Dear Friends,

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I invite you into these reflections on Holy Week, where we encounter Christ's love for

the whole of creation, and into the ongoing call to honor and celebrate the earth God so deeply

loves as we prepare for Earth Day...

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                                                                         Palm and Passion Sunday

Some find the paradox of Palm and Passion Sunday a bit jarring.  On this day we

move from Christ's triumphant ride on a humble donkey to the humiliation 

at Golgotha.  We join in the joy o the palm procession, sining Hosanna, and

we gather in sorrow at the foot of the cross with the words "crucify him!" ringing 

in our ears.  Even here the story is grounded in the goodness of  creation, in

branches cut from trees, a borrowed animal bearing the weight of peace, and a

city filled with longing or restoration.  God's love for the whole creation is

revealed not in triumph alone but in suffering poured out for the sake of the 

world, a lot that reuses to abandon the earth or any of its creatures.

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Maundy Thursday:

"Maundy" means command.  On this day we listen intently as Jesus tells his

disciples "to love one another just as i have loved you."  By this definition love

means compassion, mercy, service,ce and sacrifice.  We see this love  embodied in

water poured into a basin, in hands that wash dusty feet, bread broken and

shared.  These are the simple bits o creation through which Christ makes

himself known.  His love, and the love he has in mind for us, is offered to all of

humanity and indeed to all that God has made.  The world will know that the

church follows Jesus not only by our lie together but by the ways we care or

the land, the waters, and every living being entrusted to us.

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Good  Friday​

In ancient times this second o the Three Days was called  the Triump of the The

Cross​.  English speakers now call the day Good, originally God's Friday because ,

We know the end to the story. The Cross was the means of execution for

the Roman Empire, a tool of suffering placed upon the body  of Christ.  Yet even

here creation is not absent.  The wood of the cross, the hill of Golgotha, the darkened

sky  all bear witness.  Some have seen in the shape of the cross a sign of the four corners

of the earth itself.  Christians are marked with this sign, God entering into the pain

of the world, aligned with all who are rejected, and drawing all creation into a mystery

where even death is not the final word.

Easter Sunday

Easter turns the world upside down.  The radical reversals spoken by the 

prophets and revealed in Christ's lie and ministry come to fullness in the good

news we proclaim today - Christ, through death, has triumphed over death!

The garden becomes the place of new life, the tomb becomes the womb of 

resurrection, and the earth itself bears witness to renewal.  Easter answers the 

question of what it means to be a Christian.  We are those who trust that Jesus

Christ is risen and that his risen lie is already at working renewing hearts, c communities,

and the whole creation.  On every Sunday we remember Christ's resurrection,

but on this day we celebrate the promise that God is making all things news.

As part of our earlier Lenten study series on Faith, Repentance, and Creation 

Care, weekly actin items were offered to participants.  Whether you attended the study

series or not, I would encourage all of us to consider ways that we can tend to the 

creation God so loves.

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