Third Sunday of Easter

Early on a Sunday in mid April, before church, I sit by a window to read. After a while, I look up from the page and out the window to watch the wind interact with the branches and leaves of newly-greened trees. The wind does not flow in a simple uniform way from one direction to another at one speed. In the tossing of the branches and leaves, we see that the wind moves in several directions and at various speeds, if only minor in difference from the prevailing direction and speed. And at times, the differences, the complexities of the system, increase dramatically, seemingly endlessly. The wild beauty of the turbulence of trees-in-wind both eludes and fascinates.

 Homily: Maundy Thursday; 2 April 2026; Gregory Strong

Exodus 12:1-14 Institution of the Passover ritual

Psalm 78:15-26 Recollection of God’s provision in the wilderness

1 Corinthians 11:23-26 Institution of the Eucharist

Luke 22:14-30 Institution of the Eucharist; commandment to serve

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The density and gravity of meaning in Holy Week are great. The four gospels devote a considerable amount of their narratives to the last week of Jesus’ earthly ministry and life — about 1/3 of the total text in the gospels. As we journey through these days, I hope we are finding ample time, quality time, to attend to and absorb all that we can, with God’s grace.

Now we have come to Maundy Thursday in Holy Week. Even this one day is complex and deep with meaning — more than we can address fully in our time together. Nevertheless, we want to explore some important dimensions of this day, especially certain personal dimensions. We will undertake this by asking three questions.

What does Jesus do on this night?

What do his disciples do on this night?

What do we do on this night, and next week and beyond?

As we start, let’s frame our exploration by taking first a long view and then a short view of this night that we remember so solemnly.

The long view of this night goes back to begin with God’s good creation of everything, including humankind; followed by humankind’s turning away from God and subsequent descent into sin and death; then through many twists and turns to the emergence of the Jewish people and eventually their enslavement in Egypt; followed by God’s deliverance of them from that enslavement, as we heard in the reading from Exodus. From there it goes forward to the resurgent Jewish people entering and dwelling in the land of promise, and then specifically to this night in Roman-occupied Jerusalem, with Jesus and his disciples, as we heard in our reading from Luke. From this night, the long view continues forward to the birth and growth of the early church, the new people of God, as indicated in the reading from 1 Corinthians; and with that to the anticipation of a new heaven and earth at the end of time. That’s the long view of this night. It occurs centrally, pivotally, in the grand biblical story of creation, fall, redemption, and consummation.

The short view focuses on this night, on the people and events of this night in Jerusalem, leading into tomorrow. At the center are these people: Jesus; his closest disciples; and the Jewish and Roman people and authorities. Also at the center are these events: the Passover meal; final teachings; an act of service; and acts of betrayal.

With the long view as background then, let’s concentrate on the short view, on the people and events of this night in an upper room in Jerusalem.

After a few years of widespread public ministry in Israel, Jesus has journeyed to Jerusalem with his disciples. He entered several days ago on a donkey in a symbolic prophetic act. He spent the next days in teaching and further symbolic prophetic acts. Now he has come to this night. It is the beginning of the Passover remembrance and the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Jesus gathers with his closest disciples in an upper room to celebrate the Passover meal. He knows it is the beginning of his suffering. He knows it will be the end of his earthly ministry. He knows it will be the end of his earthly life.

The hour has come.

What does Jesus do on this night? He radically reinterprets Passover — its elements and its meaning — to focus on him. He makes himself — his body and blood — the elements of Passover. And he makes his life and death — his whole salvific ministry from beginning to end — the meaning of a new Passover. On this night, the remembrance of God’s long-ago act to redeem the people of Israel from slavery in Egypt becomes the event, and later the remembrance, of God’s act in Jesus to redeem all people enslaved and doomed in sin. Jesus becomes the Passover Lamb whose death will bring deliverance and new life for us, for the whole created order.

This is both grim and good. It is good through the grim, and only through the grim, as Jesus knows and accepts, with agony. His excruciating suffering and death will lead to new life, to re-creation. In his radical love for God and for us, he will take up a cross and suffer a most cruel death, that we and the whole creation may be made new and good, well beyond the cruelty and grimness of sin and death.

What do his disciples do on this night? They betray him. Those who had followed him closely for years fail him. There is the obvious betrayal by Judas for money. There is the other betrayal — perhaps less obvious but betrayal nonetheless — when the disciples argue, on the brink of his suffering, about which of them will be the greatest in the kingdom of God. And there is the later betrayal in the denials and the desertions of Peter and the remaining disciples this night and the next day.

All of this betrayal occurs in the context of Jesus’ self-identification as the sacrificial victim for sin and death. It also occurs in the context of his profound demonstration of loving servanthood in his washing of the feet of his disciples (John 13:1-15). His is not a pretentious pursuit of being a ruling benefactor, as others seek for themselves. It is down-on-the floor, in-the-dust, humble, even humiliating service for his disciples, for his neighbor.

What do we do on this night, and next week and beyond? It’s so easy to go the way of the Pharisee in the temple, proud and grateful to God not to be the tax collector — in other words for us, proud and grateful not to be those foolish and even worse disciples. Yet can we honestly say that we love Jesus so much and so well that we would not have betrayed him on that Passover night? Can we honestly say that we have not betrayed, do not betray, Jesus? Out of fear, or out of desire for cultural prestige and power, or in any number of other ways?

This night, and next week and beyond, let us learn anew and with greater fidelity to take up the cross, to die with and in Jesus, that we may rise with and in Jesus to new life, that in new life we may love God and our neighbor through down-on-the floor, in-the-dust, humble, even humiliating, service, as Jesus did. Let us be more faithfully people of God, true images of Jesus, the sacrificial lamb and the suffering servant for the world. In the power of the Holy Spirit, let us tell and be the good news of God’s kingdom, the kingdom of sacrificial servant love for our families, friends, and even strangers — for our neighbor — as Jesus was and is and will be.

The hour has come.

Good Friday

Encumbered, we struggled with death,

the weight of gore ungainly, unclean,

gravity-bound, of cruciate uncrossed,

that we lowered and swaddled in cloth,

now soiled of blood and sweat; then

stumbling grief, labored and stubbed,

the way to the cave, stooped small at

the entrance, and dark, and one of us

must back in first, must carry not push,

or one last indignity we would inflict …

Wild Beauty Now Materializes

Wild beauty now materializes in wind and cloud,
in moon and star and planet, in the deep hour
before dawn, toward swell of light and high bird,
thus rising, striding, and besting the bleak night.

Maundy Thursday

Worlds rotate and orbit the sun regardless,

as chaos upswells and ungrounds the garden

late, that dark thinks death thus to reign,

while a blooded prayer agonizes light, life.

We Wonder Still

Many years since, 

we wonder still

to a rough barn,

past hills and fields

through city streets

long cold and dark,

to a small child

born for us, for

light and life, that

by this love come

down, dawn will sing!

Worship: Ontological; Interpersonal; Aesthetic

There are instructional or didactic elements in worship. For example, the recitation of a creed in Morning Prayer or in the Eucharist is partly instructional. Yet worship is not fundamentally or principally didactic in nature and purpose. Worship is ontological, interpersonal, and aesthetic. Worship expresses and shapes our being as creatures in the image of God, our relationships with God and our neighbor, and our sense of the sublime and desirable. Worship involves and informs our whole being, individual and corporate, in truth, beauty, and goodness; in faith, hope, and love. The forms and substance of worship, the rites and ceremonies, ought to reflect and enact this multi-dimensional endeavor.

With Sighs Too Deep for Words

St. Paul writes in his letter to the Christians in Rome (ch. 8, v. 26; NRSV), “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.” For those who can speak aloud and clearly, there are times, there are things, when and for which we find no words. We have vague or inchoate thoughts and feelings, and we cannot express to another what moves in head and heart. We may not even be able to articulate them within our own soul. Here, the Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. Yet for those who simply and ever cannot speak aloud and clearly, how much more do articulation, expression, communication, fail them? Perhaps they do have the words in head and heart, but they cannot physically voice them. Perhaps, more profoundly, thoughts and feelings lie beyond articulation, even within head and heart. How much more for them, the Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. So we hope and pray.

On Hearing Certain Music

Though eye does not —
at sigh of strings,
their rise and fall
in time and place,
as life, as love —
let weep the heart.

To Leap and to Praise

To leap and to praise

those who are lame and

those who are mute

touched by Life, by Love

broken with them

given for them

those who are lame and

those who are mute

to leap and to praise

glory to God, glory to all

blessing and glory

world without end

Come, Lord, Lowly and Plain

Come, Lord, come; lowly and plain. Dwell with those who live in the dead-ends of cities and towns; in the by-ways of valleys and hills. Be friend and kin where need is great; tender with words and hands in love, in hope. Come, Lord, now; lowly and plain.

For Faith, Hope, and Love to Meet Our Days

Most merciful God, creator and redeemer of all: to a world wracked with pain and loss, you came in Jesus to take our suffering into your heart, there to bear and heal it. Tender your Spirit in our hearts, that we who groan and weep, for ourselves and others, may find faith, hope, and love to meet our days. Now and in the end, wipe away our tears, our sorrows, in life made new and whole, that grief and death will be no more. Amen.

A Commonwealth of Care

We come into life not by self circumstance and act but by circumstance and act of others. We are not born to be dependent, yet we are born dependent. I was born dependent. The person next to me was born dependent, as was the person far from me. On whom do I depend? On whom do they depend? On each of us. On all of us. Hence, we are born to care, to care for each of us, for all of us. We come into life not facing self but facing another, needing another, to care for one another. From beginning to end, we are born to live in a commonwealth of care. And so we should.

Pen and Lens

At the thin verge of meaning,
I wander in fields and woods,
near and far, known and not;
a kind of faith, hope, love
for truth, beauty, goodness.
Though the word escapes me,
and the image, my camera,
I wonder long, pen and lens.

A Child Is Born For Us This Night

All our vulnerability embodied
in so compact a time and space,
a child is born for us this night —
for the twisted tongue and limb,
and the harrowed heart and soul,
for the nameless none have marked,
and the countless come to pass —
born to sinew faith, hope, love
from dark to light, death to life,
this passion laid to earth, for us.

Words That Will Not Sleep

With the wrinkling years
it happens less and less,
words that will not sleep,
that clamor in the head
to be written, to be said,
though the dark is deaf
and morning long to come;
still, the heart does voice.

More Than a Sentimental Narrative about a Baby

The event we celebrate at Christmas is more than a sentimental narrative about a baby. It is the reorientation of human history through God's will not to power but to sacrificial love through presence in and identification with our vulnerability and suffering. "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth." (John 1:14.) God's glory, grace, and truth are embodied in the Child in a stable in Bethlehem, then on a cross outside of Jerusalem. And this is the real good news we carol at Christmas and throughout the year when we live his glory, grace, and truth in our world of vulnerability and suffering.

Hermeneutic Principle

The meaning of this
word modifies that,
whether proximate
or separate, in
time or space or both;
modifies, neither
rules nor replaces.
So hearts as for words.

They Are Gone

They are gone, and
I think of them,
long, as prie-dieu
bent to hard wood.

In the Sound of Sheer Silence

In a motel room and awake before dawn, having showered and shaved, I sat in a chair in the dark for some while. The rush of the a/c unit’s fan pushed air noisily about the small room. The abrupt disturbance of a door opening and closing across the hall shook even the door to my room. Outside a fire engine blazed by with din of siren and lights. Then racket of fan and door and fire engine went quiet. Utterly. In the sound of sheer silence, God, intimately present: questioning, challenging, assuring.