Greetings friends,
This is Mark Gladman,
Also known as Brother Frederick James,
Your friendly neighbourhood monk in docks,
Welcoming you once again to the dwelling place.
As we begin today,
I invite you to close your eyes,
To set down the things you've been carrying,
Especially those that are within,
To breathe deeply,
To enter into the silence between death and life.
This is holy ground.
This is the stillness before resurrection.
For our reading from today's gospel is Luke chapter 23 verse 50 to chapter 24 verse 12,
The burial of Jesus and the women discovering the empty tomb.
This is a quiet,
Holy turning from death to life,
From waiting to wonder.
Joseph of Arimathea steps forward quietly,
Not a disciple,
But a man of longing,
A man waiting expectantly for the kingdom of God.
He asks for Jesus' body.
He wraps it tenderly,
Lays it in a tomb cut from rock.
Sometimes love looks like burial.
Sometimes faith looks like waiting in the dark.
The women too remain.
They see where his body is placed,
They prepare spices,
They honour the Sabbath.
They do what love can do.
Even in grief,
They remain faithful.
Even in confusion,
They do not turn away.
Jesus,
Teach me how to remain when hope seems buried.
Teach me how to sit in silence when resurrection hasn't come yet.
There are days when it feels like you are still in the tomb.
Days when the world is cold,
When the stone is heavy and nothing makes sense.
But these women,
They stayed close,
Not because they understood,
But because love had no other place to go.
And then,
Early in the morning,
Before the sun had fully risen,
They returned.
And they find what none of them expected.
The stone rolled back,
The body gone,
And two messengers,
Radiant,
Saying,
Why do you look for the living among the dead?
He is not here,
But has risen.
Jesus,
Sometimes I still look for you in dead places.
Old wounds,
False comforts,
Things I've buried but never released.
Help me stop searching for you in what has already passed away.
Help me believe that resurrection happens in places I've already given up on.
The women run to tell the others,
But their words sound like nonsense.
Too much to hope for,
Too much to believe,
And still,
Peter runs to the tomb,
And stooping to look in,
He sees only emptiness,
And linen,
And wonder.
Jesus,
Sometimes I dismiss the whisper of resurrection because it doesn't fit my logic.
I forget that wonder always begins in what I don't understand.
Help me lean in.
Help me run towards mystery,
Even when it doesn't make sense yet.
Help me stoop low enough to see what you've left behind.
The emptiness is not a loss,
It's a doorway.
The absence is not abandonment,
It's the beginning of something new.
You are not in the tomb.
You are not in the past.
You are already alive,
Already calling me into a deeper way of being.
Let me not cling to old grief when you are offering new life.
Let me trust that morning always comes,
Even after the longest night.
Amen.
And as that morning sun rises to greet you,
May grace,
Peace,
And love go with you into your day,
Today and always.
Amen.
Grace and peace be with you,
My friend.
