Easter Blessings, Dear Church!

What an April it has been! As I shared earlier this month, I’ve taken on a new home project. Well, this week gave me an unexpected project! In a bout of high winds on Monday, one of our trees unfortunately came down. Thankfully, no one was hurt, and somehow the tree didn’t hit any structure! For that, we are most glad. 

So, my Tuesday didn’t go as I expected or planned. With a chainsaw and a wheelbarrow, I got the whole tree cleared away, and once it dries out, we’ll have firewood for quite some time! For as unexpected as my April has been, I realized that our Easter readings have been full of the unexpected. The encounters at the tomb, the Doubting Thomas story, and even our gospel reading this Sunday have this underlying current of fear.

And as the Easter season concludes with Pentecost, it’s also the end of the first half of our Christian liturgical year. The first half of the year is this cycle of Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, and Easter that focuses on the story of Jesus—the promise of his coming, his birth, the light he brings to the world, the seriousness of his mission, his execution, and the mystery of his resurrection.

The fear we’ve been hearing stories of isn’t new to Easter; it’s been underlying the whole story. The first words to Mary back in Advent from the angel are, “Fear not!” And then six months later, the Jesus’ story concludes with “Peace I leave with you,” and “Do not let your hearts be troubled.”

I think we hear so much about this because, as John writes to us, “Perfect love casts out fear.” Perhaps this has been the summary of Jesus’s life story as we’ve been encountering it. But it isn’t just the witness of Jesus’ life that we’ve been left with. When Jesus encounters his disciples, he greets them with peace and then breathes upon them, “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you.”

The door to perfect love has been opened for us, the love of God and the love of neighbor. And though I can’t explain it, I know it’s right, and I feel it. For when I am afraid, or when I’m overwhelmed, I breathe. That advice holds true to take a moment and take a breath: my breath, the breath of the Spirit, the breath of God.

It is the in, out, in, out of life. It slows my anxious heart and opens me up, making room for others. It gives that space to love, a perfect love that casts out fear. Like those very first words of scripture, where in the beginning there was nothing but chaos, and then God breathed. Chaos is transformed by that breath into a world of beauty and possibility.

Easter begins in confusion and fear behind locked doors and comes to its conclusion in this breath of love promising possibility, peace, and love. In our own resurrection season, let us all be moved from fear to love.

Peace & Blessings, Dear Church,

Pastor Dave

Easter Blessings, Dear Church!

Thank you all very much for your warm birthday greetings, cards, cake, and well-wishes from yesterday. It was such a beautiful day to celebrate my birthday, and I’m thankful that the celebrations can continue! In what has now become a small tradition, my sisters returned the favor by gracing our front lawn with a massive yard-sign display!

My sisters also used to poke a little fun at the fact that my birthday fell on Earth Day by first wishing me a Happy Earth Day instead of Happy Birthday. But truly, I’ve come to love that I get to share this day in celebration of this gorgeous earth. I’ll even combine it and call it my Bearthday. 

Nature has always brought me solace. But there’s usually this assumption that accompanies those who love the outdoors. I used to buy into the assumption that the only way to love nature was in the extreme: the toughest hikes, the longest portages, the most remote lakes, the highest peaks. That to love nature, you had to push yourself to your limits and grind in order to achieve an appreciation of creation.

Now, I still enjoy hiking and getting out on the water in a canoe, but my definition of ‘what counts’ has changed. A hike is still a hike even if you don’t crest a summit. In fact, there’s something equally breathtaking in a lower route in a valley.

On a hike through a valley, following the mountain creek, you can almost feel the strength of the rising mountains on either side as if they were this weighted blanket holding us in close. Being nestled in the valley, with the inviting solidity of the peaks above, made it feel like being held in God’s hands.

We get to hear that most famous of psalms this weekend, and this feeling and view from this valley hike is what I imagine when I now hear Psalm 23. Thank you again, dear church, for all the warmth of your birthday greetings. 

Peace & Blessings, Dear Church,

Pastor Dave

Easter Blessings, Dear Church!

I’ve delved into another, rather large house project in these weeks after Easter, as it was time to give the boys' bathroom an upgrade. Sixty-year-old toilets, while technically functioning, certainly have their limits, as does the bathroom's other aging infrastructure.

I quickly learned why the various pieces of their bathroom had lasted for as long as they did. Nearly every variety of fastener ever conceived was used to hold this bathroom together. The drywall, cement board, medicine cabinet, vanity, and tub were all held in place by a combo of nails, screws, mortar, and construction adhesive.

As evident in the picture here, there are still parts of the tile and wall I need to remove. And my goodness, what a spectacular mess it’s making. But as I was busy swinging my hammer, trying to get full force from the various pry bars, I realized something. Projects like this are incredibly messy.

I know this may sound obvious; it is demolition work after all. But the revelation came as I realized that for the vast majority of creative endeavors, the work on a project gets messier and messier the further along it gets. It’s only in the last one, maybe two steps, where it finally looks like everything has come together. 

Just taking off the trim work in the bathroom immediately made the room feel massively incomplete, and for a home project, trim is usually one of the last steps! This process has been the same as each confirmation class has worked together to create the new Paschal Candle every year.

The candle always arrives clean and pristine; the first step is to completely cover it with tape. Then each subsequent step makes it look worse: we trace a design, gauge it out as we carve, splatter melted wax over it as color is added, and then all that wax gets smudged and smeared as the excess is scraped away.

And it’s here, with just one step remaining in the process, that the candle looks, honestly, in its roughest shape. But then, as the tape is removed, the final design and work are revealed. Every year, this process continues to astonish me. I also love that it’s a project completed by Easter because it reminds me of the resurrection.

In the story of Lazarus’ resurrection, Jesus arrives too late. Or at least that’s what we think. But arguably, Lazarus is in the roughest possible shape. Not only is he dead, but he has been in the tomb for four days. Then, as Jesus raises him from the dead, there is but one more step. Jesus tells those around Lazarus to remove the burial wrappings. It tells us that we have a part to play in the resurrection. Even Jesus’ own resurrection accounts mention the burial wrappings that are no longer upon Jesus.

As we continue to celebrate the resurrection, discovering what it means for us, how we are resurrected along with Christ, we discover just how messy a process resurrection can be. And more than just physical roughness, but emotional too. The stories of resurrection are fraught with cascading emotion, and the story this Sunday of the Road to Emmaus is no different.

Resurrection can certainly be a messy process. But I think that tends to mean the story isn’t yet over, the story isn’t yet complete. And as our resurrection stories continue, we meet Jesus along the way, who breaks bread with us to sustain us, lift us, and raise us up to continue the work of resurrection.

All that said, I’m still not a fan of a mess. Whether it’s me that’s a mess, a candle, or my bathroom, it still somehow feels wrong and out of place. But let us know that the mess is not the end, there is more work to be accomplished, and in it, life is always revealed. 

Peace & Blessings, Dear Church,

Pastor Dave

Easter Blessings, Dear Church!

First and foremost, thank you for a beautiful Holy Week. From the sacrament of Thursday, the darkness of Friday, to Saturday’s new Paschal light, it culminated in the bright Easter morning of resurrection promise. Throughout all that this past week has been, with all of its ups and downs, I have been captivated by the Artemis II Mission.

For the first time in my life, humans have traveled to the Moon. The images already coming back from the crew are breathtaking. But beyond the technical amazement and the fun I have following rocketry, this mission has continually highlighted our own humanity.

This is now the farthest that human beings have traveled from our planet, and somehow, from that gargantuan distance, we have seen ourselves with greater clarity. Early in the mission, Victor Glover reminded us that we see the Earth as one. In all the emptiness of space, we have this oasis, created for us, to be stewarded by us, where we get to exist together. What an opportunity to remember who we are.

And then, as the crew was in the lunar sphere of influence, becoming the furthest-traveled crew, they radioed down that they would like to name a previously unnamed crater on the Moon. The commander of the flight, Reid Wiseman, had lost his wife to cancer in 2020, and remembering the bright light she was in their lives, the crew wanted to name this bright spot on the Moon in her honor.

Looking back upon this big blue marble, upon everyone who had ever existed, we saw a depth of humanity that we all experience yet rarely get a chance to acknowledge. As we continue in this Easter Season, believing in the resurrection and knowing that love has triumphed over death, I am grateful to have been reminded of this truth here in our LCM community and even from the Moon. I wish you all continued Easter joy, dear church. Alleluia, Christ is risen! He is risen indeed!

Peace & Blessings, Dear Church,

Pastor Dave