There is a place in Jerusalem where you can sit quietly and see through a gap in an ancient stone wall. It is a high place with a lovely view and from this discreet perch you can see all sorts of people doing all sorts of things in their busy lives below. There are street merchants hawking their wares while others bicker and tug back and forth about prices. You can see a young boy with a skateboard and an old lady looking little worried about where he might turn next. You can see what the some call the Temple Mount, where the golden Dome of the Rock stands today. And you can see churches, some within the Old City walls, and others high on the bluff across the Mount of Olives, where Jesus is said to have come here for the last time, in a parade of fearless love, on the back of a borrowed donkey.
The man who led me to this spot told me that Roman soldiers would sit right here and spy on the movements of the people below. As I reflect on Easter this year, from a perch by the sea on the far edge of a distant continent, I have to smile with a sense of connection that I cannot describe adequately. And that is okay. It is okay that some truths cannot be adequately described. I feel that way about Easter. I feel that way about the good news in the story of Christ. And I feel that way about St. Mary’s by-the-Sea, and all of us who are blessed to be part of this community.
Like a narrow gap in a stone wall can reveal a wider world beyond, the story of Easter can remind us that the love that surrounds us is greater than we can imagine. We are part of a parade of fearless love that no forces of fear or control or confusion can contain. There is no tombstone that can block this good news.
Let us rejoice and be glad in it.
Happy Easter,
