Holy Week is resonant.

Singing through the days are the melodies of love.

What wondrous love IS this that hope and love and beauty and truth are so freely given by our Creator? And what have we done; what do we do to that hope and love and beauty and truth?

Through the power of Holy Week we name the realities of betrayal and fear.

And, we sing and seek to live the triumph of love.

Always this week has moved me. When I was growing up as a pastor’s kid I was aware of deep emotional soundings in my home and in the church community around me. Maundy Thursday meant communion and the heartbreak of love. It seemed like Good Friday was always a gloomy day and the hours between noon and three stretched out my soul.

And then the great joy of Easter dawned. New dresses and gloves and hats and purses (oh, the joy of patent leather!) and air sparkling with celebration and the hunt for sweetness before church and the singing and the mighty organ and the heart-opening wonder of shouting “Hallelujah!” with winter-sombered church family.

All these things sound in the air decades later. They are the story of my faith and my being, these vibrations.

I pray that you too experience this week a deep soul resonance.

Thursday night we gather at table as family to hear the story of the ways God led the Hebrew people to freedom.

God leads us to freedom yet.

We will adjourn to the sanctuary to hear how it is Jesus knelt at the feet of his soon-to-betray-him friends. He knelt before them and took their tired selves into his hands and he washed them with grace.

God washes us with grace yet.

Friday noon and night we will hear the story of how it is Jesus was swept into the fury of fear and it left him hung on a cross to die.

Fear fury mangles yet.

And Easter? Oh my friends, Easter is the best reminder that no stone no conviction no barrier can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus and

God calls us to resurrection yet.

Feel this week.

Come to church.

Prepare for resurrection.