Words of the Mouth and Meditations of the Heart

Our resurrected life after Easter John 20:1-8 As I compose this sermon on a Saturday morning, I am sitting in the sunroom of my home, and the sun is shining. I see the dogwoods at the rear of the backyard in bloom, and I see cardinals flying around, looking for a place to build their nests. The grass is getting tall, and I will cut it later today. My backyard neighbor is out puttering around, and has sneezed multiple times from the pollen in the air. My large black cat, Hunter, is sleeping beside me. Life is happening all around me in bright colors, bright light, and in many different forms. Sitting in my sunroom for a while during the week-end has become important, because I otherwise spend 40 hours a week in my basement office, with no windows to look out of, and light yellow walls and a fluorescent light overhead. My connection to the world is only through a computer monitor and my phone, on occasion. I will not look at social media today, or the news headlines. I am setting aside t...

For the past 6 years on Good Friday, I have taken the day off to participate in the Good Friday service at church, and to have a quiet day in recognition of Christ’s death on the cross. I have been invited twice to deliver a short homily in those years, and the theme both times has been about passing through death to be able to live a resurrected life. The death I referred to was the death of old habits and ways of living life, of old attitudes and perceptions that all lead to a life of brokenness, and falling short of the life Christ called us to live. It was the beginning of mourning the loss of familiar ways of sabotaging our lives, so that on Easter we could celebrate the resurrection of our lives into something new, something better, something holy. It was, and still is, a message worth contemplating and taking to heart. It is hard, though, to think about metaphorical and spiritual death when we are currently surrounded by real death caused by a virus we can’t see. New York City h...