The last of the sermons in this Lenten series, Seeing Again for the First Time, takes place tomorrow and is entitled, "Seeing Beyond the Grave". The trick to this sermon is not "to get the cart before the horse" and focus us on resurrection two weeks ahead of that celebration on Easter Sunday!
Having just finished the sermon for tomorrow (Hey, at least it's before supper time on Saturday and not 10 PM!), I think you'll find that I've not done that. The main idea behind the sermon is to invite us to see in our places of darkness - our grave site places, or our "valleys of dry bones", as Ezekiel saw them - a kind of sacredness while we await the word of the Lord, "Lazarus, come out!" As we explore tomorrow, "Lazarus" can be any of a number of beautiful persons or circumstances or qualities in your life that the grave has claimed. And the passage invites us to experience, along with Martha and Mary, Jesus' ability to lend us vision beyond that grave.
From the sermon we go into a celebration of Holy Communion through a beautiful hymn entitled "Holy Darkness" (#3141 in our Worship & Song hymnal). The service utilizes a lot of multi-media - the Scripture "reading" isn't even a reading, it's a video clip of the passage from John 11:1-45 - and is intended to engage head and heart from a couple of different angles.
I hope to see you at worship tomorrow - I am excited to be there!
Blessings in the name of the Light that shines in our darkness,
Steve
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Thanks for the service today. I had pools of tears in my eyes, but they didn't spill and flood my face.
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