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Since most of you are so very familiar with the Easter morning story, I’ve taken the liberty to look at Biblical texts for the day before, i.e., Holy Saturday. Jesus has been crucified, and his friends are in shock and grief; really paralyzed. How do disciples of all ages respond to the absence of their notable leader? Those daring to worship publicly and those–the majority of you–whov’e opted to be silent at home wait to see what God is gonna do next.

JOB 14:1-14 isn’t a happy passage: the sufferer berates God for human mortality, still kinda hoping that God would renew his life as before. Here, from the Dark Night of the Soul, comes a cry for succor: “O that you would hide me in Sheol, that you would conceal me until your wrath is past, that you would appoint me a set time, and remember me!” “Today is a day for dwelling among shadows and death, while not allowing our hope to be destroyed.” (Gregory Ledbetter, in FEASTING on the WORD, B 2:313) Are we beyond redemption? Are we beyond God?

I PETER 4:1-8 is a call to living humans reminding them to adhere to a more Christlike life. The author lists licentiousness, drunkenness, passions, revels, carousing and lawless idolatry as vices that separate the Gentiles from Christ-followers. Post-Easter, the author exhorts the reader to wait for resurrection even though we may suffer. This suffering can be felt in our adherence to Discipleship despite the urging of our friends. It ain’t easy.

MATTHEW’s Gospel account (27:57-66) speaks of the burial of Jesus in the newly excavated tomb of Joseph of Arimathea. Jewish questions concerning the security of Jesus’ body are hereby addressed by citing the Royal Seal closing the rock door. Has God been separated from the world which he loved? The traditions of the Church call for a quiet introspection on this day–a difficult thing to accomplish with our hectic modern lifestyle. Can we be in solidarity with those who suffer?

These are not joyous readings, nor should they be in this interim before Easter. My prayer is that Easter may be delightful in the sharing of Good News with those around you!

In the process of unfolding, Horace Brown King

Every Tuesday we examine upcoming scriptures in order to align our hearts with the telling of the Holy Story; at horacebrownking.com

Since many of us won’t be “at church” during Holy Week, I’ve deviated from the Sunday readings about the Palms and the Passion. So here are the lessons for MONDAY of Holy Week, reminding us that the Justice of God does indeed prevail, “although the wrong seems oft so strong, God is the ruler yet”.

ISAIAH of Babylon addressed the community of Exiles there, the last remnants of Judaism. Far away from their Traditions and Temple, many doubted that God would hear them “over here”. In 42:1-9 he speaks of the Suffering Servant, chosen specifically to point out where God is at work. Of whom was YHWH speaking? Some will say that it’s giving the community of exiled Jews a new role; others maintain that this is a pre-announcement of the Christ. At any rate, the Church is the Community that has survived, one that has become “light to the nations, to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon…” The Servant WILL suffer in proclaiming an alternative to the System, offering God’s Love to broken, hopeless humanity. Don’t give up! Celebrate the flowers wherever they bloom…

The Letter to the HEBREWS 9:11-15 calls that community of now-believing Hebrews to steadfastly practice this displayed love. Despite the injustices displayed to the Children of Abraham over the years, they are to affirm a new covenant, a priest forever.

And then in JOHN 12:1-11, comes the familiar story of Jesus being anointed for burial just after (?) the Triumphant Entry of Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. Jesus & Friends were being feted in Bethany, at the home of Mary, Martha and Lazarus. John tells the story as one of the transitions between glory and crucifixion: some scholars will aver that Mary was looking both ways, back to the raising of her brother and forward to the cross and beyond. Whichever, it’s a call to acceptance of how things are now and how they will be in the future… Maybe even unfolding in our midst! Will we continue to point to Light to the Nations?

These are challenging texts: those that hear them are encouraged to move beyond mere individualism into a community that practices love and justice. There’s a sign on my desk that reads, “Resist the Doom, Rainbows Bloom!” Then look for the Light to the Nations.

In the process of unfolding, Horace Brown King

Please visit horacebrownking.com every Tuesday to wrestle with Scriptural passages soon to be heard at worship.

The Season of Lent is almost over: many of us are glad for it to end, others would like a few more weeks of personal pangs in not recognizing the Christ. The purpose of Lent is, in the terms of many theologians, an admission that God doesn’t shun going through Death to Life. The persons in the pews this weekend will hear challenges to recognize Christ in both days of old and within contemporary settings.

JEREMIAH 31:31-34 is atypical of the Gloomy Prophet–he announces a New Covenant within a New Age, one written upon the heart and not just the stone or papyrus of the Original Ten. Here is God staying the course faithfully, even though the Creatures of God’s Love have broken away like self-identifying children. The days are coming when the people will know God not as an academic teaching, but as an all-encompassing Person with corresponding intimacy. And this new covenant comes with a promise: “I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.”

This leads us to the mysterious Letter to the HEBREWS 5:5-10. Who in the world is Melchizedek? We’re referred to Genesis 14, which all good Hebrew children should know. He’s the High Priest who goes before God with all our supplications–and returns with messages of forgiveness. Jesus has prayed for forgiveness, and also lives out the covenant established in Jeremiah’s vision of Newly Engraved Hearts. “The chief task of Israel’s high priest: that in the most terribly sacred space, all alone, he bears to God the most crucial human need. The text envisions Christ as being forever in this mode.” (Paul Simpson Duke, in FEASTING on the WORD, B 2:137)

JOHN’s Gospel is a storybook detailing Jesus’ confrontations with idols/the power of evil. Here in 12:20-33 is the account of how some gentile visitors to Jeusalem’s Passover feast want to see Jesus. Now, thinks Jesus, just before his crucifixion, is the time fulfilled: the entire world is looking for the Man of the Covenant. “Now is the judgment of this world, now the ruler of this world (cosmos) will be driven out.” And indeed it has been–we just don’t know it yet. A New Age foretold by Jeremiah is within us, despite the outbreaks of idolatry, injustice, selfishness and materialism that tend to overcome us! Jesus has now exposed the System, which totters on old beliefs and customs alone.

Many wish to see Jesus, and may be looking in all the wrong places. Suffice it to say that Jesus is more than an historical character, but lives in and through this New Covenant. Disciples today have an assurance that God is near–but we have to keep on course with the Savior in changing the wreckage of the cosmos that its former ruler has left behind.

In the process of unfolding, Horace Brown King

Join in the challenge of being confronted by scriptural texts which will be read during worship this upcoming weekend–every Tuesday at horacebrownking.com

Let’s cut right to the chase: Lent isn’t created to INCREASE our guilt, but to make us AWARE of it. There’s also an announcement here that It’s Never Too Late to regroup, to turn it around, to join in with other struggling saints questing to be right. Fancy theologians can call this “Justification”–but for you and me it’s a matter of going to be with God. Texts to be heard this upcoming weekend include stories which may be puzzling, plus an admonition to let God work in your life.

We begin with a little-read passage from NUMBERS 21:4-9. It seems that on their way to the Promised Land, the Children of Israel have blundered into a hoard of snakes, those old symbols of Evil. What shall they do? Moses was told to make an image of a snake and lift it high on a pole: those bitten would merely look at it, and then recover. This sets up the Crucifixion event, of course; but it also reminds all us pilgrims that there will indeed be gatherings of Evil on the way to the Promised Land. Where shall we look to escape this threat to our lives?

The Epistle is complicated: the Letter to the EPHESIANS 2:1-10. Be careful: this could seem to say that everything that happens is beyond us, that all we can do is live from day to day. It DOES say that everything is beyond us, subject to the forces of Evil and adjusted by the force of Good/Christ. Enslaved as we are by so many external sparkles, God has a better idea for us: “For we are what God has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.” The 4th verse is a transition: “But God, who is rich in mercy…”

What then shall we do with Jesus’ famous words to Nicodemus in JOHN 3:14-21? I’m a bit uncomfortable with reading v.16 as the Gospel in a Nutshell; I need to add v.17, “God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved [pulled out?] through him.” There follows a polemic of light & darkness, the central theme of John’s stories. He bemoans the fact that the darkness is more satisfactory to many, and calls everyone to embrace the Light. Even you & me.

Lent can be an uncomfortable reminder that the way TO is almost always the way THROUGH. In order to fully live as Easter People, we’ve gotta acknowledge our many detours and move away from them. These are exercises in Trusting in Grace, in looking at the Big Picture. The road to the Promised Land can get really narrow…

In the process of unfolding, Horace Brown King

Every Tuesday we confront the Powers of Darkness by wrestling with scripture texts to be read during worship on the upcoming weekend; at horacebrownking.com