Dear Friends,

On Good Friday, Emily Garcia led a group of children and their parents on the pathway of the Passion, telling the story of Jesus’ last hours with the people he loved. We started at the altar, where we heard about the Last Supper. We moved outside to the garden, where we were invited to watch and pray with Jesus. We confronted the cross back in the church,  and went again to the garden as if we were those bringing Jesus to the tomb.

At each stop along the way, children were invited to ask questions, and to make some drawings of what they heard and thought. It is not an easy story to tell on that day.  And yet, at the end of the service, one of our young friends held his pictures close to his breast and said, “I love my story.”

He spoke the truth. Ultimately, it is a story we love, because we know it did not end on Good Friday. And, as we were also reminded at the Easter Vigil, the story of Jesus is our story, one into which we are drawn,  so that we are blessed and changed.

We love our story. Certainly I saw that love made manifest throughout Holy Week and the first great celebrations of Easter. Thank you for all each of you did to make those services and observances possible. Thank you for all each of you did to share the Good News of that story with the larger community.

Of course, the story that did not end on Good Friday did not end on Easter either. We now enter the great fifty days of the Easter season. This is a time when we can love this story, both by holding it close to our breasts, and sharing it with the world.  Thanks be to God.

Faithfully,

Tom