Solstice

Posted on December 21, 2024 by Rosalind C Hughes

Through darkest day and longest night
shines the terrifying angel’s light,
illuminating more than we can bear:
the reversal of gravity
proclaimed by a magnificat,
revolution of earth and heaven on earth
borne by the bodies intertwined
of mother and child, full of grace
enough to endure the darkest day,
the longest night pierced by the infant cry.

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Rejoice!

Posted on December 15, 2024 by Rosalind C Hughes

The third Sunday in Advent is known as Gaudete Sunday. Gaudete! Rejoice always, as the letter to the Philippians commands. Rejoice, you brood of vipers! With these and many other exhortations, John proclaimed the good news.

The people came to John looking for a way into the kingdom of heaven, looking for a way out of oppression, looking for a saviour. They asked him, So what should we do? 

We’ve talked about this before. Nearly ten years ago I preached right here: Take his advice to the tax collectors and soldiers: don’t exploit people. Don’t extort money. Do the right thing, even if others around you seem to be profiting from doing wrong. …. It’s how we know the world should work, how we know we should act, if we could only keep our heads, our consciences, God’s commandments, even in a cultural context that has a tendency to excuse a sliding scale of corruption. It’s as though a border patrol agent asked him, “What should we do?”, and he told them to treat asylum seekers as children of God, or a drug company CEO, and he told them to put healthy people ahead of inflated profits.

How is it that we are still talking about the same problems ten years later, or two thousand years after we allegedly repented of our addiction to violence and greed, our idolatry of money and power? And let’s not even think about the first time we talked through this gospel together, in the wake of devastating gun violence and grief. Has nothing changed? 

And yet, John believes in us. He believes that we can change. He exhorts us to bear fruits worthy of repentance, worthy of our baptism. He knows that we need help beyond water and words to do it; he also knows that Christ is coming, that the Holy Spirit has the power to transform our spirits as fire melts the hardest steel and splits the heart of stone. John is a prophet: he sees more than the surface, and he believes that this is good news.

Sometimes, rejoicing is resistance against a world that steals joy from children and sells it. Sometimes we look around and we wonder whether things will ever change. We have heard from Dr King that the arc of the moral universe bends toward justice, and we wonder how long, how long will it take? One of our local representatives, Shontel Brown, said a couple of years ago that the arc will take some bending from our end, that we need to pull on it. I can’t help thinking of the forge and the anvil, and the heat, light, and cooperative creativity it takes to bend the barrel of a gun into something less lethal, more life-giving. But it is possible.

John the baptizer would not have poured water on all of those people if he didn’t think that some difference could be made, that it wasn’t worth making a commitment, a covenant to do good, to give thanks, to rejoice in God and act as though God were in charge of our lives and our world, rather than waiting passively and helplessly, hopelessly for the Second Coming. Sometimes, rejoicing is resistance; repentance is rejoicing; believing, with John, that we can change, and that Christ can and will change us. Do you think that we have changed at all, in the past twelve years together?

John believes that we can change, and he begins not with what not to do, but with generosity. Share what you have, he says, don’t hold back from one another. Paul picks up the theme in his letter to the Philippians: 

First, give thanks. He goes on to write, Look for what is good, look for what is honourable, what is peaceable, what is just and right and true – keep on doing those things which you know show God’s love. For the God of peace is with you.

Keep on doing those things which you know show God’s love: Love God, love your neighbour, change the world, to borrow a tagline from the Diocese of Ohio. 

And, as the prophet Zephaniah says, it is God, in the end, who will rejoice over you: 

The Lord, your God, 
will rejoice over you with gladness,
will renew you with God’s love.

Rejoice.

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(Un)Documented

Posted on December 8, 2024 by Rosalind C Hughes

The grand histories of the world tell of kings and empresses, governors and battles, wars and conquests. We talk about the Victorian era, as though she were queen of the world. We talk about who was president when this or that happened, to contextualize ourselves among famous or infamous events. Even within the church, we look to the seats of power to define our times: archbishops, popes, presiding bishops and primates. We live under the shadow of the kinds of names that Luke throws out and writes down: Tiberius, Herod, Lysanias, Caiaphas; the names that appear in the papers: Trump, Biden, DeWine, Francis, Welby.

But is this really where history is made? I am indebted to a colleague for the timely reminder that while Luke is careful, as a historian, to add that context and name those names, Luke the evangelist pivots immediately away from those seats of power into the wilderness, where John, son of a backwater priest from the hill country, clothed in camel hair and the Holy Spirit, is proclaiming the coming of Christ.

It is here, in the wilderness, that the real action is happening, where ancient prophesies are fulfilling themselves, coming to life. 

I wonder if John ever worried that his voice was not strong enough, would not carry far enough, was not close enough to the megaphone of worldly power structures to make a difference. If he thought, What am I doing here, by the river, when I could be in the Temple, taking my turn as my father did, to oversee the incense and meet with archangels? I wonder if John ever wondered, at the end of another long day, wringing out his camel hair coat and watching the sun set behind the hill of Jerusalem, whether he was making any difference at all.

But it is not proximity to the palace that makes for power: it is closeness to God, the drawing near of Jesus, the clothing of the Holy Spirit. It is his faithfulness, faith in the wilderness, listening in the silent, secret spaces, immersing himself in a river of prayer that makes John a prophet.

And what he prophesies to the people who will hear him is that Messiah, Jesus is coming.

Here he is, the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, Make a way in the crooked and rocky places for the coming of the salvation of our God.

Here’s a funny thing about road building. The Bills that order the infrastructure, raise the money through taxes and tariffs, the bodies that cut the ceremonial ribbons tend to bear the names of the politicians and power-mongers that end up in the history books. But the people who build the roads, who clear the land, who pour hot tar and heavy cement, who stand beside the speeding semis and sway in their after-draught: these are not people whose names are in the history books. These are not people whose names are on the overhead signs or the radio traffic reports. These peoples’ names are sometimes not written down at all. They are, to borrow a term, undocumented.

But drive down any highway and dare to say that they are unimportant, or that we have no need of them, that we do not depend upon them as partners in the work of the world.

This doesn’t mean that who holds the reins of political power doesn’t matter. Luke, the historian, is careful to name them. The systems that govern our lives together do affect our health, the health of body and of spirit and of the body political. The systems of government can help or harm the planet and its people, can propagate systems of mutual understanding or affliction. They bear our attention. And (spoiler alert) we’ll hear more from John the prophet about the ethical implications of all of that next Sunday.

But, Luke shows us, what we document, what we record, whom we remember is a choice. It is a choice that reflects what we consider to be important. Luke recognizes the culture of a world that requires context, but he also sees where God is at work in the wilderness, in the oddball person of faith standing in a river of prayer. He pivots quickly from the traditional seats of power because he sees, too, the one making a way out of rocks and rifts and building bridges where none seemed possible. Because Luke has seen Christ coming, and he knows that all manner of heaven is about to break loose.

And you don’t have to have your name in the papers or up in lights to be a part of it. All you need in the wilderness, in the wild, wild west, in this barren and broken world is love. The love of God that flows like a river through the parched places and restores them. The love of God that can move mountains and fill in valleys of shades and shadows. The love of God that does not discriminate between the famous, the infamous, and the forlorn, and the forgotten.

All you need is the courage to step into that river of prayer, and let the currents of God’s love sweep you off your feet, until the kingdom come.

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Advent: out of time

Posted on December 1, 2024 by Rosalind C Hughes

Stand up, raise your heads, for your redemption is drawing near. This is no time for despair. Though those around you faint from fear and the signs of the times are terrible and terrifying, this is not the time to despair.

When the storm was about to overwhelm the boat in which the disciples thought they were perishing, Jesus was close at hand to quell the fury. When the crowd was exhausted and hungry and quite possibly on the point of revolt and violence (because hangry crowds can get that way), Jesus took bread, took pause to look up and give thanks, and fed thousands with next to nothing. Even when Lazarus was lying in the tomb, in his graveclothes, in death, Jesus was already on his way to call him out.

Jesus said, these things will happen, and I will be close at hand.

Then he told them a parable, about a fig tree, and spring, and the warmth of summer, and the green shoots, and the providence of God that is hardy and persistent and that grows sweet fruit for all creatures to eat. Don’t miss the parable for the apocalypse, the fig tree for the forest of prophecy. The signs of the second coming of Christ are the signs of God’s continuing love for the world that God has created, and sustains, and has redeemed.

And Jesus advises, pray for the providence, the sustenance – give us this day our daily bread – the strength to endure all of the things, so that you might still be standing and see the Son of Man, the Son of God, the Sun of Righteousness at his next dawning.

He tells his disciples not to get weighed down, bogged down in the dissipation and despair of the world. It’s so easy, isn’t it, to follow the signs of fury, the signs of distress, the signs of indulgence and ignorance and exploitation, the signs of corruption and capitalizing and capitulation, the signs of the world as we know it, and the end of the world as we know it.

But there is more to the world than its ending, and more to creation than its corruption, and more to humanity than its worse moments. There is hope in fragile ceasefires, despite the ongoing famine and war. There is joy in family reunions, despite the ongoing feuds and the missing faces. There is laughter to be found in the children’s snowman, despite the snarled up snowstorm traffic. There is repentance in the recognition that this land is not our own. There is love in the resolution to respect the dignity of every human being, and it is more than a fig leaf.

Advent is an odd season, a disruption of the calendar. We look forward to the birth of Christ which happened millennia ago in our history. We look back through the apocalyptic scriptures which told generation after generation that they were living through the end of the world. Time is out of joint, and we are unsettled by it.

But it is in this break, through this fracture, that the light of Christ shines, through clouds and glory, through sunspots and shooting stars, through the darkness of the longest night. This is the sign that Jesus is close at hand – that we need him, now as much if not more than ever.

But what I really wanted to say to you, church, is what Paul wrote to the Thessalonians: how glad you make me feel because of your faith; And may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, just as we abound in love for you. You are good news for Euclid and further afield. You stand, in the shortened days and lengthening nights, as a lighthouse, a beacon of good news. You are hope for the sinner, welcome for all of God’s children, affirmation that God’s love is without exception.

And the good news for you, for us, is that Jesus is near. His arrival is at hand. His birth, his new birth, his coming in all humility and in great glory. When we need him the most, he is already on his way.

Amen; come, Lord Jesus. Amen.

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Signs

Posted on November 28, 2024 by Rosalind C Hughes

Though the sun fail, I will look for your light.
The scarred and subtle moon draws tides high
above our understanding of the depths
of your mercy or our judgement. The fig tree,
survivor, of your kindness growing peace
offerings in the midst of a world inflamed
with dissipation, marriage of desire
and despair, bearing hope against all
expectations, a lantern swaying
from the heaving, lowering heavens;
in the evening sky, fire from another age
whispers conflagration over a troubled earth.
With that ancient, ebbing star in the night,
though the sun fail, I will look for your light.

Jesus said, “There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves. People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in a cloud’ with power and great glory. Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”

Then he told them a parable: “Look at the fig tree and all the trees; as soon as they sprout leaves you can see for yourselves and know that summer is already near. So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near. Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all things have taken place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.

“Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life, and that day catch you unexpectedly, like a trap. For it will come upon all who live on the face of the whole earth. Be alert at all times, praying that you may have the strength to escape all these things that will take place, and to stand before the Son of Man.”

Luke 21;25-36

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Christ the King (or, the king is not the thing)

Posted on November 24, 2024 by Rosalind C Hughes

Biblically speaking, unless the king is God, then the king is not the thing. Think back through our written faith history: the first kings we encounter are foreign and dangerous (think Abraham disguising Sarah as his sister to curry dubious favour (Genesis 12:10-20; 20:1-18)), or factional and fractious – little kings of little tribes. When the people of God dare to ask for a king of their own, God is discouraging (1 Samuel 8:1-22). Yet the people persist in requesting a monarch, a sovereign, as though God were not all the king, queen, emperor, and sovereign one might need. When God relents and lets them have their way, the succession of kings who become adversaries of the words of God spoken by the prophets is interspersed only by the occasional success story. Even David and Solomon are mortal in their failings. By the time we reach Herod, the dye is set. The king is not the thing.

Pilate doesn’t know this. Pilate serves an emperor who thinks that he is god; who knows what Pilate thinks of that. Pilate is used to kings like Herod and his family who are happy to knuckle under to the empire in exchange for a little bit of pomp and ceremony, and the head of John the Baptizer, a little bit of vengeance. Pilate is, though, worried about the possibility of a popular king who is not obedient to the empire, since any challenge to the emperor from Pilate’s territory should end poorly for poor Pontius. His loyalty was as much to his own skin. Hence, he was known as a ruthless overseer of the land.

Jesus, true to form, is not willing to play into Pilate’s power play, nor to succumb to the competing values of political movements. He has his own value. He is the Son of God, the living king, the only sovereign worth worshipping.

One of my favourite biblical reflections on kingship and humanity is Jotham’s parable from the book of Judges (Judges 9:7-15):

The trees decided to anoint themselves a king. First, they asked the olive tree: Come be our king! But the olive tree did not want to give up its vocation to produce oil for anointing, to honour and to heal, in order to govern other trees. So they asked the fig tree. But it would not give up its vocation to feed people and animals, birds, and all with its sweet goodness, so it declined. So, too, the vine, when asked, said why would I give up wine-making in order to govern other trees? Finally, they asked the bramble. The bramble, said, if you can find shelter under me, fine, go ahead; but if you are pricked by my thorns and shut out or caught up in my briars, it will be the worse for you.

When Jesus told Pilate, my kingdom is not of this world, he was asserting his vocation, his identity, his reason for being, over against Pilate’s assumption of power.

Like the olive tree, he would continue to anoint, to honour, to heal everyone who needs him. Like the fig tree, he fed thousands with the sweetness of God’s mercy and the bread of life. Like the vine, he would continue to pour himself out for the sake of the world, and for its gladness. This was his kingship, and blessed be those who take shelter in it.

There is a call to us in all of this, isn’t there? I saw, like you did, the videos of masked, swastika-bearing people in Columbus last weekend. There weren’t many of them, but the symbols of power that they chose to carry were chilling – and rightly and swiftly repudiated by the governor and mayor. I know at least some of the effects of such imagery, or rhetoric, or actions, what it represents for individuals among us, and for our common life together. We have to take care of one another. We have to care.

But this is where the symbols of power that we carry are different. Our hope is in the Lord. Our call is to remain true to our calling, our identity as Christians: to honour actively and explicitly the image of God in each human being, to heal where we are able, to produce sweet and good fruit to feed our communities, to fill the hearts of those around us with gladness, sharing the irrepressible love of God, the undying compassion of Christ with those the most in need of it.

The power that we have, the authority that we are given to do good in the world comes not from the dubious choices of the crowd (who too often cry Barabbas), but from the giftedness with which God has endowed us. The world, like Pilate, will not always recognize it – but neither can the world take it way from us. We are unstoppable.

Because Jesus, whom even death could not keep from loving this world toward salvation – Jesus has made us his kingdom. As the writer of the Revelation puts it,

Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne, and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth.
To him who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood, and made us to be a kingdom, priests serving his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.

Featured image: Cristo avanti a Pilato/Christ before Pilate, Pietro Fontana (1762-1837), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

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All that we had to live on

Posted on November 10, 2024 by Rosalind C Hughes

A sermon for the Sunday after the 2024 election, the Sunday after our 208th Diocesan Convention, the Sunday after I told our parish that I will be leaving as their Rector after we celebrate Epiphany together in January 2025 …

I am fairly sure that I have trodden the grounds where Jesus sat and watched the people coming in and out of the treasury courtyard. If I quiet my heart enough, in my mind’s eye I can see the rich robes swishing and the poor widow behind them with the offering of all that she had to live on.

Every time I see her, she is different. She is young, old, shuffling, striding. She is destitute because she has thrown her money away. She is depleted by her own generosity, because she has given it all away. She was deceived by those who devour the houses of widows, and left with nothing. She had nothing to begin with. Any of those could be true; maybe more than one.

But when she was down to her last penny, her last nerve, her last hope, her last laugh, she brought it to the treasury, deposited it along with all of the others, and Jesus saw her. Jesus saw her, and recognized her, and knew her situation. No need to wonder how; he just knew.

I feel as though the widow knew the situation, too, within the treasury walls. She knew about the scribes in the long robes with the long speeches that masqueraded as prayers. She knew about the shortcuts that funded their bonuses. She felt in her own bones the corruption that built empires – personal and political – on the backs of the poor. And yet she let go of that little offering, all that she had left to live on, because she knew, too, that somewhere deep inside that place lies the Holy of Holies. Because she trusted God. Because she believed that, despite her grief and her widowhood and the corruption and the peeling paint on the temple walls, God is still true, and she will cling to that hope as though it were all that she has to live on.

May we have such enduring, generous, forgiving faith.

My friends, this has been a tumultuous week. Since we gathered here last, we have completed an election that has shocked many in this room and around the world, and delighted others. With such polar opposite reactions, we may wonder how we can ever bridge our divisions. We wonder whether the poor and the immigrant and the queer and the oppressed and the other can ever be safe. We wonder whether we are safe with one another, to tell our true opinions, without being cast into the outer darkness. 

Bring it to Jesus. Bring it to God. All that we live on – our fears, our hopes, our anger, our love – bring it all. 

This weekend, members of our diocesan family gathered to talk about the work that we have to do together, to make the love of God for all people known in this divided and too-unloving world. We talked about how to proclaim the good news of God in word and deed, respecting the dignity of everyone we encounter. How to share what we know to be true: that God is not far from us, but is all that we have to live on.

And while we were doing all of that, I shared with you the news (and here is where I really hope you got the email or the letter or the homing pigeon message; I tried at least to share with you the news) that after twelve Spirit-filled, remarkable years – because you are a remarkable church – it is time for us to work toward something new. 

In the new year I will be moving full-time into the work of supporting all of our churches and faith communities and friends in becoming beloved community. We can talk more about what that means as we go on. But that also means that you, church of the Epiphany, will be moving toward a new relationship of your own, with the beautiful and strong lay leadership that you already have, and with the support of the diocesan transition team, who have already visited the Wardens and are already active in their care for this parish, moving toward a new pastoral relationship. 

It is difficult to let go. It can feel dangerous, it can feel like a bereavement; it can also feel hopeful to trust in the Holy Spirit to lead us into a new thing, and to let go of what has been, and believe that God sees us, recognizes us, knows us, and loves us. That God will love us into whatever comes after this little bit of tumult.

I am not going to begin my goodbyes today. There is time enough for that, and we have more than enough to do before we get to that day. We have more than enough to do, to share the love of Jesus and to keep faith with the hope that has been set before us with a world that is sorely in need of some good news. 

The world is sorely in need of good news, and I encourage you, not only this week, but in the weeks and months and years to come to continue to check in with and hang out with and care for those who feel as though they have given all that they had to live on, and have no hope left. For those who feel as though they have given all that they had to live on, and have been devoured by the systems of this world. 

Because we have more than enough to live on. We have the hope that is in Jesus, the comfort of Emmanuel, knowing that God is with us whether we are on top of the world or lying wrapped up in the tomb. We have mercy, and we have one another. We have all that we need for today, and tomorrow will bring hopes and fears of its own; and we will rejoice in it, one more day that God has made. Let it be enough.

Amen.

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All she had to live on

Posted on November 7, 2024 by Rosalind C Hughes

As he watched, the rich dropped their fractions,
deductible, of course. The prideful deposited
a smear of contempt, sliding it through the slot
with ease. The guilty let slip a quick confession,
reaching as they did for the next pilgrim’s pocket.
The powerful ordered the poor box opened,
beheld its contents impassively. The confident hummed
tunes created by the clang and clatter of their coins.
One who had already lost everything that mattered
most held up the procession searching for change,
shedding her cloak, heavy as grief,
revealing her last shred of dignity to the scandaled crowd,
wrapping her gift in paper-dry hands and letting it fall,
drifting from them lightly as a sigh, heavy as a cloud.

As Jesus taught, he said, “Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes, and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, and to have the best seats in the synagogues and places of honor at banquets! They devour widows’ houses and for the sake of appearance say long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.
He sat down opposite the treasury, and watched the crowd putting money into the treasury. Many rich people put in large sums. A poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which are worth a penny. Then he called his disciples and said to them, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury. For all of them have contributed out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.” (Mark 12:38-44)

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Witness

Posted on November 3, 2024 by Rosalind C Hughes

A sermon for All Saints Sunday

We all know about Lazarus, don’t we? Lazarus has become a byword for those who return from the dead. In paleontology, Lazarus names those species that disappear from the fossil record as though extinct, only to reappear maybe even millions of years later in the same form. Even in contemporary biology, the name Lazarus adheres to those we thought were lost, but that we find again. Everybody knows about Lazarus, but paradoxically, we know next to nothing about Lazarus.

We know from the biblical record that Lazarus lived in Bethany. We know that he had two sisters, but we don’t know if he was older, younger, or in between them. While his sisters give voice in the gospels, none of their brother’s words are recorded. Despite later legend, we really know nothing of his parents, whether he was ever married, had children, took lovers. We don’t know if he was a particularly good man, or a particularly grumpy man, or a particularly ordinary man. We don’t know what he did, what he said, how he lived.

The thing that everyone knows about Lazarus, though, is that he spent four days in the tomb before Jesus called him out. That is what he is famous for. That is why everyone knows Lazarus’ name.

Lazarus is a saint of the church not for anything that he did, but for what the love of God, whom we know as Jesus, did for him.

It’s quite a thought, isn’t it? We call the church as it is gathered together the saints of God. We are the saints of God, but not because of anything that we have done. Not because we got up and showed up and sat in church on a Sunday morning. Not even because we let the other person go through the door ahead of us, or resisted the temptation to honk our horn at the person sitting two seconds too long at the green light in front of us. Not because of what we believe, or fail to believe, or hold in tension, neither believing nor disbelieving, but because of what the love of God, whom we know as Jesus, has done for us.

This, of course, doesn’t mean that we are free to slam the door in the face of another, or succumb to road rage. On the contrary, it means that we are called to live as saints in the world, but not for fear of punishment or death, but because of love, because of gratitude, because of mercy.

We are called to live as saints in the world because, after he had regained control of his emotions – for he was deeply and gravely disturbed by the grief of those around him, and the grief he had on their behalf, and the troubling and tumultuous effects of love – after he had regained his composure and his voice, Jesus looked up to heaven and spoke aloud. He said, “I know you always hear me, but I need these witnesses also to know that you and I are one in love and in life.” He spoke his prayer aloud for the sake of those listening, to bear witness to the power of the mercy of God.

So it is that what the love of God, whom we know as Jesus, what Jesus has done for us is not for our sakes alone, but so that others may see and hear and know what it is to experience the mercy of God, to feel the power of the life-giving Creator, the liberation of the Saviour, the fire of the Spirit. Our new Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe said in his sermon yesterday that Jesus left the miracle unfinished, telling the crowd to step forward and unbind Lazarus, and set him free, finish setting him free from death and the tomb. This is the work of the saints, isn’t it, to bear witness to the love of God in the world, and to make it manifest. To make it real. To make it human. To bring it near, as though the very kingdom of heaven were at hand.

And we do not need to be especially good nor especially wise nor especially gifted nor especially anything in order to bear witness to what the love of God, what Jesus has done for us. Lazarus – what did he do? What could he do? Only hear the voice of Jesus from beyond the door of the tomb, and shuffle his way toward it. So we have only hear the love of God, and make our unwieldy way toward it.

My friends, we live in untrusting, unyielding, unforgiving times. We are weighed down with many worries and bound by many ties. But Jesus is calling to us, to bear witness with Lazarus, to bear witness by our very lives to the unstoppable, unconquerable justice, which is the mercy, which is the love of God. Jesus is calling to us, and if we will hear him,

It will be said on that day,
Lo, this is our God; we have waited for God, so that God might save us.
This is the Love of God for whom we have waited;
let us be glad and rejoice in Love’s salvation. (Isaiah 25:9, amended)

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Jesus wept

Posted on October 29, 2024 by Rosalind C Hughes

To suffer the indignity of grief, 
that utter exhaustion of the spirit 
that has sucked hope from the air 
too long after the dew has dried; 
the kind of defeat that drives you 
to your knees and elbows, heaving 
with the ground, troubling 
the very earth upon its axis; 
so it is to be the Son of Man. So, 
casting your eyes and voice to heaven 
you dare God not to listen, 
hurl your ultimatum: 
come out now 
from the shadow of death. 

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