Today, I share with you a poem I wrote on Easter Saturday 2002, a week before I was consecrated bishop. I was a woman going out early in the morning to talk with God, to try to understand what God had in store for me. I could never have imagined, and yet, there has been new life and love in every day, in every challenge, in every new turning and with every Easter since.
The women went out early in the morning, that first Easter, with tears and dread to do their duty. They went out early to try to understand what God had in store for them. They saw a most miraculous thing, and heard that Jesus was risen from the dead. Broken, battered and hung upon the cross and now he was alive! They had lived through that torture, were helpless and terrified. When they came running and told their story, people did not believe them. In the midst of the worst horror, God was making the world new, transforming grief and sorrow into abundant life.
May we all, this Easter, where ever we stand, rejoice in knowing that God in Jesus Christ is transforming our duty into joy, our trials into new vision and our tears into bright gardens of flowers. There is still much more to come in our lives but today we can know that God is with us transforming the worst into best, the broken into the strong and the hopelessly lost into a child at home.
Sandbridge Beach March 30th, 2002 Easter Saturday
Seagulls screaming and ropes tapping
Blown by the wind sand rips
Against closed windows
We lean into the gale.
This coming season promises
Some mighty storms
Some powerful hurricanes
And water everywhere.
We bow our heads and keep walking
Shielding our eyes
Our faces from the sting.
This coming season
We will have to face
The tide, the fierce blow
The subtle but insistent stings
Leaning in, walking on.
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