lenten journal: still

Because I have now lived through the death of both of my parents, I understand more of how the disciples might have felt after Jesus’s death and burial. One of the hardest things has been to mark time without them. The first morning. The first month. The first year, and then the second.

I think about them waking up on the morning after Jesus’s death. They didn’t know what to do. The life they had come to expect and expected to keep living disappeared in an afternoon. They were lost. And then the sun came up Sunday morning, and Mary went to the tomb only to find it empty and have Jesus call her by name.

Over the years, one of the quotes during Advent that holds me out to the love of God comes from Meister Eckhardt who said,

What good is it to me if Mary gave birth to the Son of God centuries ago and I do not give birth to the child of God in my time and in my culture?

I came back to the quote tonight, thanks to my soundtrack for tonight: another Bob Bennett song called “Still Rolls the Stone.” Sometimes the word still means quiet. Not moving. But in Bob’s words, it means continuing, connected. God is still speaking. Love is still stronger than death.

I tore off my grave clothes
And cried a pool of tears
For the voice of the Living One
Who spoke the stars and spheres
Has called me from my darkness
And led me to this place
Where the dead leap
And the blind see His face

Still rolls the stone, still rolls the stone
Still rolls the stone from the grave

Hearts aflame with mercy
Like the sun in midnight sky
While the doubter shrugs his shoulders
And the cynic wonders why
But as it is in Heaven
So now we proclaim
The Lord tells us here to do the same

In the still of a Sunday morning
A grave stands open wide
And a promise kept
While the world slept
Means that no one is inside
(Words & Music: Bob Bennett © 1985 Straightway Music ASCAP)

Christ is risen indeed. May the reality of the resurrection lead us to offer life wherever we can. May we continue to do all that we can to remind one another the stone is still rolling.

Peace,
MIlton