The masters’ heart

“It will be as when a man who was going on a journey called in his servants and entrusted his possessions to them. To one he gave five talents; to another, two; to a third, one." (Matthew 25:14-15a)

This is where the story starts, a man going on a journey gives three employees some cash. The tale ends successfully for the first two who did something with it, but disaster for the third guy who buried his bit in the backyard, thinking his boss was a harsh, unforgiving jerk who expected a fat return even when he didn’t invest.

The story is one of Jesus’ judgment parables. At its end, the first two guys “enter into the joy” of their master, Jesus says. The third is consigned to the outer darkness far from the master’s joy and generosity.

And this is what he ... and most Christians ... don’t understand. They don’t understand where the story begins, with the generosity and hope of the master, who is not harsh or unforgiving. He is trusting and full-hearted, giving some of his substance that his servants might do something good with it ... even as he has.

The first two servants took risks. One supposes they could have lost it all, but they knew what the third servant failed to recognize. The master is not harsh but has a magnanimous heart so that failure is not fatal but forgivable.

They trusted the master and engaged what they were given, even as we can engage what we are given. “Talents” the parable calls them. We might better call them life. We are given life, breath, material reality, genetic inheritance of one sort or another and the inimitable, inherent potential that unfolds through millions of encounters large and small for as long our bodies last.

The trajectory of our lives is in large part determined by whether we live in the outer darkness of fear, like the guy digging up the master’s cash in the backyard, or whether we live in joyful freedom, knowing the master’s heart.

David L. Miller

 

 

Verbish

 Therefore, stay awake! For you do not know on which day your Lord will come.  (Matthew 24:42)

Most certainly, God is a verb ... or at least verbish.

Were I still a parish pastor, right about now I would be preparing to lead a group of squirrely third graders through the basics of Holy Communion.

I would enter the room wearing my Indiana Jones fedora, ready to launch into the adventure it always was, not knowing what would come and doubting my ability to hold the attention of 8 and 9 year-olds. But I always knew, sooner or later, one of them would crack a joke at my expense or stump me with a question and reduce the room to raucous laughter.

I used to consider paying one or two of kids to make sure that happened at some point, so that they knew this was all about love, the love that brought us to that room and held us together as we learned—and as they opened their hands for the first time to receive ... and every time thereafter.

It never grew old, not once, not in all the years I stumbled through those sessions, always wanting to share just a little bit more to help them know what I knew every time I broke the bread and every time I opened my hands to receive what nothing on earth can hold.

That is done now, but remembering is a blessing beyond compare. Faces stream through my mind and heart, children I wish I could hug once more and let them know how much they are loved and how dearly I treasure every one of them, including those that were, well, a challenge.

Would to God that I could name them all ... from all the years, including the faces who have gone on before me, now knowing the Love I know only in part.

As we met and talked and laughed together in all those rooms through all those years, God was not an object outside of us to be known, but the flow of love and laughter among us. A verb not a noun. Or at least verbish.

And we were caught up in the flow, encompassed and carried in an all-possessing love.

Joy, healing, freedom, pretty much everything our hearts truly need is in that flow, so go with it. Wherever you go. It’s always there.

David L. Miller  

 

 

Return to ‘yes’

 

For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, whom we proclaimed among you, Silvanus and Timothy and I, was not “Yes and No”; but in him it is always “Yes.” For in him every one of God’s promises is a “Yes.” (2 Corinthians 1:19-20a)

Sooner or later one comes to realize all attempts to fulfill one’s life are futile.

They all fail because they are all more less the product of the ego’s attempt to satisfy itself, thinking, “If I just do this ... or go there ... or get that ... or accomplish this, I will be satisfied.” Fulfillment will follow like the dawn.

But it’s an illusion for at least three reasons I can see.

First, the human heart is a bottomless abyss, always aware there is more it doesn’t have and might well enjoy. Second, because the human ego is inherently arrogant, thinking it can satisfy itself by its own actions and best laid plans.

And third, because we tend to think we know or can figure out what we need, but this is just another version of reason two: arrogance.

We don’t, of course, know what we need, until what we need finds us, and that what is really a Who ... who is known only in moments of knowing a great love you cannot deny and know you did nothing to deserve.

It is right about then that the heart grows still, and you begin to realize this is what you needed all along.

If you can resist the urge to do something or hang a label on what is happening in you, in other words, if you can just be there, you can abide in the Loving Mystery who is saying “yes” to your life in all its mottled glory, with its loves and losses, its failures and false steps, its sins of omission and commission, its best intentions and futile efforts to give itself what it actually needs.

The human heart is a reservoir for the glory of God, which is to say, for the Love who says “yes” to us every blessed morning, if we can just find a place and way to listen.

If you find such a place and a way, go back there, return often. You will stop asking questions about life’s meaning.

David L. Miller

  

 

Heaven’s gate

 

Jesus said to him, “Very truly, I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.” (John 1:51)

It was here all along, this balcony, early morning before the sun is high, its rays filtered through the locust as the martins play above. It’s here, the gate of heaven.

For here, at least today, is where I meet you as tears of recognition silently tell me it is you, and you are as pleased to be with me as I with you.

But it is not this place, blessed as it is, but you who are the gate of heaven.

Here, with you, heaven opens, and an incomparable mercy descends from an infinite realm asking nothing except to be here, in this moment, as eternity fills temporal time and the distance between heaven and earth dissolves.

Stay close, Jesus told his first disciples, I suspect, with sly smile tugging at his lips, knowing how much he had to share and how greatly he longed to share it.

They followed for the same reason as the rest of us, hoping to catch a glimpse of the heaven that opens when your heart knows him near.

There is no better healing.

David L. Miller

Spirit & life

It is the spirit that gives life.  (John 6:63a)

The spirit is life. So look around. Take stock when love and peace, joy and freedom touch the heart and breathe life into your mortal flesh.

‘Tis an eternal moment in which the Spirit of Life finds an opening in your shuttered heart to breathe in and then out, blessedly carrying you along in its flow.

Such is the Spirit’s nature. Like the current of a stream or a morning breeze, it cannot be grasped but savored as it caresses the heart, wakes joy from its slumber and dissolves the illusion of aloneness.

For we are not alone, but alive in the Spirit’s playground. All that awakens our senses to joy and beauty, goodness and grace is the breath of the Spirit resuscitating our hearts that we might lighten up, laugh and join its holy game of giving life to the dead.

So notice when the breath of dawn awakens a sigh, when the martin’s flight gives wings to your heart, and when the smile behind the counter is so honest and real that it becomes a sacrament of Love’s holy nearness.

Stop there. And breathe. Someone is trying to bring you back to life.

David L. Miller

For this

 By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace ... . (Galatians 5:22a)

It was a boisterous baptism ... one long remembered.

Three small children bounced against the font, stirring waves on the face of the waters. I handed them two baptismal candles to hold until the moment we lit the light of Christ for Amelia and Madeline, twin girls.

Wide-eyed at their great responsibility, the children stood quietly until they discovered baptismal candles make fine swords. The ensuing fencing match proceeded half-way down the center aisle, until they were summoned to the water’s edge ... as each infant was lowered into the waters of eternal blessing.

Completing the rite, Will, the twins’ four-year brother and victorious fencer, held back, not wanting to leave the font. He looked up at me, and I spontaneously reached for the anointing oil and marked him as I had marked his sisters. “Beloved Child of God, you have been sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked with the cross of Christ forever.”

“He blessed you,” his father whispered as he led him back to the front pew.

 “You were born for this,” the inner Voice of Love whispered at just that moment. But the Voice was not just for me.

The Spirit’s inner speaking is the deep truth of every human life, in every situation. Each of us is born to know and to share the joy of God’s love flowing through us.

Just give yourself to bless the moment, whatever it is. And listen. The Spirit will tell you what you need to know

David L. Miller

 

 

It’s all grace

 

... the only thing that counts is faith working through love (Galatians 5:6b)

He was only 15 months old, and I never caught his name, but he’s already my teacher, offering a lesson I tend to forget.

His mother carried him through the door of the coffee shop, stood him on the floor and fiddled with her purse. He looked over and fixed his gaze on me, and there we were, eye-to-eye, his grin bright as the morning. I couldn’t look away even if I wanted to; some things are just too wonderful.

You can’t pay for this. You can’t make it happen. It’s a given moment, a little grace on a day, like all days, when we very much need it. You either receive it or let it pass as if it were nothing of value.

It’s that way with children’s smiles and all God’s gifts. You cannot pay for that which is freely given. And to think you did something to deserve it dishonors the giver.

We are given life without asking to be born. We are given every new day without a prayer being offered. We receive the mystery of the person we are, shaped by genetics, time and history, as a gift we continue to unwrap until the end of our days.

It’s all gift, grace, from a giver. No, a Giver.

Greatest of all is the gift of standing before God justified, welcome, wanted and treasured so greatly that all the love Christ is ... is given to us. Our actions, however good or evil, cannot start or stop God’s self-giving love and welcome.

The only way to put yourself in proper relationship with such love is to soak it in and say, ‘Thank you,” knowing you bask in a smile considerably warmer than that of little boys in coffee shops.

Then, pass it along ... and expect to be surprised.

Pr. David L. Miller

 

 

 

 

 

A new creation

 So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! (2 Corinthians 5:17)

A wooden triptych sits on my desk at home. Folded up, it looks like a branch cut from a tree, four or five inches tall and two inches in diameter.

Unfold it on its string hinges and three figures rise in relief. On the left, a robed figure stands erect, hands together in prayer. A soldier, holding a sword, point down, directly in front of him, appears on the right. Both figures keep vigil over Jesus in the center panel, his arms spread wide on the cross.

A Wichi craftsman from the Chaco forest in northern Argentina carved the piece from a single piece of dark wood.

 I don’t know how long I’ve had it. I only know that in the last year it has become a sacrament in which I partake. It is there, waiting each day when I first come to my desk. Before I begin my work, I pick up it up, kiss the relief of Jesus and whisper to him, “I adore you, O Christ, and I bless you. By your holy cross you redeem the world.”

Without fail, the image of Jesus on the cross appears in my mind as I hold him close to my breath. His arms and body, wreathed with branches and leaves, reach out in welcome to take me in. Drawn into his eternal embrace, I am in him, part of him, wanted and loved, gathered with so many others whom I suppose are as needy as me.

With his love flowing through my heart and my lungs breathing the sweet air of freedom, the work can commence. For I know who I am, as only the heart can know. Once more aware that I am ever in Christ, I give myself to the work of the day, a free man.

Pr. David L. Miller

Freedom

 ³¹ Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed Him, “If you abide in my word, you are my disciples indeed. ³² And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” (John 8:31-32)

Tied in knots after a restless night, the deck beckons with a promise of freedom.

Memories haunted the dark hours, failures and faux pas, rejections and judgments from self and others for not having been good enough, not having done enough, never truly becoming the human soul I know that I am ... or could be ... and bring it to the light of day.

Knowing, too, there is so much less time, now, to become myself before my time is done.

All this I take to my chair as a faint breeze gentles the air stirring hope for a different knowing, one that soothes the battered soul and frees the heart to breathe. So, I pray.

Lord, you are ever near. May I know your loving presence in the breeze of dawn and in the mystery of this heart that I will never truly understand. But I know that you do. So I come here once again. Just to be with you.

With that, I read a verse, a story, and Jesus’ words carry me to faces from along ago. Souls who touched my own, even though I can barely remember a word they said because I was so young. What I recall is what it felt like to be with them.

And in the silence, comes the voice I came here to know. Yours. “Abide in me. Just be. Here. Listen. Say nothing. All I want is your presence. With me.”

All those faces were your own, weren’t they, Jesus? Each one, loving me. Each one, telling me who I am. Each one, silencing the night voices.

Each one speaking the Love, you are, the love that wants and invites me to come here and sink into your presence that you might untie the knots in my soul and set me free.

As you have, once again.

Pr. David L. Miller

In Galilee

 Suddenly Jesus met them and said, ‘Greetings!’ And they came to him, took hold of his feet, and worshipped him. Then Jesus said to them, ‘Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.' (Matthew 28:9-10)

The Galilean hills rise quickly behind the village of Capernaum where Jesus made his home. It was a fishing village on north shore of the Sea of Galilee.

Today, the ruins of an ancient synagogue stand 100 meters or so from the shoreline, a few pillars and paving stones weathered smooth by shuffling feet and exposure to the elements. The lake, blue and wind-whipped on summer afternoons, stretches eight miles wide and 14 miles south from this point.

It’s easy to visualize Jesus walking the shoreline, talking to young men who soon followed him on a journey that cost them everything, including their lives.

It is here, among these hills, Jesus promised to meet them after he was raised. It’s fitting, I suppose.

There is nothing spectacular about Galilee. It was a common, work-a-day place where men and women toiled out their lives, sowing seeds hoping some of it might grow, casting nets into the deep praying for a catch to sustain them for one more day.

Galilee was the place they reared their children, buried their dead, shivered through winters and sought the warmth of human friendship to cushion the hard times, which were all-too frequent. Galileans lived in obscurity, and few of power or influence paid much attention.

But it was there and to them that Jesus first appeared. This is the place human souls first gathered around him, hungry to feel and know more of whatever mystery it was that filled him.

And at the end of the story, this place of obscurity becomes the land of resurrection, as Jesus returns, inexplicably risen and alive, after the powers of this world had done their worst to be rid of him.

Go to Galilee. There you will see him. That’s Jesus’ promise then ... and now.

We need not go anywhere, of course, because Galilee is here, the common places of our lives. We live in Galilee, toiling out our lives in the heat and cold, knowing joys that kiss our eyes with tears and sorrows that hang like weights, dragging us into the deep.

But amid it all there is this love, the Love he is and ever shall be, who finds and fills the heart so that we swoop and soar like the purple martins out my window. And he will do so, until our time in Galilee is past and we see him face-to-face.

Pr. David L. Miller

 

 

Older than the hills, newer than tomorrow

The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time on and for evermore (Psalm 121:8)

 We don’t know what awaits us on any given day, let alone what the next month or year may bring. Nor do we know how long this life will last or what sorrows or joys will awaken our tears.

 But we do know there is a Love who comes to us in the great and small things of our lives, a Love who promises to be with us amid the uncertainties that surround our existence.

 And we are not alone in this knowing, which is good to know. Others have left a witness to this Mystery who haunts our days and warms our souls in odd moments when we are looking for nothing in particular.

 “I look to the hills,” writes an ancient poet who failed to share his name. The greatness of the hills awakened his awareness of a benevolent Presence who inhabited the heights as well as the valleys and anywhere else he found himself.

Most significantly, he discovered that Presence his own soul, so that he knew something ... Someone ... he could not begin to describe.

There is One who watches over you, he said, sees your going out and your return home, holding all your journeys in safekeeping because your life is more precious than you know. So breathe, the poet counsels, and know. Know that in every moment of grace and every ounce of love, you meet this Mystery, who is free as the wind, lighter than air, stronger than death and closer than your breath.

Watching, yes, but this One also comes, silent as the dawn, slipping past our guarded hearts, whispering a Love older than the hills ... and newer than tomorrow.

 Pr. David L. Miller

Joy

For the kingdom of God is not food and drink but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. (Romans 14:17).

We can pretty much predict when happiness comes. It is right there at the beginning of the word—hap, which refers to chance or luck or a favorable event that pleases us. Winning the game, success at work, a kind word or smile, these all bring happiness.

But joy is more elusive ... and deeper. It flows from the heart’s inner room when our soul is satisfied, one with the Love who is our home.

Joy releases silent tears that wash away everything else but its presence. It floods the heart with a wave of warmth and gratitude, sometimes for no reason we can see.

You never know when it might appear. It's free, like the wind. Joy can come in the midst of grief, like when we savor the smile of a soul no longer with us, or for the gift of simply being alive on a fresh April morning. 

Joy can never be reduced to words, and when it washes over you it is best not to try. It’s like trying to snatch morning light in your hand as it filers through the blinds. The most and best you can ever say is, "Thank you," to the wondrous mystery from whom it comes. 

Ultimately, joy is the fulfillment of our humanity, as the Love in whose image we are made awakens at our core, filling us whole until it pours from our pores and leaks through our eyes. 

And every time it comes, you know: This is my home, the One from whom I came and the One to whom I will go. 

Pr. David L. Miller

The place of peace

A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you.’ (John 20:26)

The morning news has nothing to commend, violence and unresolvable conflict wherever one turns, everything well-seasoned by long injustice and inevitable mistrust. If ever this ends, my lifetime won’t be long enough to see it.

The unsettled heart wants nothing more than peace, as if that were a small thing and not … everything.

And the mind knows what the heart doesn’t want to admit. There is no peace, even when there is justice. Opposition and the clamor of egos to get their way are ever there. It’s the nature of things, or better to say … it’s our nature. Stress and tension remain, inevitable elements of human existence.

We have lost the way or the key or whatever is needed to arrive at the place where the mind grows quiet and the heart rests, no longer insisting that the world serve us, catering to our whims and wills.

Of course, we never knew the way or held the key to the place of peace. For that place is a heart larger than our own.

Peace is a gift to be received, not a state we create. It is the wonder of love filling the temple of the heart’s inner room, leaving room for nothing else, so that we become, if even for a moment, the love who rushes in to fill the ache of human emptiness.

And this love, this Love, stands before those who failed and fled and denied him, breathing a single word, Peace. Peace be with you.

He gives what we cannot give ourselves, the peace that welcomes us whole regardless of the state of our lives. He offers a kind of knowing, love’s knowing, that washes over the heart and carries us into a heart that is immeasurably greater than we can know.

So do nothing. Just stand or sit or be wherever you are and hear this one word spoken to the world by the Wounded One to whom the world did everything possible to reject and kill.

He offers a single word that washes the soul and frees the heart to love and be the peace we so greatly need. Just listen … then listen again.

Peace.

Pr. David L. Miller

 

It’s enough

 

Maundy Thursday 2021

 Now before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. The devil had already put it into the heart of Judas son of Simon Iscariot to betray him. And during supper Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, got up from the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him. (John 13:1-5)

This is enough. If I had no other reason to love Jesus than this one moment, this is enough. This is beauty beyond compare, love beyond speaking.

Jesus gets up from the table, casts off his outer robe, ties a towel around himself and pours water in a bowel. Then he kneels ... and washes his disciples’ feet, an act of crystal purity flowing from his heart, giving himself to his friends who could never comprehend the depth of the love who chose ... them.

Watch him as he takes a foot in one hand and washes it with the other. These are the hands that held and blessed children. His hands welcomed lepers who had given up hope of ever knowing the grace of human touch again.

He had bent low to lay his hands on the despairing who fell at his feet, daring to hope that maybe the mystery in him could and would heal them.

He had held the hand of a little girl pronounced dead, lifting her by the hand and delivering her into the arms of astonished parents.

And now, in an act of exquisite love for the uncomprehending and undeserving, he washes his disciples’ feet, loving them completely and loving them to the end.

I see his hands and in them I see the hands of my Sunday school teacher, Grant, red and chapped from working outdoors all his life, strong from milking cows, making hay and building fence. His hands welcomed us every Sunday to his class with a strength born of a love none of us could begin to understand at 10 and 11.

I see Magdalena’s hands, arthritic, a network of blue veins across the back, weathered and worn from chores indoors and out, hands that gently cared for her orchids, bringing them to blossom, beautiful, but none so much as her. I remember her hands laying atop mine as she prayed for me and for hundreds of others, struggling for words to express a fraction of what was in her heart that we might be warmed by the enduring flame of love she felt within.

I also see my hands picking up Hana, a little Ethiopian girl, who long ago insistently tugged at my pant leg until I picked her up and sat her in the crook of my arm. She patted my face and kissed my cheeks, aching to touch and be touched with a love denied her because of the disease that ravaged her family and made her an outcast. I held her, praying that she might live and grow and one day hold her own child as I held her.

In their hands, I see Jesus’ hands, and in Jesus’ hands I see their hands.

And in all of them, I see the hands of the Love who pours from Jesus’ heart as he kneels at the feet of his disciples and washes their feet. In the touch of his hands, the gentleness of grace, the beauty of blessing, we know the Love who labors in the depth of human souls and works in the great tides of history to love us into truest humanity and create a community joined in the heart of God’s invincible love for all creation.

So it is: If all we ever know about Jesus is this one moment as he washes feet, this is enough for us, enough to know that wherever we are in life’s journey, whether it be dark or light, we rest in very good hands.

We adore you, O Christ, and bless you.

By your holy cross you have redeemed the world.

Pr. David L, Miller

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Strange power

 For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. (1 Corinthians 1:18)

A wooden triptych sits on my desk at home. Four or five inches tall, it was carved from a single piece of wood. Human figures rise in relief from the walnut background.

On the left, a robed figure stands erect, hands together in prayer. A soldier holds a sword directly in front of him, point down, on the right. The middle panel is Jesus, arms wide on the cross.

Each time I return to my desk, I pick up the tryptic, kiss the relief of Jesus and pray, “We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you. By your holy cross you have redeemed the world.”

This sounds like nonsense, of course. How does a crucified man, suffering excruciating pain and degradation redeem anything? It is the very opposite of success, power, status, wealth or any of the other things we are told we should want.

It makes no sense, until you see ... really see ... a mother holding and caressing her infant, or a teacher going that extra mile for a troubled child or any of a thousand other instances where love goes out of its way expecting no reward ... other than the sheer grace of loving.

Then it becomes clear that if anything is going to save this world it is the willingness to give yourself away, loving beyond any and every expectation.

Jesus dies on the cross, rejected, tortured, humiliated by purveyors of merciless power, eager to demonstrate that they owned him and could do what they like.

But they didn’t own him. He refuses to surrender to the hate that kills him, breaking history’s ugly cycle of paying back insult with injury, hate with more hate. He lives the Love who lives in him right to the end, blessing those who curse him, showing mercy to the merciless, grace in the face of evil.

There’s nothing about the cross that suggests power, yet only this has the power to save us from ourselves.

We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you.

By your holy cross you have redeemed the world.

Pr. David L. Miller

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.