4-2-09 Looking Back, Looking Ahead

4-2-09

Yesterday was the 3rd anniversary of my arrival at First Pres. When Tom mentioned it in the morning, I told him he was silly, and that no one else would remember.
And then I arrived at staff meeting, and was greeted by a cake with my name on it, and a beautiful plant for my garden, and a card with words of solidarity and grace and blessing. Wow.

It is such a treasure to work among colleagues who love one another and love their work. To gather each day believing that what we do has deep significance for the spiritual lives of people we love, deep significance for the justice we long to see in our city and in the world, deep significance as we try to point our efforts and our praise toward the Holy One. It is astonishing.

Today, one of the members of the committee that originally called me stopped in to say congratulations, and to say that it’s hard to remember when we weren’t part of the same Family. We reminisced about some of the tough times these last 3 years, and some of the grace we have witnesses and the joys we have shared. And she said this,
“And I firmly believe that the best is yet to come!”
Which is a pretty Easter-y thing to say.

Here we stand, on the verge of Holy Week:
Saturday the 4th we will fill the sanctuary with palms,
Sunday there will be a palm procession ringing with “Hosannas”
Thursday we will remember the Last Supper Jesus had with his friends, and will gather in candlelight to recall the poignant and powerful story of his last days. We will strip the chancel of all color and drape it in the black of mourning, we will snuff out the Christ Candle and leave in silence.
Friday many of us will attend the Good Friday service at noon at the Congregational Church on Sierra Way with members of the ecumenical community.
Saturday the 10th at 9 am we will transform the sanctuary from a place of mourning to a place ready for celebration, as people bring their home-grown flowers and greens to fill the place with Spring and Life and Light.
And on Easter Sunday we will rejoice, singing Alleluia with all our hearts.

We will experience the peaks and the valleys together in the days ahead. And we will say to one another, again and again: “I firmly believe the best is yet to come.”

Our deepest and truest and richest experience of God is always still ahead of us.
And one of the things that Easter means is that death is not the end- that our whole life long we can say, “The best is yet to come.” Thanks be to God.