Ember Monday

Technically, yesterday was Palm Sunday. We should have been celebrating the triumphal procession of Jesus into Jerusalem. But because we don't have the capacity to host holy week events, we covered the crucifixion. In other words, we had Good Friday on Palm Sunday.

We talked about the gruesome details of the crucifixion, and the agonizing pain that Jesus endured on our behalf. But there was more than physical pain at the cross; there was also cosmic, divine pain.

I put a rather provocative post on facebook yesterday afternoon: "Tonight at Ember Church we'll be talking about the end of God..." By "the end of God" I meant the end of the divine dance of self-giving love that had been going on from eternity past among the members of the Trinity. At the cross, the Father cried out, "Stop!", and the dance stopped. And in that stillness, he reached out his hand to you and said, "Come. Come and dance." The end of God is the new beginning of us.

The sermon ended with a cliffhanger. I wanted the congregation to feel the dissonance of the cross, to experience a bit of what the first disciples experienced that first Saturday. To wait, disturbed. As the preacher said, "It's Friday...but Sunday's coming."

The music team did a great job last night. Emmy and Kristy sang beautifully while Garth and Travis held down the instrumentation. Once again I saw that, though we are a small church, God has given us many gifts. There's a lot of talent at Ember!