I took the photo of our Easter Worship sign on the curb in front of the church yesterday around noon.  Though the melt was on, the snow from Wednesday’s nor’easter was still piled against the sign, maybe a sign that Easter is not about daffodils and butterflies after all.

Most likely our English word for the day we celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, Easter, comes from an Old English word, Ēostre, the name of the Germanic goddess of spring.  The Christians borrowed the goddess’ name and festival and converted it to their own uses. The pagans have been unhappy ever since.

Ēostre’s influence over our remembering of the Day of Resurrection has always lingered, usually a benign metaphorical use of the things of spring, daffodils and butterflies, bunnies and eggs, to remind us of new life in Christ. Continue reading →

The message at Sunday’s 9:45 service will be brought by the 40 plus voices of our choirs through “Sanctuary: A Cantata of Hope and Peace.”  One of the many things I like about “Sanctuary” is that it does not hurry us along as we make our way to the empty tomb. We will travel slowly through Holy Week, lingering in the Upper Room, the Garden of Gethsemane, and elsewhere, seeking to find the sanctuary, the refuge, that Jesus and his disciples may have found in the quiet and safe places of those chaotic days.

The cantata avoids a common church trap so aptly, if a bit coarsely, described by Kate Bowler, the Duke Divinity School professor who lives with metastasized colon cancer and whose story I have referenced here and from the pulpit.  Bowler describes the Lenten trap of “Easter-ing the crap out of people’s Lent, where we just want to make it joyful. We imagine that because everything is going to turn out, we can skip the suffering.” (More on that at our 8:30 and 11:30 services.) Continue reading →

As we now do, we gave Wednesday’s nor’easter a name. Winter Storm Quinn it was who blew through leaving a foot or more of snow, downed trees and branches, and power out throughout the region.

In so many ways Quinn was not a welcome guest for most of us. At best his unbounded energy and its consequence was an inconvenience. For some his disregard for order and the well-being of others has brought hurt and a serious disruption to our lives. Continue reading →

I was on my way back to the church driving south on Route 413 from Saint Mary’s Hospital when I first figured something was amiss. The intersection at Bridgetown Pike seemed unusually congested for mid-day, cars barely moving through it towards the two stone arch railroad bridges and up the hill into the borough.  And then I saw them, those orange canvas road signs, rippling slightly in the wind.  “Be Prepared to Stop,” the first read. “Flagger Ahead,” the second announced. “Darn,” I said.

It turned out that PennDOT has already gotten to work on this winter’s potholes. A slow convoy of trucks was making its way down 413, workers filling the potholes in the southbound lane as the convoy crawled along its way.  The flagger was there to stop us, waiting for his northbound buddy to stop his traffic every once in awhile to let a few of us around the fleet on PennDOT trucks. Continue reading →

I heard from a mutual friend that Judy died sometime last year. Judy was the organist at our church in the north country on the shore of Lake Michigan’s Green Bay.  She had known more than her share of sorrow in the first half of her life, but a wonderful second marriage had brought joy to her. She adored her grandchildren. And she hated Lent. “It’s so long and so dreary,” she would say. I always think about Judy during Lent.

On the shore of Green Bay there is not even a hint of spring during most Lenten seasons. There’s almost always more snow to come up north once Easter has come. Daffodils are to be found only in a flower shop. My favorite Easter Sunrise service was overlooking the frozen bay as the sun came up on a five degree morning. Continue reading →