Emmaus Reflections
SONGS anout WALKING TOGETHER and EMMAUS:
- I Shall Not Walk Alone by Ben Harper (R&B/hymn):https://youtu.be/zPH-E9hyaUw
- Walk of Life by Dire Straits (rock/pop): https://youtu.be/kd9TlGDZGkI
- Walking the Wire by Imagine Dragons (pop): https://youtu.be/1nv9br7P7g0
- A Thousand Miles by Vanessa Carlton (pop): https://youtu.be/Cwkej79U3ek
- Every Day Is a Winding Road by Sheryl Crow (pop): https://youtu.be/khrx-zrG460
- Walking In My Shoes by Fever 333 (punk/rock): https://youtu.be/6Qbiq40SPCo
- Walk by Foo Fighters (pop): https://youtu.be/4PkcfQtibmU
- Walk Together by AFS International Cultural Program (ballad): https://youtu.be/RZ-nENihees
- Walking Together by Sophie and the Sailors (folk): https://youtu.be/Oq6wARdXexg
- Walking Forward Together by Nancy Bodsworth (Christian): https://youtu.be/RtbGQS4YXyQ
- Walking Together by Piet Veerman (pop): https://youtu.be/YBN-8MNOrfA
- On the Journey to Emmaus by Marty Haugen (Christian): https://youtu.be/8rYYd6nRurg
- On the Road to Emmaus by Steeles (Christian):: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-E_mA2linM&feature=youtu.be
- Emmaus by Steve Green (Christian): https://youtu.be/ouMMZPuPhLQ
- Emmaus by Tony Alonso (Christian): : https://youtu.be/xBmqxMAe29g
POEMS recited:
- Road to Emmaus by Margaret Pericleous (Christian): Video Recitation: https://youtu.be/o-g3upsVmPQ
- The Upper Room from the collection The Road to Emmaus by Spencer Reese (Christian): https://youtu.be/wPS73RYv1_w
Servant Girl at Emmaus
— Denise Levertov (inspired by the painting above by Diego Valázquez c.1620)
She listens, listens, holding her breath.
Surely that voice
is his—the one
who had looked at her, once,
across the crowd, as no one ever had looked?
Had seen her?
Had spoken as if to her?
Surely those hands were his,
taking the platter of bread from hers just now?
Hands he’d laid on the dying and made them well?
Surely that face—?
The man they’d crucified for sedition and blasphemy.
The man whose body disappeared from its tomb.
The man it was rumored now some women had seen this morning,
alive?
Those who had brought this stranger home to their table
don’t recognize yet with whom they sit.
But she in the kitchen,
absently touching the wine jug she’s to take in,
a young Black servant intently listening,
swings round and sees
the light around him
and is sure.
What is Hope?
— Rubem Alves – Brazilian Theologian
What is hope?
It is a presentiment that imagination is more real
and reality less real than it looks.
It is a hunch
that the overwhelming brutality of facts
that oppress and repress is not the last word.
It is a suspicion
that reality is more complex
than realism wants us to believe
and that the frontiers of the possible
are not determined by the limits of the actual
and that in a miraculous and unexpected way
life is preparing the creative events
which will open the way to freedom and resurrection….
The two, suffering and hope, live from each other.
Suffering without hope
produces resentment and despair,
hope without suffering
creates illusions, naiveté, and drunkenness….
Let us plant dates
even though those who plant them will never eat them.
We must live by the love of what we will never see.
This is the secret discipline.
It is a refusal to let the creative act
be dissolved in immediate sense experience
and a stubborn commitment to the future of our grandchildren.
Such disciplined love
is what has given prophets, revolutionaries and saints
the courage to die for the future they envisaged.
They make their own bodies
the seed of their highest hope.
Looking Back from Emmaus — Christine, Faith in Grey Places: https://faith.workthegreymatter.com/emmaus-poem-looking-back/
He told us
everything happened for a reason.
And you know, ordinarily,
I wouldn’t have believed him.
A stranger on the road
No one we know
Not even aware
of why we were grieving.
It seemed.
It’s such an easy thing
To dismiss the pain,
To claim there was a reason why,
Make it make sense,
Who are you comforting really?
But this time was different.
It wasn’t that he didn’t know
Or wouldn’t reckon with
What we’d witnessed.
He saw it all.
Much like he’d seen it all
As it was happening.
And that wasn’t the strangest part.
Because he didn’t tell us that
Some day we’ll look back
And it’ll all make sense.
Rather, we could look back now.
Like everything pointed to now.
The picture was complete
If we could but see it.
Our hearts were burning inside us.
And I wonder,
If we’d met him a day sooner,
What we’d have said.
Whether we’d have welcomed him
Or asked to share bread.
But I guess,
In this at least,
Everything happened for a reason.
Conversation — William Cowper
It happen’d on a solemn eventide,
Soon after He that was our surety died,
Two bosom friends, each pensively inclined,
The scene of all those sorrows left behind,
Sought their own village, busied as they went
In musings worthy of the great event:
They spake of him they loved, of him whose life,
Though blameless, had incurr’d perpetual strife,
Whose deeds had left, in spite of hostile arts,
A deep memorial graven on their hearts.
The recollection, like a vein of ore,
The farther traced enrich’d them still the more;
They thought him, and they justly thought him, one
Sent to do more than he appear’d to have done,
To exalt a people, and to place them high
Above all else, and wonder’d he should die.
Ere yet they brought their journey to an end,
A stranger join’d them, courteous as a friend,
And ask’d them with a kind engaging air
What their affliction was, and begg’d a share.
Inform’d, he gathered up the broken thread,
And truth and wisdom gracing all he said,
Explain’d, illustrated, and search’d so well
The tender theme on which they chose to dwell,
That reaching home, the night, they said is near,
We must not now be parted, sojourn here.
The new acquaintance soon became a guest,
And made so welcome at their simple feast,
He bless’d the bread, but vanish’d at the word,
And left them both exclaiming, ’Twas the Lord!
Did not our hearts feel all he deign’d to say,
Did they not burn within us by the way?
The Road to Emmaus — Sandra R. Duguid
There have been crucifixions, too,
in our town–innocents
gunned down in their doorways
or in school halls; or radiations
black outlines, three crosses
marked a sisters chest: no wonder
we walk in quiet rage, musing
And who, on this road, will join us,
seeming unaware
of the worst news in the neighborhood,
but spelling out the history of the prophets
and a future:
Ought not Christ to have suffered these things
and to enter into his glory?
Could our hearts still burn within us?
Will we ask the stranger to stay?
Break bread? And how
will our well-hammered and nailed
kitchens and bedrooms appear to us
when we understand who he is
just as he steals away?
Emmaus 1 — Malcolm Guite — Luke 24:17 ‘He asked them, “What are you discussing together as you walk along?” They stood still, their faces downcast’.
And do you ask what I am speaking of
Although you know the whole tale of my heart;
Its longing and its loss, its hopeless love?
You walk beside me now and take my part
As though a stranger, one who doesn’t know
The pit of disappointment, the despair
The jolts and shudders of my letting go,
My aching for the one who isn’t there.
And yet you know my darkness from within,
My cry of dereliction is your own,
You bore the isolation of my sin
Alone, that I need never be alone.
Now you reveal the meaning of my story
That I, who burn with shame, might blaze with glory.
Emmaus 2 — Malcolm Guite— Luke 24:25-26 Then he said unto them, O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken: Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory?
We thought that everything was lost and gone,
Disaster on disaster overtook us
The night we left our Jesus all alone
And we were scattered, and our faith forsook us.
But oh that foul Friday proved far worse,
For we had hoped that he had been the one,
Till crucifixion proved he was a curse,
And on the cross our hopes were all undone.
Oh foolish foolish heart why do you grieve?
Here is good news and comfort to your soul:
Open your mind to scripture and believe
He bore the curse for you to make you whole
The living God was numbered with the dead
That He might bring you Life in broken bread.
Words of Remembering
— Maren Tirabassi
We come from heart-felt “Hosannas,”
and a long season
of feeling like withered fig trees.
We come from an alabaster jar
abundance of love and hard questions.
We recognize experiences
of betrayal, denial,
and the feeling that everyone we love
has fallen asleep and left us alone,
so we recognize this holy story.
We remember Jesus washed feet
and offered a covenant
of himself broken and poured out
for a small group of followers long ago
and for us in our time,
and was risen on Easter
though, even in the joy of resurrection,
he kept blessing and teaching,
accepting hospitality
and giving us hope to eat.
THE ROAD TO EMMAUS
— J. Michael Sparough, S.J.
Our eyes falling down to the ground,
Our hearts dry as the dust we trample.
A stranger joins our journey to despair.
Teasing out the details of what our hope had been,
He listens on and on until our grief can say no more,
Only then can his words water our withered spirits.
Gently chiding, strongly guiding, weaving a story
Of glory hidden within fabled prophecies of faith.
Later will we recall how fiercely our hearts did burn.
But now it is our turn, the time to beg him to linger,
A request he can never refuse, for his very presence
Is sacred space, every home he visits his sanctuary.
For those who have eyes to see, his bread blessed,
Broken and shared – so much more than merely a meal.
His visitation no longer con@ined to history.
This road we walked with him still beckons —
To journey back from where we once despaired,
Our eyes now open in hopeful recognition.
The Road to Emmaus
— Anna Louise Strong
How many tread, in the twilight,
With hearts that are crushed and still,
The road that leads to the valley,
Away from the templed hill.
They are leaving their beautiful city,
The place where their hopes turned fears;
And naught remains of their longings
Save bitter, hopeless tears.
The Comforter draws near them
As they their steps retrace,
But their eyes are dimmed with weeping,
They see not the Master’s face.
He walks in the twilight beside them,
Tenderly bidding: “Rejoice.”
But they see Him not for sorrow,
They know not the Master’s voice.
And he follows, patient, loving,
On to the journey’s end,
Till a light breaks in upon them,
And they see in the stranger their Friend.
And they know what seemed destruction
Was life in God’s great plan.
And they glimpse His wondrous workings
In the destiny of man.
Back to the beautiful city,
Back to the templed hill,
They turn with joy, proclaiming
“The Lord is with us still.”
Emmaus Blessing
— Jan Richardson
Already a blessing
in the walking
already a blessing
on the road
already a blessing
drawing near
already a blessing
in the listening
already a blessing
in the burning hearts
already a blessing
in the almost evening
already a blessing
in the staying
already a blessing
at the table
already a blessing
in the bread
already a blessing
in the breaking
already a blessing
finally known
already a blessing
give us eyes
already a blessing
let us see.
TUE, April 11 – SUN, April 16 @ JCC and around Town
TUE, April 11
- Community Events: MUSIC AROUND TOWN
- Wildcat Tavern: Hoot Night with Jon Sarty • 6-8:30pm
WED, April 12
- Community Events: MUSIC AROUND TOWN
- Red Parka: Win It Wed with Jon Sarty • 5-7:30pm
- Community Event: TIN MOUNTAIN ENVIRONMENTAL TRIVIA
- 5:30pm- 7pm • Tuckerman Brewing Co., Conway
- Come exercise your mental muscles and join us for trivia! Come with a team of friends, or join one when you arrive. $5/per person donation.
- Community Event: EXPO for SENIORS –WHAT’S AVAILABLE FOR SENIORS IN JACKSON?
4-6pm • Whitney Community Center- Transportation provided by the Gibson Center. If you need transportation to/from the Whitney Center please contact Jill Reynolds at the Gibson Center at 603-356-3231 by Monday, April 10th.
- E-mail Barb Campbell, Selectman, Town of Jackson at bcampbell@jackson-nh.org if you need further information.
- Tell us what you are looking for. Learn about what is available.
- We are eager to hear your thoughts about what would be fun and useful.
- Light snacks will be provided by J-Town Deli.
- Are you looking for:
- Recreational gatherings
- Outdoor walking and hiking
- Transportation
- Meals on Wheels
- In-home care
- Medicare Counseling
- Advanced Directive assistance
- Computers and digital tutoring
- Options to become a volunteer
- Help with home repairs
- COUNCIL for Jackson Community Church
7pm • Zoom link and password required- Church offers, staff, and lay leaders (volunteers) gather to make financial and mission-based decisions that support the operations and ministry of the church. Open to attendance by the community.
- This month we are also discussing the first chapter of the book Governance and Church Ministry. Please be prepared. 1-2 copies of the book remain available at the front of the church for your use.
- Community Events: MUSIC & ENTERTAINMENT AROUND TOWN
- Wildcat Tavern: Live Trivia • 7:306-9pm
THURS, April 13
- Community Resource: LIBRARIES
- 10am-7pm • Jackson Library
Contact the library for additional help: 603.383.9731 or by email: staff@jacksonlibrary.org - 2-5pm • Bartlett Library
More info: https://www.bartlettpubliclibrary.org/
- 10am-7pm • Jackson Library
- Community Service: WAY STATION SHIFT
All Day • Way Station, 15 Grove St, No Conway- Volunteers open day resource center for showers, mail pickup, grocery distribution, more.
- Community Event: TIMBER RATTLESNAKES
7pm • Tin Mountain Conservation Center, Albany- Historically ranging from Massachusetts border up to the White Mountains, there is currently only one known population of timber rattlesnakes in the state. Brendan Clifford, wildlife biologist for NH Fish & Game has monitored NH rattlesnake population for the past 17 years. Brendan will discuss the history of rattlesnakes in the state, their biology, and Fish & Game’s monitoring program. He will also address threats to its long-term persistence and some of the conservation efforts underway for this often misunderstood species.
- In Person Evening Program fee of $5/non-member or $10/household. Member are free!
- No registration necessary.
- Community Event: TREE IDENTIFICATION WORKSHOP
7pm • Whitney Community Center, Jackson- We are excited to have Chris Lewey back at WCC! In this free workshop Chris will share the skills and joys of tree identification in our local region. ID keys and twig specimens help us decipher both deciduous and evergreen species.
- Join us Thursday April 13th, 7-8:30pm.
- Free workshop
- Community Events: MUSIC & ENTERTAINMENT AROUND TOWN
- Red Parka Pub: Bingo for Gibson Center – 5:30-7pm
- Shannon Door: Dan Parkhurst • 6-9pm
FRI, April 14
- Community Event: ZUMBA with Dotti Aiello
8:30am • Whitney Community Center- For more info, contact Dott: dottiaiello@gmail.com
- Just a reminder that class is $5 per person with no sign in. Please bring the correct amount.
- Also, bring your water, a small towel and a smile and leave your inhibitions at home!
- FITNESS CLASS with Laurie McAleer
9:30am • Jackson Community Church- Free to all participants.
- Gentle, chair-based stretch and fitness for all levels of ability
- Community Event: LINE DANCING with Dotti Aiello
9:30am • Whitney Community Center- For more info, contact Dott: dottiaiello@gmail.com
- Just a reminder that class is $5 per person with no sign in. Please bring the correct amount.
- Also, bring your water, a small towel and a smile and leave your inhibitions at home!
- Community Resource: LIBRARIES
- 2pm-5pm • Jackson Library
Contact the library for additional help: 603.383.9731 or by email: staff@jacksonlibrary.org
- 2pm-5pm • Jackson Library
- C3: COCKTAILS & CHRISTIAN CONVERSATION
5pm • Anthony DeLuca’s house, Jackson- One-time in-person event
- Potluck style meal: bring something to share
- Hybrid event: Continue to attend via zoom if you want to participate, but local participants are invited to gather at Tony’s home
- Zoom link and password required
- Read ahead for this gathering: link to PDF excerpt from section on Gandhi from Anthony DeLuca’s book: https://jacksoncommunitychurch.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Gandhi_pp15-19v2_AnthonyDeLuca.pdf
- Community Event: MOANA Jr. by Arts in Motion
7pm • Majestic Theater- Produced by Arts in Motion Theater Company, this is a 60-minute musical adaptation of the 2016 Disney animated film, bringing the adventures of Moana and her village of Motunui to life onstage.
- Moana JR. features all the beloved songs from the film, written by Tony®, GRAMMY, Emmy, and Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Lin-Manuel Miranda, Opetaia Foa’i, and Mark Mancina, including “How Far I’ll Go,” “Shiny,” and “You’re Welcome.”
- Tickets from Arts in Motion: https://app.arts-people.com/index.php?ticketing=aim
- Will be performed: April 14, 15, 20, 21, 22 at 7pm and April 15, 16, 22 at 2pm
- Community Event: FRIDAY NIGHT JAZZ: Heather Pierson Trio (Heather, Shawn Nadeau, Craig Bryan)
7pm • Majestic Theater Cafe, Conway Village- Info & tickets: https://mountaintop.ludus.com/index.php
- $10/pp
- Community Events: MUSIC AROUND TOWN
- Wildcat Tavern: Chasen’ Al Dean • 6-8:30pm – $5 cover
- Shannon Door: Marty Quirk • 6-9pm
- Red Parka: Generations • 8-11pm
SAT, April 15
- MEN’s BREAKFAST
7:30am • Parish Hall, Jackson Community Church- Co-hosted by Barry Chisholm and Chris Doktor
- Chris Doktor will provide breakfast for everyone
- RVSPs welcome; walk-ins encouraged: we want everyone interested to come!
- Brainstorming session by attendess about next steps to kickstart men’s fellowship at JCC
- Community Resource: LIBRARIES
- 10am-2pm • Jackson Library
Contact the library for additional help: 603.383.9731 or by email: staff@jacksonlibrary.org - 11am-3pm • Bartlett Library
More info: https://www.bartlettpubliclibrary.org/
- 10am-2pm • Jackson Library
- Community Event: MOANA Jr. by Arts in Motion
2pm & 7pm • Majestic Theater- Produced by Arts in Motion Theater Company, this is a 60-minute musical adaptation of the 2016 Disney animated film, bringing the adventures of Moana and her village of Motunui to life onstage.
- Moana JR. features all the beloved songs from the film, written by Tony®, GRAMMY, Emmy, and Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Lin-Manuel Miranda, Opetaia Foa’i, and Mark Mancina, including “How Far I’ll Go,” “Shiny,” and “You’re Welcome.”
- Tickets from Arts in Motion: https://app.arts-people.com/index.php?ticketing=aim
- Will also be performed: April 16, 20, 21, 22 at 7pm and April 16, 22 at 2pm
- MUSIC AROUND TOWN
- Red Parka Pub: Generations • 8-11pm
- Shannon Door: Marty Quirk (Apres Ski) • 4-6pm / Mitch Alden • 7-10pm
- Wildcat Tavern: Jonathan Sarty • 6-8:30pm – $5 cover
SUN, April 16
- INTERFAITH SERVICE
8am • Old Red Library & Zoom, Jackson, NH- Join us for poetry, prayer, and conversation. Bring your own hot beverage!
- Zoom link and password required
- WORSHIP @ JCC
10:30am • Jackson Community Church & Zoom- Zoom link and password required
- Music by Sharon Novak
- Message by Rev Gail Doktor
- Community Event: SPRING PIANO CONCERT by Ellen Schwindt
5pm • Fryeburg New Church- From Ellen: “Now that there is a piano worth playing in Fryeburg (the village I visit to fulfill many of my other needs), it’s even easier to realize this vision.
- The theme of Sunday’s concert is “To Spring.” The title is eponymous with a piece Grieg included in Opus 43 that I will perform in the concert. Its music is full of promise, but is not without reference to the dark days when the snow returns. Charlotte Gill will be sharing two movements from one of the Bach French Suites. She and I will play together on a set of pieces I wrote 7 years ago called Method Book Miniatures. These are little musical jokes inspired by famous teaching pieces.
- The program’s musical selections will be seasoned with spring poems. Other players and readers are welcome to contribute. To join in the performance, please contact me at this e-mail address as soon as possible. Admission to the concert is free. Donations will be gratefully accepted to help take care of the piano, and to support my organizing work.
- Community Event: MOANA Jr. by Arts in Motion
2pm & 7pm • Majestic Theater- Produced by Arts in Motion Theater Company, this is a 60-minute musical adaptation of the 2016 Disney animated film, bringing the adventures of Moana and her village of Motunui to life onstage.
- Moana JR. features all the beloved songs from the film, written by Tony®, GRAMMY, Emmy, and Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Lin-Manuel Miranda, Opetaia Foa’i, and Mark Mancina, including “How Far I’ll Go,” “Shiny,” and “You’re Welcome.”
- Tickets from Arts in Motion: https://app.arts-people.com/index.php?ticketing=aim
- Will also be performed: April 20, 21, 22 at 7pm and April 22 at 2pm
- MUSIC AROUND TOWN
- Shannon Door: Dan Parkhurst & Rafe Montegrano • 6-9pm
- Red Parka Pub: Blue Sunday with Erin Harpe • 5-8pm
Lenten Reflection Day 47 – EASTER (April 9): SPRING FORTH (Isaiah 42:1-9).
POEM: Joyce Sidman: The Season’s Campaign (excerpt): We burst forth …
SONG: Ezinma: Vivaldi Springs Forth: https://youtu.be/B84U_5C-ho0
QUOTE: Juan Mascaro: The thought manifests the word; The word manifests the deed; The deed develops into habit; And habit hardens into character; So watch the thought and its ways with care, And let them spring forth from love Born out of compassion for all beings. As the shadow follows the body, as we think, so we become…
Easter poems, songs, and commentary
I want to think again of dangerous and noble things.
I want to be light and frolicsome.
I want to be improbable beautiful and afraid of nothing,
as though I had wings.
― Mary Oliver
- Music video: Easter Song (with Keith’s witness) or Easter Song (no speaking/witnessing) by Keith Green (Christian)
- Music video: Here Comes the Sun by the Beatles (rock)
- Music video: Empty Grave by Zach Williams (Christian)
Here Comes the Sun
— The Beatles lyrics by George Harrison
Here comes the sun (doo doo doo doo)
Here comes the sun, and I say
It’s all right
Little darling, it’s been a long cold lonely winter
Little darling, it feels like years since it’s been here
Here comes the sun
Here comes the sun, and I say
It’s all right
It’s all right
It’s all right
Manifesto: Mad Farmer Liberation Front (excerpt)— Wendell Berry
… Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.
Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?
Go with your love to the fields.
Lie easy in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.
As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn’t go. Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.
EASTER BLESSING — John O’Donohue
On this Easter morning, let us look again at the lives we have been so generously given and let us let fall away the useless baggage that we carry — old pains, old habits, old ways of seeing and feeling — and let us have the courage to begin again. Life is very short, and we are no sooner here than it is time to depart again, and we should use to the full the time that we still have.
We don’t realize all the good we can do. A kind, encouraging word or helping hand can bring many a person through dark valleys in their lives. We weren’t put here to make money or to acquire status or reputation. We were sent here to search for the light of Easter in our hearts, and when we find it we are meant to give it away generously. The dawn that is rising this Easter morning is a gift to our hearts and we are meant to celebrate it and to carry away from this holy, ancient place the gifts of healing and light and the courage of a new beginning.
Easter Meditations
Hello, sun in my face.
Hello you who made the morning
and spread it over the fields…
Watch, now,
how I start the day
in happiness, in kindness.
― Mary Oliver
No mud, no lotus. — Thich Nhat Hanh
Our lives, if we are to be saved, must stand as a testament to that legacy which, beyond our doing, is inescapable. Cowardice and complicity must die in us. And we must rise again to “love” a new world into existence. — Eddie S. Glaude What has always been basic to Easter, or resurrection, is crucifixion. If you want resurrection, you must have crucifixion. Too many interpretations of the Crucifixion have failed to emphasize that relationship and emphasize instead the calamity of the event. If you emphasize the calamity, you look for someone to blame… But crucifixion is not a calamity if it leads to new life. Through Christ’s crucifixion we were unshelled, which enabled us to be born to resurrection. That is not a calamity. So, we must take a fresh look at this event if its symbolism is to be sensed. — Joseph Campbell
Let go. Let it die. And be reborn.— Jim Lockard
It happens to all of us. God simply keeps reaching down into the dirt of humanity and resurrecting us from the graves we dig for ourselves through our violence, our lies, our selfishness, our arrogance, and our addictions. And God keeps loving us back to life over and over. ― Nadia Bolz-Weber
Blossom by blossom the spring begins. — Algernon Charles Swinburne
Do not abandon yourselves to despair. We are the Easter people and hallelujah is our song. — Pope John Paul II
On Easter Day the veil between time and eternity thins to gossamer. — Douglas Horton
A man who was completely innocent, offered himself as a sacrifice for the good of others, including his enemies, and became the ransom of the world. It was a perfect act. — Mahatma Gandhi
A rebirth out of spiritual adversity causes us to become new creatures. — James Faust
Easter is a time when God turned the inevitability of death into the invincibility of life. — Craig D. Lounsbrough
Every time Jesus rises in our own hearts in new ways, the Resurrection happens again. Every time we see Jesus where we did not recognize him before — in the faces of the poor, in the love of the unloved, in the revelatory moments of life, Jesus rises anew. The real proof of the Resurrection lies not in the transformation of Jesus alone but in the transformation awaiting us who accept it. To say, ‘I believe in Jesus Christ . . . who rose from the dead,’ is to say something about myself at the same time. It says that I myself am ready to be transformed. Once the Christ-life rises in me, I rise to new life as well. — Joan Chittister
Resurrection Isn’t Reversal (excerpt) — Nadia Bolz-Weber
So, I have some Easter-related questions, God. I’m wondering – that one dawn, so many years ago, when Jesus came out of his own tomb, did he step haltingly toward the light or did he run? Did he know who he was right away, or did that take a minute? Did he harbor resentments about his faltering friends or was he free?
… My Easter request is this: Help us remember that resurrection isn’t reversal, that as we return to life, we are carrying our own wounds from loss and isolation. But we are also emerging with new beauty and new wisdom. We are not who we were. But we do get to discover who we are. Help us not foreclose on each other. Maybe just grant us a holy curiosity for a while?
Please give me courage to trust the hope I feel right now. Save me from squandering this moment of new life. Remind me that all the fear and cynicism in the world never protects me from pain and disappointment in the way I think they will. Give us back to each other when the time is right. May we recognize you, our wounded and resurrected God, in our belly laughs and crocodile tears…and maybe … even in each other. Amen.
Questions that Easter Answers (excerpts) — Dr Martin Luther King
I’m here to tell you this morning that you don’t see me. You look here, and you see my body. You see my external being. You see something that’s merely a manifestation of something else. But the real me, you can never see. You can never see that something that the psychologists call my personality. You can never see my mind. You can never see my ideas. You can only see my body, and my body can’t think. My body can’t reason. My body only moves at the dictates of my mind. And so this morning, Easter tells us that everything that we see is a shadow cast by that which we do not see. The visible is a shadow cast by the invisible. Easter cries out to us that the idealists are right, that it is ultimately mind, personality, spiritual forces that are eternal and not merely these material things that we look about and see.
… That’s what Easter says to us, that the forces of darkness, the forces of evil, the forces of justice must finally come to the light and must finally come to the forefront. And the forces of darkness and evil must finally pass away.
… This is the Easter message, this is the question that it answers. It says to us that love is the most durable power in the world. — Martin Luther King
Come to the Easter Party — Ann Weems
I think on Easter morning we should throw confetti in church!
No?
What about a little fanfare?
A deafening drum roll?
A three-minute standing ovation?
What? Have we had the drums beaten out of us
That we in the celebrative community can’t really
Get excited about God’s aliveness?
About God’s love given to us unconditionally?
Have we given Easter to the lily bearers, the bunny rabbits,
the patent leather shoes?
Let’s face it: we live as though we don’t believe in Easter . . .
Easter scares us
Because we’re the people who can’t believe
That God gives us abundant Life;
We think we have to earn it.
In our pull-yourself-up by-your-own-bootstraps society
It’s hard to remember that God doesn’t buy the self-made man.
So we in the church spend our lives showing God
What good people we are,
What achievers we are,
How much we deserve God’s love.
We want to pay our own way,
But Easter says it’s already been paid!
Easter says, no matter how prodigal,
We can go home again!
So come to the Easter party!
Let’s celebrate that amazing grace
That in Christ’s resurrection
We are still loved even at our most outrageous.
The Lord has given us the music;
All we need do is dance it!
Come to the Easter party!
EASTER SUNDAY, April 9
Easter Weekend with JCC and around town
SUN, April 9
- SUNRISE EASTER SERVICE
6am • Presidential Drive Cul-de-Sac, Jackson, NH
- In-person only
- Scripture
- Singing
- EASTER WORSHIP with Flowering of Cross @ JCC
10:30am • Jackson Community Church
- Alternate: Zoom link and password required (email: jcchurch@jacksoncommunitychurch.org)
- Featuring harp with Dominique Dodge and special music by Gia Osborne
- Flowering of Cross @ JCC
- FLOWERING the Cross @ JCC
during Easter Worship service - HOSPITALITY @ JCC
11:30am • Parish Hall after worship - COMMUNITY EGG HUNT
11am-2pmJCC (one of the village sites) and around village organized by Chamber of Commerce - Community Events: MUSIC AROUND TOWN
- Shannon Door: Closed for Easter
- Red Parka Pub: Dan Parkhurst • 5-8pm