I have just finished being a part of our noon Good Friday service. It was a lovely gathering of people, small and intimate. We observed the service of tenebrae..the service of shadows. As the scriptures of Good Friday are read outlining the arrest and death of Jesus, candles are slowly extinguished, the shadows descend on the people. The quiet music of this service can take those present to a place of their own shadows, their own brokenness. The readings can allow people to hear, not only the very specific story of Jesus, but the continued injustices in their own lives, the ways in which we are surrounded all the time by people who are lost, left out, on the margins. We can hear also the voices of those who stand firm, speaking truth to power.

Good Friday leads us toward Easter, the celebration of new birth, of resurrection in all the many ways in can be defined. On Sunday we will again celebrate the specific ways in which the followers of Jesus witnessed his presence after his death but we will also be reminded of the many ways new birth is happening all around us every day. We will be reminded of the earth that is greening and springing new life. We will honor the ways in which healing has happened in our lives, the lives of those we love. We will also look for ways that we as a people have risen above terrible despair to a brighter, richer place.

The reality is that all of life is held in the balance of the experience we have this weekend. We are always someplace between brokenness and new life. Whether this is our personal experience or not, it is certainly true in the life of our world. There are babies born and people die. There are triumphs of success in our work and the failures that travel with us on the same curving road. As the tulips in our yard push their way toward the warming sun, they do so through the dead leaves of last summer. It is the nature of the cycle of things.

How we choose to participate in this makes all the difference. As I listened to the scriptures today I once again came face to face with the many ways I participate, knowingly and unknowingly, in the brokenness of the world. I was reminded of the people I pass each day who have been battered by life's storms, some to the point of near extinction. I am a part of their living even when I choose to turn my head the other way. And on Sunday morning when I join in the joyous shouting of an 'Alleluia!' that too will be a full bodied experience. The important thing is how I remember that they are connected, how I am connected to the broken and the rebirthed. The important thing is how I see the Holy moving, not only in the glorious celebration of Sunday morning, but also in the pain and alienation of Good Friday. 

With this wide angled lens, the gift is seeing the sacredness of the whole in the common places between where we live most days. Between brokenness and resurrection. Between Good Friday and Easter. Between Sunday and Monday and every other day. Seeing with eyes remade for wonder, we can come to know the One who moves in between. And in that we can muster up a resounding 'Alleluia!'

Have a blessed and joyous Easter………….