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Dear beloved member of Glen Morris United Church, 

Peace be with you and thank you for reading this week’s edition of Passing the Peace. May the joy of Easter continue to inspire you and bring you hope as we move into this season celebrating resurrection, new life, the power of transformation, and the invitation to be witnesses to a risen Christ. 

One thing that I find unfortunate about our Christian calendar is that Holy Week is only a week long and yet filled with so many moments for us to learn from. As we celebrate this season of Easter, I want to take a moment to return to Holy Saturday. 

Holy Saturday is a sacred place of mourning and uncertainty; the disciples have scattered and are gathering behind locked doors in fear of what will happen next. In our lives, Holy Saturday are the moments when we feel uncertain about what the next step may look like, when our best laid plans or understandings about relationships, our faith, our life purpose fall apart. The moments that don’t get posted on social media and can often leave us feeling alone and abandoned. 

The Good News of Easter is not discovered until three women bravely leave their homes and go to the tomb where they can tend to Jesus’ body. They bring with them their spices for embalming, their ancestral knowledge and traditions moving them forward. As your minister, what I want you to know is that if you ever need someone to bring you some spices to care for the death you are experiencing in your life, I’d be honoured to do so. The death you are experiencing doesn’t have to be the death of a loved one: it could be the death of a marriage, an end to an expectation of who someone wanted you to be, the death of retirement plans.

Just as Mary Magdalene, Mary, and Joanna did not walk to the tomb alone, you do not have to walk alone either. May we find new life together. 

 

In your Holy Saturday moments, may the Peace of Christ comfort you

In witnessing the Holy Saturdays of others, may the Peace of Christ guide you, 

 

Yours in Christ, 

Rev Michiko