Fifth Sunday of Easter
Good Shepherd Lutheran Church
Decorah, Iowa
Rev. Amy Zalk Larson

Click here to read scripture passages for the day.

Beloved of God, grace to you and peace in the name of Jesus.

Abide is such a beautiful word. To abide is to put down roots, settle in and feel at home. To abide with someone is to be there for them, day in and day out, for the long haul. Jesus abides with us.

Jesus, the vine, is a grounding, nourishing home for us. Our connection to this home, this vine, allows us to branch out into the world in life-giving ways. It allows us to provide shelter and nourishment for others. This is such good news in this unsettling time.

Author Diana Butler Bass says the pandemic has profoundly dislocated us.^[1] When I first started reading her article about this I thought, no! We’ve been overly located, in the same place for far too long. Most of us have spent way too much time stuck in our houses. Yet as she described all the ways we’ve been dislocated, that word started to help me make sense of what’s happened to us.

Bass says we’ve experienced temporal dislocation – that is, we’ve lost our sense of time. Early in the pandemic we often had no idea what day it was. Whether your days were way too empty or far too full, everything was out of whack, our normal rhythms disrupted. One morning news show started a segment called, “What Day Is It”. They’d play 70s style game show music and build up suspense around the question until they revealed, “Today is Tuesday.”

Time still seems to be moving differently. It feels like the pandemic has lasted ten years, yet I can’t believe it’s May again. Last week I said to my husband, “Oh, that isn’t until the end of April”, about an event that was happening in two days. Apparently, this is called temporal dislocation. Knowing there’s a name for it makes me feel a little more normal.

Bass says we’ve also experienced historical dislocation. She writes, “We’ve lost our sense of where we are in the larger story of both our own lives and our communal stories. History has been dis- rupted. Where are we? Where are we going? The growth of conspiracy theories, the intensity of social media, political and religious “deconstructions” – these are signs of a culture seeking a meaningful story to frame its lives because older stories have failed. That’s historical dislocation.”^[2]

We’ve also experienced physical dislocation. Our bodies are meant to be with other bodies in physical space. They’re meant to touch and smell and taste. It’s unsettling to shop for a tomato when you can’t feel it or even see it. It’s disorienting to worship in the place where you watch TV,  work and exercise, sleep, study, shop and socialize. In this virtual world, many of us have been doing things to help our bodies feel more grounded in physical space. We’ve made bread and gardened and taken on projects. Yet we’ve still been so disconnected from normal patterns of moving through space.

Of course, we’ve also experienced profound relational dislocation. We’ve had to celebrate holidays and birthdays and milestones without our loved one’s present. Yet we’ve also missed smiles from the checker at the grocery store and serendipitous conversations with acquaintances. We’ve spent hours staring at screens with a whole bunch of squares filled with faces whose voices are often muted.

We’ve been dislocated from our sense of time, history, place, and relationships.

Now that more of us have been vaccinated, now that more of us are moving out into the world, we’re being unsettled again. A Good Shepherd member shared a funny email. It reads, “Please pray for us. We are planning to go to an indoor church service tomorrow morning. Oh, it’s not the Covid that concerns us. Barb and I are fully vaccinated and the church follows strict protocols … No, the challenge will be to get out of bed, dress respectfully and arrive at church before 8 am. I hope it’s not too much of a shock to our systems.”

At Good Shepherd most people don’t need to arrive until 9:30, but still, our changing patterns right now are disrupting us and raising all sorts of new questions. Can we handle worship outside with bugs and noise and weather? Can we get through in-person meetings when everyone is distanced and masked? Do we still know how to make small talk? We face larger questions as well. How will the church be different post-pandemic? How can we better care for the earth, our shared home, and better care for one another? How can we love and serve as our nation grapples with historic and systemic racism, and when so many in the world don’t have access to vaccines or safe places to live or enough food to eat?

Jesus says, “Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing.” 

Life in our world right now is so unsettling and disorienting, yet we have been given a place to abide. We have been given a relationship with Jesus in which we can rest and breathe, put down roots and settle in. This life-giving relationship with Jesus provides so much grounding and nur- ture amid all the dislocation we’ve experienced.

Relationship with Jesus reshapes our sense of time. Jesus has entered human time and is present with us in it, working new life. This frees us to move in time differently. We can be present to all the drudgery, beauty, and pain of our days for Jesus abides with us there. In every moment we face, we are not alone. Relationship with Jesus also gives us a life-giving story in a time of historical dislocation. Human sin, suffering and death do not have the final word. God is at work to bring new life.

In relationship with Jesus, we are seen, known, and loved fully, completely, with no need for masks. We are nourished with life-giving words and with a tangible feast of love. We are given community. In Jesus, the vine, we are nourished, strengthened, and cleansed so that we can branch out into the world in life-giving ways. We are given what we need to bear fruit so that others can be fed and sheltered, so that our earth can flourish.

Beloved of God, Jesus is your abiding place. You are rooted and grounded in Jesus’ love. Jesus abides with you. And you are a branch on Jesus’ life-giving vine. Jesus is at work in you to bring life to others.

You can breathe in this good news.

You can branch out into this world in love.

Let’s take a moment for silent prayer.

^[1] “Religion After the Pandemic” by Diana Butler Bass. Blog post on her blog: “The Cottage”, April 26, 2021. https://dianabutlerbass.substack.com/p/religion-after-pandemic?r=45vbf&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&utm_source=twitter

^[2] Ibid.

Fourth Sunday of Easter
Good Shepherd Sunday
Good Shepherd Lutheran Church
Decorah, Iowa
Rev. Amy Zalk Larson

Click here to read scripture passages for the day.

Today is Good Shepherd Sunday. Every Fourth Sunday of Easter, the whole church focuses on how Jesus is our Good Shepherd. We pray with the words of Psalm 23 which help us to trust in God our shepherd. This is a day for the whole church, but it feels especially significant for this congregation as we gather on land that used to be a sheep farm. Psalm 23 is meaningful all the time, but it feels especially important as we enter this time of transition as a congregation. As we begin gathering again, as we move out of isolation and back into community, our shepherd is leading us on this journey. So today I want to invite us to dive deep into Psalm 23. I’ll walk us through the Psalm as it is printed in your bulletin; you’re invited to follow along there. (The Psalm translation is from Evangelical Lutheran Worship, Copyright © 2019 Augsburg Fortress. All rights reserved. License # SB118886)

¹The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not  be in want.

Shepherds provide sheep with enough to eat so that they aren’t left wanting, needing more. Yet shepherds also must ensure that sheep don’t get too much. Sheep are almost always wanting, al- most always hungry. If they’re turned loose in a lush pasture or allowed to free feed on hay, they will usually overeat. Shepherds these days even vaccinate their sheep against enterotoxaemia or “overeating disease”. It’s the shepherd’s responsibility to keep sheep from over consuming. This is important for the health of individual sheep and for the sake of the herd for the long haul. Shepherds must ensure pasture isn’t over grazed so that there is enough for the whole herd for the long term.

God is our shepherd and God does the same for us. God does feed and nurture us. God gives us daily bread. Yet God helps us to not constantly want and seek more, for our own sake and for the sake of creation. If only there was a vaccination to keep humans from over consuming! Yet, God has given us gifts that can inoculate us against the lure of consumerism, that can protect us from a frenzied life of wanting more and more. God’s gifts of scripture, worship, and Christian community help us to not constantly be in want.

²The LORD makes me lie down ^| in green pastures and leads me be- ^| side still waters.

Americans struggle to stop, to just lay down in green pastures and rest. We are driven to consume, achieve, accomplish, multitask and serve – all of which can be good things. Too much of this can make us sick and our world out of whack. We need rest and stillness. Sometimes, we need our shepherd to make us lie down.

For many of you, the pandemic has provided too much quiet and stillness. Now that you are vaccinated, you are trying to find new rhythms. For others, you have been incredibly busy as work and family life have become even more challenging during this time. We need God to lead us all into new patterns that facilitate rest and renewal for us and for others.

Today, our shepherd comes to us, to you, and says, “Be still and know that I am God.” Stop and rest in the still waters of your baptism. Let the water remind you that you are mine, and I love you. I love you not because of what you accomplish but because you are my beloved child. Be still and know this. Let this promise sink deep in you so that you can embody God’s gift of rest, a gift every- one needs.

³You restore my ^| soul, O LORD, and guide me along right pathways ^| for your name’s sake.

Sheep are creatures of habit. Left to themselves they will follow the same trails until they become ruts, graze the same hills until they turn to desert wastes, and pollute the same ground until it is ruined by disease and parasites. We do the same. We know we need to develop new habits and follow different paths regarding our care for one another and the earth, yet we are creatures of habit and we end up following the same old destructive paths.

Sheep also have a strong instinct to follow the sheep in front of them. When one sheep decides to go somewhere, the rest of the flock usually follows. On our own it can be hard to follow the paths of life. This is especially true if the whole herd is rushing somewhere. We are so easily swept along towards war, violence, pollution, and injustice. For this reason, God trains us to recognize and follow the voice of the Good Shepherd, the One who leads us on the paths of life. God gives us the commandments saying, “Do these things so that it may go well with you.”

⁴Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil; for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

When sheep are afraid, they simply won’t move. They just come to a stand still and lock their legs.  But if a shepherd goes before them, they will follow and go places they would be afraid to go alone.

It is scary to face death, grief, and sorrow; and we have so much of it to face in the wake of this devastating year. Our culture tells us it is much better to avoid unpleasantness, to numb ourselves to it, or escape it some way. But the only way out of grief is through it. The only way to get out of the valley is to go through it. We need to face the pain of this year. Yet God will not leave us alone; our Good Shepherd goes before and with us. Jesus walked before us through the valley of death and showed that life is more powerful than death. Now Jesus walks with us through the valleys, through the grief and into new life.

 ⁵You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil, and my cup is running over.

A shepherd’s presence is so comforting to sheep that, even when they are surrounded by wolves, they can eat and be content as long as the shepherd stays with them. We too can have peace and contentment even when we’re surrounded by enemies, troubles, and worries because our shepherd is with us. 

To assure us of that, Jesus spreads a table of love before us. Jesus comes to us in his body and blood and is present with us. Jesus gives us the cup that runs over with love for us and anoints us with  the oil of God’s love in baptism. So, we can eat and feast and celebrate even when troubles press in all around. We are not paralyzed by the challenges. We are strengthened and nourished to go out and face troubles with confidence. We are empowered to work so that all may know God’s goodness and all may feast at the banquet of love.

⁶Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.

The Hebrew word for “follow” is actually the word “pursue.” When it feels like enemies and troubles are in hot pursuit, this Psalm assures us that God’s goodness and mercy are even more relentless. They are always close behind us, always pushing us into the abundance God longs for us all to know.

Jesus Christ, our shepherd, has brought us here today. Jesus has brought you and each one of us here to rest and be nourished in this green pasture beside still waters. Here Jesus feeds and nourishes us so that we will not be in want. Here Jesus trains us to know and to recognize his voice so that we can follow that voice on the paths of life. Here Jesus sets a table of his presence before us and reminds us that we are anointed in the baptismal oil of God’s love.

When the service is over, Jesus will lead us out. Jesus will go ahead of you into the world, through the valley, pursued by goodness and mercy.

Let’s take a moment for silent prayer.

Third Sunday of Easter
Good Shepherd Lutheran Church
Decorah, Iowa
Rev. Amy Zalk Larson

Click here to read scripture passages for the day.

Beloved of God, grace to you and peace in the name of Jesus.

I am grateful once again for the chance to collaborate with Pastor Stacey Nalean-Carlson on this sermon. We all need one another to help us hear and share good news!

Have you anything here to eat?

This is one of my favorite lines of scripture. The resurrected Jesus appears to his disciples, asks them for some food and then eats a piece of fish in their presence. This detail always captures my attention – the Savior of the world asking, “Have you anything here to eat.” Has Jesus worked up an appetite? Or, is this some kind of growth spurt? He sounds a lot like my teenagers who take after their very tall dad. He sounds a lot like me over the past year – hmm, maybe I’m hungry. Our grocery bills during this COVID time have been crazy.

I know Luke tells us that Jesus asked for fish in order to convey that he rose from the grave truly, bodily, fully intact with flesh and bones, a mouth and a stomach. But I love that it also invites us to wonder about a savior who hungers. I love that it invites us to wonder about our own appetites, our own hungering, as we grow into witnesses of the resurrection.

When Jesus appears to his disciples, he hasn’t just been resuscitated. He hasn’t just been brought back to life. Jesus has descended to the dead and has broken the power of death. He has been raised up to new life, resurrected. Is it any wonder that he’s hungry? Jesus is hungry – for fish, yes, and hungry for the news of his resurrection to transform this world. Jesus also knows it is a time for a growth spurt. It’s time for his disciples to grow as witnesses and spread this good news that life and love have triumphed.

Jesus tells his disciples, “It is written that that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations.”  And you, he tells them, you are witnesses of these things. You are witnesses that death itself has been defeated. There is now nothing to stand in the way of forgiveness, of healing, of freedom from shame and guilt and regret. There is nothing to stand in the way of reconciliation with God and neighbor, nothing to stand in the way of God’s restorative justice. Through the death and resurrection of Jesus, God’s kingdom of mercy, justice and peace is breaking into this world and transforming it. You are witnesses of these things, Jesus says to his disciples – and that includes us. We are witnesses to what God has done and is doing through Jesus. We are witnesses to resurrection.

Except, Jesus, what about everything else we’ve seen over the past year? What about all the black families who are crying out for their loved ones killed by police? What about police officers struggling under the weight of all that we ask of law enforcement in this violent and racist world? What about attacks against Asians and mass shootings and children at the border and so much suffering caused by COVID? Every day we see the worst of humanity’s brokenness. We see it in situations we want to keep at arm’s length and in tragedies that hit close to home. We see it in the failings of our leaders and in our very own faults and frailties. We see it in the stories that make the news and in the stories known only to us that we keep secret out of fear or shame.

How can we bear witness to resurrection when we see so much grief and pain? Like Jesus, we are hungry, hungry for justice and healing and peace, hungry for transformation. We know it is time for a growth spurt, time for new life, but we are also afraid. We have so many doubts.

We have a lot in common with those first disciples. We’re told that even in their joy at seeing Jesus, they were disbelieving and still wondering. And that’s when Jesus asked them for  something to eat. The disciples were stuck in their heads, trying to make sense of it all, trying to figure out how they could have joy and also doubts and fears, trying to figure out how they would explain  all this to others.

Jesus broke through all that and brought them back to the present moment by asking for something to eat. Jesus brought them back into their bodies and their hungers and their deepest longings by eating fish in their presence. As he ate, they were reminded of all the ways he had fed them and so many throughout his life on earth. They were reminded of all the meals Jesus shared with outcasts and strangers, that 5,000 hungry people were fed with five loaves and two fish, that he promised to be present always in bread and wine.

As Jesus ate, they saw that we have a savior who shares our hungers. We have a savior who has entered into the world’s brokenness, who is present in it all, who is working new life in the midst of the pain and suffering. We have a savior who not only triumphs over death, we have a savior who comes close and feeds us. As we are fed, Jesus opens our eyes to see God at work. Jesus assures us: Yes, you have seen so much suffering, but you are witnesses to something greater. Our eyes are opened so that even in the most hopeless situations, we witness God at work. Even in the mundane and the dreary, we witness unexpected beauty and joy.

During this pandemic time Jesus has fed the people of Good Shepherd as we’ve shared in Holy Communion in such creative ways: in the backyard, in Spilde’s Walnut Grove next to the church, in the parking lot, on Zoom.

Now, starting next week we will get the chance to gather for full services of Word and Sacrament in the backyard. Thanks be to God.

We will be offering online worship. It will look different as we prioritize the church’s mission of gathering with other bodies as the body of Christ to be fed. Yet, we will still bear witness to the good news online with scripture, preaching and music.

If your health or work schedule prevents you from gathering, I am glad to bring you Holy Communion outside your home.

If you live far from Good Shepherd, I hope you will find a congregation where you can receive Holy Communion as part of the body of Christ. Good Shepherd can help you find a congregation where you live. Contact us via the website.

We hunger for God’s mercy, justice and peace. That is breaking into this world through the death and resurrection of Jesus. We are witnesses to these things. In the face of deep sorrow, Jesus feeds us and opens our eyes so that we can witness God at work.

Thanks be to God.

Easter Sunday
Good Shepherd Lutheran Church
Decorah, Iowa
Rev. Amy Zalk Larson

Mark 16:1-8

Beloved of God, grace and peace to you in the name of Jesus.

One of my daily rituals is to read The Morning, an e-newsletter from the New York Times. This past year I’ve wondered if it’s a good idea to start my day like that. Do I really need to read so much bad news? So, The Morning for March 24 caught my attention when it asked, “Is bad news the only kind?” There are many days when it feels like the answer to that question is yes.

But this morning, we say no. There is good news for our world, for you, for me.^[1] Yet somehow, bad news is easier for us to hold on to.

The women at the tomb on that first Easter morning were accustomed to bad news. They lived under Roman occupation, daily life was filled with reports of violence and inhumane treatment. They had hoped Jesus would set them free. Instead, they looked on from a distance as Jesus breathed his last. They saw where his body was laid. They prepared to anoint him and worried about the stone at the tomb’s en- trance. They had grown accustomed to bad news.

When they reach the tomb, they are stunned by good news. The body they’ve come to bury with dignity is no longer there. They find a young man who tells them that Jesus has been raised.

Their job is no longer to anoint a body in the wake of bad news, but to announce good news! “Go,” the young man commands them, “and tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.” What do you do when the bad news you’ve learned to carry is taken from your hands and replaced with good news? What do you do when you’re prepared for death and find life instead? What do you do when the stone has already been rolled away and the tomb no long- er holds your loved one? No longer holds you?

You flee from the tomb, seized with terror and amazement, and you say nothing to anyone, for you are afraid. That’s where Mark’s gospel ends. Silence. Fear. Trembling. Bewilderment.

Preacher Richard Lischer says that we move through the events of Holy Week as stunned observers. “On Palm Sunday we watch the spectacle unfold as Jesus enters the capital to die. On Good Friday, we stand at the place of the skull and watch the execution take place.” ^[2]

And this morning we stand at the empty tomb alongside the first witnesses of the resurrection, and we are still stunned observers. We are stunned observers, as we have been throughout so much of this pandemic time, this Holy Year. We’ve been stunned by the death, the sorrow, the relentless bad news … Yet I wonder if we haven’t also been stunned by good news. I wonder if we haven’t also been startled by life rising up in the most unexpected places and at the most unexpected times – new life emerging in the midst of deep grief.

Normally, I’m not a big fan of Mark’s account of the resurrection. I much prefer John, where Jesus meets Mary Magdalene at the tomb, calls her by name and sends her to share the good news with the disciples. She becomes the apostle to the apostles and proclaims boldly, “I have seen the Lord!”

I appreciate Matthew’s account where the women run from the tomb with fear and great joy in order to tell the disciples that Jesus is risen. On the way, Jesus meets them and sends them to proclaim the good news.

I even like Luke’s account, although in his telling the disciples think the women are giving them an idle tale. People struggle to take in the good news, so Jesus appears to them to open their eyes. The end of the Gospel of Mark leaves so much to be desired. Where is the witness of the women? Where is the risen Jesus? Where is the resolution, the ending for which we’ve been hoping? It’s not here. And maybe that’s why Mark is resonating so much with me this year.

We are so far into this pandemic time, long overdue for resolution, for a happy ending. And while there are surely signs of hope and progress, it’s not over. It’s not done. And it may never be—at least not in the way we had envisioned. One year later there is still so much fear, trembling, bewilderment. We’re right there with the women. We long to be more than stunned observers of all that has transpired in this year.

We long to respond in hopeful, life giving ways in the world, but we remain silent and afraid.

The stone has been rolled away and the tomb is empty. Bad news is not the only news. There is good news here. There is life in our midst—new life, surprising life, life emerging from deepest grief, life irrepressible, irresistible, life abundant, life astounding. And it’s terrifying. Terrifying because this abundant life is beyond our control, beyond our understanding, beyond our ability to explain or prove. It’s messy. It’s complicated. It’s not resolved. And it’s not over. It’s new every day. And while it makes a claim on us, it does not depend on us.

The women, for who knows how long, lived in fear. They said nothing to anyone. They experienced what had to be an overwhelming encounter with God’s persistent, relentless, death-defeating grace, and they could not speak of this good news. Who would believe them in a world that asks is bad news the only kind?

Could they even believe their own eyes? Could they trust that their experience had been real? They had watched him die. They knew how to grieve. They knew how to cope with bad news. They did not know how to respond to unexpected life.

And still, the good news has reached us this Easter morning. God’s Word accomplishes what it intends. The Good News does not return empty. It transformed those first witnesses of the resurrection from stunned observers to hope bearers. It transforms us. It empowers us to imagine new possibilities and new beginnings even now.

In the midst of our own unresolved story, good news is here. Good news for today and every day to come.

Jesus has been raised.

Christ is risen. Christ is risen indeed. Amen.

^[1] This sermon was written in collaboration with Pr. Stacey Nalean-Carlson, Glenwood and Canoe Ridge Lutheran Churches.

^[2] “Stunned Observers: A Conversation between Richard Lischer and William H. Willimon.”  Christian Century, March 15, 2021.

Sunday of the Passion/Palm Sunday
Amalia J. Vagts. Wartburg Seminarian
Good Shepherd Lutheran Church
Decorah, Iowa

Gospel – Mark 15:1-41

Earlier this week, I asked my partner David what Palm Sunday was like in the congregation where he grew up. What he remembered most was being given a palm branch to wave in the procession. However, he said, “It always felt a little strange.” Strange? I asked. “Well, he said, we’re happy and waving palm branches for Jesus – but he’s on the way to his death!”^[1]

This can feel like a strange day in the year of the life of the Church. We wave for the triumphant entry into Jerusalem, calling out “Hosanna” with the hope that Jesus will save us only to face the reality that Jesus won’t even save himself.

How do we find hope in a story like this?

I preached about this story on this day, Palm Sunday, a year ago while I was on internship. We were right at the beginning of this year of pandemic and racial reckoning and hope-seeking. It was our third or so recorded service. By then we knew that this wasn’t all going to be over by Easter. But it had just started to sink in.

On that day, Palm and Passion Sunday, when we began facing the death of Jesus we were only just starting to face the death of the pandemic. There were just over 9,000 recorded deaths from COVID in the United States. One year later, that number is 546, 591.

It’s an almost unimaginable number. It’s a level of suffering we want to look away from. It’s strange isn’t it – how we look at the cross, but away from death? But like our theme this Lent, Again & Again, the Spirit calls us to look. To look and face the sorrow and pain and fear and shame and guilt and anger and defensiveness and confusion of death. Again and again, the Spirit calls us to look.

A year ago by Palm Sunday, Ahmaud Arbery, a black man, had already been killed after being followed by three white men while he was jogging through his neighborhood in Georgia. Most of us didn’t know about it until a video of the murder was posted in early May.

Breonna Taylor, a black woman, had already been killed in her own home in Louisville, Kentucky, when police officers broke through the front door of the wrong home looking for a suspect. Her death also didn’t become national news until May, when the attention from Ahmaud’s Arbery’s death brought wider awareness to Breonna Taylor’s.

And a year ago on Palm Sunday, George Floyd was alive. I learned about George Floyd’s death via a Facebook post from a friend in Minneapolis the day after it happened. He posted a photo of officer Derek Chauvin’s knee on George Floyd’s neck with other officers standing by, writing, “I’m not going to post the video, but look long and hard at this picture.”

I looked at the picture. And then I looked away.

Later that day, I saw another Facebook post from a friend with the words, “A man was lynched today.” These words were the words on a flag that used to be displayed outside the New York NAACP office building in the 1920s and ‘30s anytime a black person was lynched.

I looked at the words. And then I looked away.

How do we remain hopeful when things feel hopeless? How is the cross a symbol of death and life? Of hope in hopelessness?

Black theologian James Cone writes that the cross is a paradox because it “inverts the world’s value system with the news that hope comes by way of defeat, that suffering and death do not have the last word, that the last shall be first, and the first last.”^[2] He goes on to say that even in the terrible history of our racist past, black Americans found hope in the fact that “Christ crucified manifested God’s loving and liberating presence in the contradiction of black life.” ^[3]

Hope is in God’s promise that death is not the final word. Hope is in the terrible and beautiful strangeness of this week as we focus on the defeat of our Savior at the hands of the ones who could save him. Jesus calls us to follow him to the cross.

What would it mean for our congregation to follow the path of Jesus described by the apostle Paul – to become completely empty of ego and fear and to enter into the places of deepest suffering? What would we find if we explored in depth the rhetorical question a classmate of mine asked this weekend, “Who killed Jesus – a person or a system?”^[4] What would it look like for our congregation to take seriously the idea that we are all the Body of Christ and to enter into lament for the suffering of the Body?

Later on in his book The Cross and the Lynching Tree, Jame Cone powerfully challenges those of us who are white and Christian to face our part in our history and present reality with this question: “Can one really understand the theological meaning of Jesus on a Roman cross without seeing him first through the lens of blacks on the lynching tree?”^[5]

Who killed Jesus – a person or a system?

God breaks in to end systems that kill. Early on in Mark, when John baptized Jesus in the Jordan, the heavens were torn open and the life-breath of God descended. And when Jesus drew his last breath, in the temple, in the holiest of holy places, the curtain was torn in two. In the presence of systems that kill, God is present in Christ through the Spirit to heal and restore you. Even when you feel abandoned, you are never alone.

In telling this story, we often focus on how everyone turns away from Jesus at the end. The religious leaders have become jealous and have handed him over. His closest students and followers have fallen asleep, denied and betrayed him, abandoned him. Where are you God? Jesus cried out. Why did you leave me?

And yet, towards the end of Mark’s account of the death of Jesus we have this detail. “There were also women looking on from a distance; among them were Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joses, and Salome. These used to follow him and provided for him when he was in Galilee; and there were many other women who had come up with him to Jerusalem” (Mark 15:40-41NRSV).

Already in the very moment of his death we do not see Jesus abandoned and alone. God, who will raise Jesus up, is alive through the love and presence of the community of women who had come up with Jesus to Jerusalem. I’ve seen the love and presence of God alive in Good Shepherd members who are working to get more people in our community vaccinated. I’ve seen the love and presence of God alive in meals delivered to Good Shepherd family members in grief or illness. I’ve seen the love and presence of God alive in commitments from our congregation to work to be anti-racist and seek racial justice. I’ve seen the love and presence of God alive in you.

God who loves, heals, and restores you, promises you are not on your own. Jesus Christ, God with us, in death draws you and all people together. Yes, we’re waving palm branches for the One on the way to death. Again and again, the Spirit calls us to look. We’re waving them for the One who makes you alive to receive and be the love and presence of God for all the world.

^[1] Conversation shared with permission.

^[2] James H. Cone, The Cross and the Lynching Tree (Orbis Books, 2011), 2.

^[3] Cone, The Cross and the Lynching Tree, 2.

^[4] Conversation shared with permission.

^[5] Cone, The Cross and the Lynching Tree, 63.