Easter Greetings

Easter Joy to You!

The calla lily trumpets the resurrection each spring. Resurrection is always personal even though it is universal in scope. In the garden, Jesus calls Mary’s name, and she is transformed. Resurrection happens when we hear God’s voice – the voice of new life – amid the death-ness of our lives and the world. We may want to hold onto the old, but as Jesus tells Mary, ‘Let go of the way you used to know me; I am also a new creation. The past does not bind me.’ Christ brings new life in unexpected ways.

(Photo by Lubbock graduate and Vancouver-based Christopher Gruver, son of the late friend of the Presbytery, Betty Gruver.)

Poem:
“Descending Theology: Christ Human” by Mary Karr
from Sinners Welcome, Harper, 2006.

“Descending Theology: Christ Human”
by Mary Karr
Such a short voyage for a god,
and you arrived in animal form so as not
to scorch us with your glory.
Your mask was an infant’s head on a limp stalk,
sticky eyes smeared blind,
limbs rendered useless in swaddle.
You came among beasts
as one, came into our care or its lack, came crying
as well all do, because the human frame
is a crucifix, each skeletos borne a lifetime.
Any wanting soul lain
prostrate on a floor to receive a pouring of sunlight
might—if still enough,
feel your cross buried in the flesh.
One has only to surrender,
you preached, open both arms to the inner,
the ever-present hold,
out-reaching every want.  It’s in the form
embedded, love adamant as bone.
In a breath, we can bloom and almost be you.