WORSHIP THAT TRANSFORMS US

This week our worship life exudes a holy intensity. We enter this week by waving palms and remembering Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem. I always find that this act of worship draws me into following Jesus with an intimate closeness. As the week unfolds—marked by unique periods of focused attention through our special worship services—this intimacy intensifies. I move from being a bystander to a participant in this story. My heart opens and swells with the words of scripture. I find the familiar ancient hymns seeping into the deep places of my soul. And by the time we get to Good Friday it all causes me to "tremble, tremble, tremble," as we sing: "Were you there when they crucified my Lord?" 

Then we wait. We wait, like the psalmist writes, "like watchers for the morning, like watchers for the morning." We wait in the darkened church as the paschal light pierces the darkness on Easter Eve; we wait at the beach where sky, and sea and land meet for the rising on the sun on morning of the resurrection; we wait in the beauty of the church adorned with Easter flowers for the glorious, radiant surprise: Christ is Risen!  

The poet Mary Oliver writes that the "beginning of devotion is paying attention." This is the week the Church calls us to pay attention with a holy and joyous intensity. What awaits us is  true life and transformed hearts made new by God's love—infinte in all dirctions—in Jesus Christ, our crucified and risen Lord!

Now, that's "Making a Difference!

In Christ,

Fr. Andrew+