here, in this moment, it comes to completion.

Every ounce of love that he is ... has been poured out. The vessel is now empty, and in that emptiness we see the face of the Loving Mystery who invites us to entrust everything we are, have been and ever will be to this Love who is our true and final home.

Trusting this, we live the love that is in us so that, when we are through, our hearts may whisper, “It is finished,” handing ourselves over to the Love who is never finished.

Pr. David L. Miller

We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you

By your holy cross you have redeemed the world.