Ashentine’s Day: God Loves You To Death

 

A cheesy picture to let you know that God loves you!

Joel 2:1-2,12-17

Psalm 103 or 103:8-14

2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10

Matthew 6:1-6,16-21

 

ã2024 The Rev. Seth Olson

 

Holy God, let my words be your words and when my words are not your words, let your people be wise enough to know the same. Amen.

 

Happy Valent—wait, that’s not right. My beloved spouse, Kim, first thing this morning told me, “Happy Ashentine’s Day!” This confluence of Ash Wednesday and Valentine’s Day happened back in 2018 and it will happen again in 2029, but that will be it for this century. So, soak up this strange merger of a day when we say, “I love you,” and a day when the Church reminds us, “You are dust and to dust you shall return.” 

 

All joking aside, there is a connection between these two occasions, and it is love. Although, it is not the type of love that most often gets bantered about today. The world around us—from Hallmark card designers to restaurant staffs to chocolate companies, all of them want us to spend today in a sappy love haze. This isn’t the love that Ash Wednesday is about. 

 

Now there is nothing wrong with romantic love. C.S. Lewis in his wonderful work, The Four Loves, describes this Valentine’s Day-type-of-love utilizing the Greek word eros. Although often derided as merely puppy love, a feelings-based love, or even lust, in its rightful place of a committed relationship, eros lends itself to us understanding something much larger than ourselves. God’s yearning to woo us, to beckon us deeper into a larger love. Go read Song of Solomon if you want a taste of this love.

 

At my household, Valentine’s Day is not only about romantic love, as our older child presented multiple cards to the rest of his family. Lewis would describe this love as storge love, or the love that we share as a family. Desmond Tutu described this by saying, “You don’t choose your family. They are God’s gift to you, as you are to them.” This love which we share within our family reminds us that God is our Heavenly Father, a loving, divine parent who cares for us as a doting father adores his children. 

 

A third love we see less often displayed on Valentine’s Day Lewis describes as philia, brotherly or sisterly love. If you celebrated Galentine’s Day with your best girl friends or if you are involved in a bromance, this is philia, a fraternal love. In it, we understand a sort of connection that unites us with friends who are more like family, or at least the family of our choosing. When Christ Jesus on the night before his death called his disciples friends, he was expressing philia. He was also leaning into the fourth type of love, which is truly where Ash Wednesday and this preparatory season of Lent leads us. 

 

The fourth love is agape. A love so powerful that it allows one to sacrifice for another. Agape is what all the other loves point towards, and it is the foundation on which all other love emanates, for it is the love God harnessed in Creation. This is the love we experience in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ Jesus! What greater love can one have than this, than to lay down one’s life for another. And, on this penitential day, agape is what we experience all around us. 

 

In Joel, the trumpet blast and the day of darkness are serious. And yet, in God’s agape love the people are spared, as God pours out love upon us as we turn back to be embraced like a prodigal son running into a loving father’s arms. In our Psalm, we discover that God is full of compassion and mercy, slow to anger and of great kindness. Compassion means to suffer with us. Although God is infinite, beyond our understanding, in Christ Jesus God comes to be with us, to suffer with us, and to walk alongside us—again, agape love. Paul in his letter preaches agape to those in Corinth—Jesus took on our sin even though he himself was sinless. This is laying down one’s life, this is sacrificial agape love. Finally, in our Gospel lesson we are reminded, that even when God leads us into self-sacrificing love—whether through alms giving, praying, or fasting—we are not doing these things to be seen for our acts of love. Rather, we are loving because our treasure is not praise from others, but the glorification of God who is the source of all love.

 

In just a few moments, I’ll invite you to the observance of a holy Lent. I’ll ask God’s blessing on these ashes. And, I’ll pronounce some difficult words: “You are dust and to dust you shall return.” Even here in this sobering realization that we are mortal, that we are fleeting, that we are finite, even here agape persists. It is good and right for us to recognize our human nature, our sinful disposition, and our need for reconciliation. This is what we do on this day. 

 

And yet, in the same place where we receive an ashen cross, we also received a cross of chrism, holy oil during Holy Baptism. There in that initiation into the Faith—in that moment when we are adopted into God’s family, joining Jesus our friend and brother—there we hear, “You are marked as Christ’s own forever.”

 

Today is a rare day—both Valentine’s Day and Ash Wednesday. What binds these unlikely days together? Love! And, all good, healthy love points to the all-encompassing agape of God. Happy Ashentine’s Day—God loves you to death, and beyond! 

The Waiting Room

Today the whole world is a waiting room.

 

April 3, 2021—Holy Saturday

Job 14:1-14
Psalm 31:1-4, 15-16
1 Peter 4:1-8
John 19:38-42

 

© 2021 Seth Olson

Video of this sermon may be found here (at the 7:00 mark).

My soul waits for the Lord
    more than watchmen for the morning,
    more than watchmen for the morning.
(Psalm 130:6)


I do not like to sit in waiting rooms,
At doctors’ offices,
Or the dentist’s.
There I fidget, barely sitting still,
Worrying about my blood pressure,
Or a cavity.
Out the window, I spot a tree—barren or not yet in bloom.
I fight the urge to pull out my phone.
This last year, the entire world became a waiting room—and today is its epitome.

As I wait,
I wonder not about my body’s health,
But my soul’s.
If I could see my soul’s true state
With an X-Ray of sorts,
Or, if I could take it in to see a specialist,
What would I discover?
Mortality?
My soul makes not a peep.
Silently it sits.

“All are from women,
Have few days and are full of turmoil,”
Job says.
Like a flower, we wither.
In the impurity of this life,
Death slowly soils our existence.
Then, we fade
Like the afternoon sun.

“I wish you would hide me in the underworld,”
I plead alongside Job.
If people die, will they live again?
That’s what I think of in the waiting room
Sitting with my soul.
Silently, we wait for God’s reply,
More than watchmen for the morning,
More than watchmen for the morning.

Others point to mercy here—
Love covering a multitude of sins—
But in the obscurity of death,
Fear approaches.
It shrivels me up.
I feel like a parched riverbed.
The weatherman says,
“No rain today.”
Still I wait and I watch,
Together with my soul.
If people die will they live again?

How did Joseph and Nicodemus respond?
They did not wait.
They acted!
With care and without hope.
Certainly sorrowful.
No mirth.
Dutifully though with oils and linen.
Like, washing someone’s feet,
Lovingly, extravagantly, but lacking expectation.

Some women though,
They waited.
Following Jesus,
They waited.
Almost silently,
They waited.
Quietly crying,
They waited.
Like watchmen,
They waited.
Like Job,
They waited.
Like my soul,
They waited.
They waited
Wondering…

If people die will they live again?
Will he live again?
A human dies, the body remains.
A person expires but,
Where is the soul?
One is chopped down,
And hauled away.
Why then, are we waiting?
 

Something remains.
Not much, really…
Save for a delicately wrapped body.

As Joseph and his companion leave,
I tarry…
With the women and my soul.

“Jesus died, will he live again?”
I sit in the waiting room pondering.

And, at that moment,
Of all times,
My soul dares say something.
What?
I lean in to listen.

“’All the days of my service,
I would wait
Until my release should come.’

Wait
With me
For him.”

Just Another Day

Happy Birthday Teddy... It's Just Another Day, or is it?

Today my family is celebrating my son Teddy’s first birthday. It’s a lovely day! We will feed him his favorite foods of almond butter and guacamole for dinner—yes, we are aware of how pretentious and hippie-ish those foods are! We will let Teddy open and play with presents throughout today. And, we will even stretch the celebration out as he got to see family and godparents last week and will see his other godparents this weekend. But, as my former boss liked to say, “It’s just another day.” So is the nature of our lives.

When I was in seminary, Brother Curtis Almquist SSJE came to speak to us. He spoke with such self-evident wisdom that afterward I felt like in one night I had gone through 365 days of one of the flip calendars with bits of brilliance on each day. Something from that night in particular stands out to this day. Brother Curtis said we must hold two truths one in each hand. In one hand remember that for you the universe was made. And, in the other hand know that you are dust and to dust you shall return. I have loved wrestling with these contrasting principles since that night—and today especially these words come back to me. They also are connected to the truth that Jesus shared in thiscoming Sunday’s Gospel lesson.

Jesus responded to the religious leaders of his day by reminding them of their collective ancestors. In the midst of talking about himself as the Bread of Life Jesus said, “Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died.” As Tim Callahan, our Director of Youth Ministries said in today’s staff meeting, these are harsh words from Jesus. They are direct. Even though God provided abundantly for those wandering in the wilderness that physical food was not what believing in God was all about. It was not what God yearned for in God's people.

(As a particularly important aside, this is not about the Israelites "Jewishness." That is not why they died. Remember Jesus was a faithful Jewish person. The trouble was that in the wilderness those People of God were constantly grumbling to God, they missed the food that lasted beyond the next time they were hungry. And, we too often make this mistake in our own day. We can be too worried about our physical needs to comprehend our spiritual needs.)

We, like the people in the wilderness long ago, like the people of Jesus’ day, and like those people since then, must be fed by more than just physical food. For we are dust and to dust we shall return. Even my precious baby boy will one day die. I weep just thinking about that truth. Still, it is the truth. Our physical bodies will give out, our minds will become feeble, and yet there is more to the story.

Jesus told those who had ears to hear that he was the bread that came down from heaven. Those who believe have eternal life. If we consume the bread of life, then we will live forever. Anyone and everyone; you, Teddy, and me can rejoice in the truth that for each of us the universe was made. Even more joyfully we remember that God sent Jesus to show us the way of love. There’s nothing—not even death—that can separate us from God’s love and light and life!

Sometimes it is difficult to allow more than one truth to dwell within us. Sure, today is special because I get to celebrate Teddy and remember what a blessing and gift he is from God and at the same time I get to see how fragile life is. I am reminded both of our feeble nature and the fire of God’s Spirit that always burns within each of us. Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return and for you the universe was made. Hold both of these truths within you. Today is special, and it is just another day.

Even Death on a Cross

The portion of Paul’s letter to the Philippians, which we read today, offers for us a profound challenge: “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus.” How are we—mere mortals—supposed to have the same mind as Jesus the Christ had?

As I think more about having the mind of Christ the task becomes exponentially more difficult. To me it seems easier to think of the ways that would be ineffective at having the same mind as Christ. How might we not be like Christ? Well, we can rule out committing the deadly sins and breaking the Ten Commandments, but then we get into some trickier territory. Thinking good thoughts always seems like a good idea, but then not acting on our good intentions is part of the pavement on the way to hell. What may be even worse though is believing that it is up to us to act our way into being like Christ.

For us to be like Christ we cannot simply think our way into this state, nor can we act our way into having the mind of Christ. In actuality, we may be overthinking all of this. The first word in this reading is let, as in let it happen because the Spirit is already at work. Is that it? Are we just passive blobs like amoeba sitting on a log? I do not think so, I believe we do have a part to play. The way for God’s Spirit to transform not only our minds but also the rest of our innermost and outermost comes in a most countercultural way: death.

Last night I saw a documentary about the band the Avett Brothers. They are a great folk/songwriter band from North Carolina who create music that has depth and soul uncommon for our age. I commend your listening to their albums. At one point one of the members of the Avett Brothers made an offhand comment about how everyone thinks their songs are morbid because simply put they are not afraid to talk about or rather sing about death. Apparently writing about loss and death, instead of wild nights and finding love in this day and age invites criticism.

No one really likes talking about death, but somehow at least from my perspective, some death is easier to think about than others. A well-lived life of eighty, ninety, or a hundred years often does not bear the same sadness as a life cut far short. The end of a struggle with a debilitating disease feels easier for us to bear than seeing someone pass tragically in the blink of an eye. How much more would the death of a beloved friend or family member strike us? How much more would the death of a beloved leader shake us? How much more would we be transformed by the death of not just a leader, teacher, or friend, but the death of God who came to save us by being with us?

These beautiful words from Paul’s letter do not simply invite us into living like Christ, they invite us into dying like him. Christ who became incarnate in Jesus did not regard his godly nature as something to be exploited rather, he emptied himself and was born as a lowly human being—a human being acquainted with poverty, oppression, and suffering. This life though was not the end of the story, it was only the beginning—or rather the continuation of what God has always been doing. We may not like to speak about it, but on this day—Holy Cross Day—we are drawn into this moment when Jesus not only endured death, but even death on a cross. So why is this so important and what does it have to do with letting Christ’s mind be in us?

For us to let our entire lives be transformed by Christ, for us to let the same mind be in us as was in Christ Jesus we are called to our own crosses and to our own deaths—not just literal crosses and deaths, but every form that these sufferings take. Now, as the Avett Brothers remind us no one likes talking about death—especially death on a cross. As strange as it sounds though, seeking our own crosses is a prerequisite for living as a Christian. Yes, God will always love us, but living as a follower of Christ does not mean that we point to Jesus’ death and keep on going the same as we always have. Nor can we call ourselves Christians if merely think that all our screw-ups are covered in some cosmic insurance policy. That is not life in Christ—that is not letting the same mind be in us as was in Christ Jesus.

Christ Jesus came to show us that the ways that had always been no longer worked. That sacrificial violence does not work anymore. Even though they crucified God Incarnate, God still lived. We cannot scapegoat the problems out of our lives, like previous generations tried to do. We cannot avoid the problems of our lives, like we may be prone to do. Nor, can we otherwise try to weasel our way out of our own issues. Instead, we are required to do the hard work and heavy lifting of picking up our own crosses. This means turning inside and seeing what it is that needs to die so that God may resurrect it. This means inviting God to be in us. This means that through us God can turn violence, disaster, famine, and all other suffering in this world into a source of God’s healing redemption. For us to have the same mind as Christ we must start by seeking out our own crosses, lifting them up, and walking with Jesus not away from hardship, but towards it!

x

The Biggest Loser

To give up my life even for a brief moment scares me to death. I yearn for control in every nanosecond of my life. I desire to have the world revolving precisely as I expect it will. I want nothing bad ever to happen to anyone I love or myself. As I reflect on these longing I realize the dark and dirty sin that is control. To give up my life even for a brief moment scares me to death, but God calls me and all of us to do precisely this.

“Those who want to save their life will lose it,” says Jesus in this Gospel lesson from Mark, continuing, “and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.” The paradox of following Jesus comes precisely in this moment of letting go of all that control we work so hard to grasp. It is a paradox because somehow in the letting go we realize that we did not have control in the first place, and more importantly we gain something that we cannot possess if we are too busy holding on to this illusion of control.

Walking back just slightly in this Gospel account from Mark we discover Jesus’ first prediction that the Messiah, the Son of Man must undergo great suffering. Peter upon hearing this takes Jesus aside to rebuke his teacher. Famously Jesus calls Peter Satan, or stumbling block. Peter does not dress in a devil costume, but rather his reluctance to relinquish control of whom he believes the Messiah is causes him to stumble on his way of discipleship. If any want to follow Jesus they need only to pick up their crosses and do it. We say this often in church, but what does cross carrying look like in real life?

Today we remember John Coleridge Patteson who served as a missionary and bishop in Melanesia (think Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, and Fiji) during the middle of the 19th Century. Patteson had a propensity for picking up languages, which he honed during travels through Europe after graduation from Balliol College, Oxford. While serving as a lowly curate he took a call from Bishop G. A. Selwyn to serve in New Zealand. Here Patteson learned twenty-three languages of the Melanesian people. Horrifically, while visiting an island in the Santa Cruz group some islanders mistook the bishop for a slave-trader stabbing Patteson five times in the chest. The attack killed others in the bishop’s party as well.

Patteson witnesses to us a literal laying down of one’s life for Christ. A gift of learning other tongues and a love of sharing the Good News in people’s native language may cause one to face real harm. While most of us do not hear the same call as Patteson, Jesus says the same words to us that he spoke to the crowds and to Patteson. If we are to follow Jesus, we must lose our life, take up our cross, and gain new life through walking with Christ. Somewhere along the way, perhaps when Christianity became the state religion, we lost the wild danger of following Jesus. What we do when we say that our aim in life focuses upon subjugating ourselves so that Christ might live within us stands out as nothing short of radical. However, we often do not know how we might go about practicing this in our lives.

When we take time to stop what we would normally do and pray; when we pray for the broken world; when we sit in silence so that God might look upon us and love us; when we give our time, talent, and treasure; when we say the daily office; when we read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest Holy Scripture; when we do not respond to someone’s hate with hate, but instead with love; when we sacrifice what we are doing to serve someone else; when we truly hear someone else instead of merely wait for our turn to speak; when we see through the disguise that someone is wearing to see the Divine within the other, then in all of these instances we are practicing laying down our lives. Each day in these ways and millions more practice martyrdom, the laying down of the self, so that we may pick up our crosses and follow Jesus into life, death, and resurrection! Laying down our lives might be the scariest thing we ever do, but nothing will ever be as fulfilling as Christ living in our place.

Without

Today we are without...

I do not like to wait…
In grocery store lines,
On traffic filled highways,
At airport check-ins,
But, today we wait.

We wait with no cause
We wait all alone
We wait scared and numb
Our existence breaks
And we are without…

We are strings without guitar;
Song without singer;
Symphony without conductor.

We are theory without scientist;
Equation without mathematician;
Project without engineer.

We are students without teacher;
Classroom without professor;
School without principal.

We are an order without a soldier;
A badge without an officer;
An accident without an E.M.T.

We are illness without doctor;
Disease without therapist;
Cavity without dentist.

We are a play without an actor,
A painting without an artist,
A poem without a poet.

We are a field without a farmer
Sheep without the Shepherd
Branches without the Vine.

We are the body without the head;
The Church without the Christ;
The Universe without its Savior.

We are without…
Without purpose and,
Without direction;
Without feeling and
Without affection.

Today we’re without,
And so we must wait,
Wait with a semblance,
A sliver of hope.
Wait outside the tomb.

IF... Is A Dangerous Word, But An Important One

But if it dies, it bears much fruit.

IF is a dangerous word. It’s the type of word that can drive me crazy. If I get all my work finished then I will be happy. If I clean my apartment, then I can rest. If I get my sermon completed, then I do not have anything to worry about. The “ifs” of the world even keep me up at night. What if a storm crashes through Decatur? What if something happens to my niece or nephews? What if my beloved Kim stops loving me?

IF is a dangerous word. I find myself gripping tightly the false sense of safety all around me, so that I do not hear the “ifs” getting louder and louder. Pray more, believe harder, go on a run, or watch something on TV, so to take my mind off the chances of this world. The grain of my life seems so fragile and with all the “ifs” I wonder, what “if” my grain dies?

IF is not just a dangerous word though. If a single grain of wheat remains gripped tightly in my hand, like all the desires, hopes, and dreams that have no room to breathe or even be, then that single grain of wheat remains just that, a single grain of wheat. But if it dies, it bears much fruit. My knuckles jut out from my hand, they turn a pale shade of white, and what is held within my hand has no chance to survive if I keep holding on.

IF I release my grip and turn my hand over the seeds that I have been given fall out of my control and into the ground. I might be able to drop the seed on some good soil, surround it with good earth, and provide it with life-sustaining water, but only God can help it to grow. So much of life feels like gripping onto what we have earned, achieved, or been given. Prosperity, savings, and whatever state of health we have; children, friends, and the relationships we have formed; the Church, our Faith, and the spirituality that makes us whole; everything that we hold dear to us, everything that we hold onto as more precious than life itself has no chance of living if it remains hidden within the grip of our clutches.

But what happens if we let light shine upon our inmost desires? What will occur if I let my true self shine? I love my life, but am I not simply living safely behind the façade of tightly clinched fist?

Jesus invites us to throw down the seeds of our lives, not so that they will immediately be prosperous, nor so that we can reap the benefits of a quick return on investment, but instead so that our deepest desires may die. Death freaks me out. Failing scares me even more. To expose my dreams that typically remain tightly gripped makes my stomach churn just thinking about it.

Yet, to live our life in Christ is to give up on perfectly enacting our desires. To live in Christ is to die to what we think is best. To dwell with Christ means that we risk failure, humiliation, pain, suffering, misunderstanding, and death. For a single grain of wheat will remain just a grain of wheat, but if it dies it bears much fruit. Our deepest desires do not die just because, they die so that we might live life in Christ.

Loosen your grip, let go of your seeds that are your dreams, your hopes, your vision for your life. Those seeds will die in some way or another. Yet, when they die Jesus will resurrect them in ways that are too profound, too magnificent, too lovely for us to imagine. Let go and let God.

You Might Be Afraid of Public Speaking and Death, But Jesus Isn't!

John 11:1-45

Sermon audio click here

“Just as Jesus has met us at our tombs so we must follow him now to his own.” Meda Stamper

Sometimes I hear people say, “Public speaking is my biggest fear. Most people would rather die than speak in front of a crowd, at least that’s what I read in a study!” As someone who spends a large chunk of time speaking in front of people, and as one who every once in a while finds his foot in his mouth, I tend to say there is not much to fear up here. What I receive in return for any blunders is mostly grace upon grace from those listening. Of course my perspective is limited to my own experience, so I began wondering, “Are people really more afraid of public speaking than death?” What I discovered is there is not much evidence that talking in front of a group is more terrifying than death.

(An old saying goes, “There are lies, there are damn lies, and there are statistics.”) The often misunderstood statistic about public speaking, death and their correlation with fear originates from a 1973 questionnaire circulated by Bruskin Associates. In this study the researchers asked respondents to list their fears. Researchers gave no choices of scary things to select. Instead, those surveyed wrote down whatever came to mind. “Public speaking” was the most common answer. A distant seventh on the list was death, just behind sickness and just ahead of flying. This study with a small sampling size and an open response has made a huge impact on us. Even though it does not say that public speaking is scarier than death. We still believe that speaking in front of groups (heights, insects and bugs, financial problems, deep water, and sickness) are more to be feared than death. Yet what this research shows is that when asked blankly “What do you fear?” we will respond with a commonplace, everyday fear (public speaking or spiders).

Yet the top six responses on this list all have one thing in common. They are preventable or curable. If you are afraid of speaking in public take speech lessons. The King’s Speech chronicles the life of King George VI who suffered from Glossophobia (fear of public speaking). King George overcame this fear to deliver comforting words to England during World War II. If you are fearful of heights, you can avoid them, or get over it by doing a high ropes adventure course. Scared of insects and bugs? Squash them or call Cook’s! Financial Problems? Dave Ramsey would love to help you with that. Deep water? I hear personal flotation devices or swim lessons work pretty well these days. Even sickness has become something that we can almost completely avoid. Yet, there is one thing that is unavoidable on this list… death.

There is a 100% chance everyone in this church will die. I hope that this is not shocking news to you. I love my life. I love my family. I love Kim. I love my friends. I love working at St. John’s Church. I do not want to face my mortal demise, but I know that one day I will meet the cold kiss of Death. Even though I can consciously comprehend this, I still find myself fearful of what lies in death and beyond.

I believe we are all, to some degree, afraid of death, even more than public speaking and spiders. Yet, what happens in Bethany, the place where Jesus’ friends live, (Just like the part of Camp McDowell that is going to be talked about today right after this service at a wonderful lunch!) tells us something very different about this undeniably fearful end that we all must face.

Martha and Mary were all followers of Christ. The sisters trusted in Jesus verbally in today’s gospel lesson. They believed in Resurrection through him. Still there is doubt expressed, “If you had been here, Lazarus would not be dead.” The word here is not just death like the body ceasing to produce breath and life, this dying is all encompassing. Their brother is physically dead, but he is also spiritually dead.

In the total of John’s gospel account we hear of many signs that point to Jesus being the one through whom all things were created, the Son of God, the one coming into the world! We can get so swept up in this that we miss that part of being Incarnate God meant that Jesus was fully human as well as fully divine. Death, even to God, is something that is tragic and depressing. When Jesus walks to the tomb of his friend Lazarus with the beloved Martha and Mary he cannot deny his humanity. Jesus weeps.

I have loved this verse since I was a child because it shows Jesus’ humanity. He is empathic for us human beings because he is one of us. He may know what is about to happen. He may know that everything will be okay. He may know that God will resurrect the Faithful. Still he weeps.

Then, in a way that only God can, he goes further than just empathizing with Lazarus and the bereaved. Jesus goes beyond our human understanding, he responds to this moment of deep sadness with an overabundant love that will remain a mystery to us on this side of the grave. Jesus goes to the entrance of the tomb, the place of a rotting corpse, the mouth of Death, and in this realm of reeking, dark nothingness he calls life. Jesus calls life from death.

Jesus, the God of the living, does not fear death. He walks into his friend’s tomb to be with him in the realm of that unknown mystery that awaits all of us. For those who believe and those, like Lazarus, who are spiritually dead Jesus is always present. He will go walk with us everywhere we go. He will journey with us when we are well, when we are scared of public speaking, and even into our tombs. He is our partner in life and death. As we approach Holy Week, let us respond to his partnership, his walking with us, and let us go with Jesus to his death and tomb. Amen.