LENT ENDS AT LAST, AFTER ALL...FOR A WHILE AT LEAST...

Our "sunrise" service has settled down at 7 am, which is a BIT of a let-down, but it is held at the top of the cemetery, so after singing "Lord of the Dance" I can walk to visit my grandparents, my father, my in-laws, and pray for some sort of guidance in my confusion and... let's call it "error". [That sounds enough like "errant", wandering, to seem a pretty good fit.] The guitarist at the "sunrise" service, herself marking the 10th anniversary of her son's death, pitched "Christ Our Lord" so low that for the first time in my adult life I was able to sing it without jumping octaves...

Then the in-church service, with incredible music, the balcony open and half-full, and the opportunity to read things that fill me with joy, as does the view out into the congregation -- so many faces, all home to sorrow, no strangers to affliction, and all lit with the glory of the moment. At moments like that I feel that I can SING again, and so I did, no holds barred, and as a result, do not have much throat left.

What a gift to proclaim from a heart full to bursting:

This is the good news: Christ the Lord has risen.
This is the good news:
the light shines in the darkness and the darkness does not overcome it.
This is the good news: once we were no people, and now we are God's people!

Jesus is LORD, not, that is, the immutable, inscrutable "I Am What I Am" of the Enlightenment, but an incalculable, unforeseeable "I Who Will Be Who I Will Be" [Buber/Rosenzweig], the same who sets his own creation on its head for the good of his people: who brings a woman out of the body of a man, who brings the New Adam out of the New Eve -- a reversal we overlook because to us it seems "natural" again -- who leads by washing the feet of his followers...

And then, for the second time in one day:

Now on that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, and talking with each other about all these things that had happened. While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with them, but their eyes were kept from recognizing him. And he said to them, "What are you discussing with each other while you walk along?"
They stood still, looking sad. Then one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answered him, "Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have taken place there in these days?" He asked them, "What things?" They replied, "The things about Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, and how our chief priests and leaders handed him over to be condemned to death and crucified him. But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things took place. Moreover, some women of our group astounded us. They were at the tomb early this morning, and when they did not find his body there, they came back and told us that they had indeed seen a vision of angels who said that he was alive. Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said; but they did not see him."
Then he said to them, "Oh, how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared! Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?" Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures. As they came near the village to which they were going, he walked ahead as if he were going on.
But they urged him strongly, saying, "Stay with us, because it is almost evening and the day is now nearly over." So he went in to stay with them. When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. [Here the guest is at last recognized when he plays host!] Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him; and he vanished from their sight. They said to each other, "Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?" That same hour they got up and returned to Jerusalem; and they found the eleven and their companions gathered together.They were saying, "The Lord has risen indeed, and he has appeared to Simon!" Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.

Well, somewhere along the way, the sorrow of the last month or so lifts like a veil... perhaps not forever, but for long enough for me to be profoundly grateful. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof; and when this day and its joys are only a memory, that day will also be "the day which the LORD has made", and I will do my level best to rejoice and be glad in it.

This is too long, I know.
Stick with me anyway.
Pray for all others who seem bound in Lent and long as I did for the dawn of Easter... may it come sooner rather than later.