March 27, 2018 Easter Devotional by Catherine Arveseth

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Quotes from Easter Lesson March 27, 2018
Catherine Arveseth

“Our hearts are restless until they rest in thee.” – Augustine of Hippo (354–430 AD), Confessions

“I do not understand the mystery of grace. Only that it meets us where we are but does not leave us where it found us.” – Anne Lamott

“The message [His eyes] communicated was something other than sympathy, something more vital than friendly concern; a sort of stabilizing power that swept away all such negations as slavery, poverty, or any other afflicting circumstance… Blind with sudden tears, [Demetrius] elbowed through the throng and reached the roadside. The uncouth Athenian, bursting with curiosity, inopportunely accosted him.
‘See him — close up?’ he asked.
Demetrius nodded…
‘Crazy?’ persisted the Athenian, trudging alongside.
‘No.’
‘King?’
‘No,’ muttered Demetrius soberly — not a king.’
‘What is he then?’ demanded the Athenian…
‘I don’t know,’ mumbled Demetrius, in a puzzled voice, but — he is something more important than a king.’”
– Lloyd C. Douglas, The Robe, pg. 74

“The journey from Mount Sinai to the Upper Room was a lengthy one. The Mosaic dispensation began at the foot of a mountain in Sinai and ended more than twelve hundred years later at a table in the Upper Room in Jerusalem.” – David Rolph Seely, From the Last Supper through the Resurrection, p.59

“That traitor, with all the black and accursed treachery in his false heart. He had seen, had known… had felt the touch of those kind and gentle hands, had seen that sacred head bent over his feet, stained as they yet were with the hurried secret walk which had taken him into the throng of sanctimonious murderers.” – Fredrick William Farrar, The Life of Christ, pg. 377

“Daddy always taught us that we are to love, the Holy Spirit convicts, and God judges. The problem is that some Christians try to do all three.” – Virginia Graham Tchividjian, New York Times Feb. 21, 2018, Billy Graham, The Last Nonpartisan Evangelical?

“I must go home and whatever it takes, start over with Christ.” – Truman G. Madsen, Preface, The Sacrament

Psalm 116: “I love the Lord… Because he hath inclined his ear unto me, therefore will I call upon him as long as I live. …He hast delivered my soul from death, mine eyes from tears, my feet from falling. 118: The Lord is on my side, I will not fear… The Lord is my strength, and song, and is become my salvation.” (selected verses from the Hallel (Psalms 113-118). Last half traditionally sung or recited at Passover. Since Jews believe Passover marked only partial redemption, they sing only half of the Hallel at Passover. Full Hallel is sung at Sukkoth or the Feast of Tabernacles.)

“We do history a disservice by thinking of it as inevitable… It is the obligation of a disciple… to work tragedies into things that shape us; into something good. To say, No. I will turn this into more life.” – Brian Kershisnik regarding his painting, Descent from the Cross

“This world is for sure going to hurt, and this old world for sure has enough women who know how to do their hair. What it needs is women who know how to do hard and holy things. Women who know they don’t need wonder woman capes like they need to know the God-breathed Word and how to wield it like a sword against all the lying dark.” – Ann Voskamp, @annvoskamp

Seven Stanzas for Easter by John Updike

Make no mistake: if he rose at all
It was as His body;
If the cell’s dissolution did not reverse, the molecule reknit,
The amino acids rekindle,
The Church will fall.

It was not as the flowers,
Each soft spring recurrent;
It was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddled eyes of the
Eleven apostles;
It was as His flesh; ours.

The same hinged thumbs and toes
The same valved heart
That—pierced—died, withered, paused, and then regathered
Out of enduring Might
New strength to enclose.

Let us not mock God with metaphor,
Analogy, sidestepping, transcendence,
Making of the event a parable, a sign painted in the faded
Credulity of earlier ages:
Let us walk through the door.

The stone is rolled back, not papier-mache,
Not a stone in a story,
But the vast rock of materiality that in the slow grinding of
Time will eclipse for each of us
The wide light of day.

And if we have an angel at the tomb,
Make it a real angel,
Weighty with Max Planck’s quanta, vivid with hair, opaque in
The dawn light, robed in real linen
Spun on a definite loom.

Let us not seek to make it less monstrous,
For our own convenience, our own sense of beauty,
Lest, awakened in one unthinkable hour, we are embarrassed
By the miracle,
And crushed by remonstrance.

“I have seen Jesus…He hath talked with me face to face…And…I would commend you to seek this Jesus.” – Moroni, Ether 12: 39, 41

In the PDF, you will find links with more details to a number of Holy Week traditions you can do alone, with your children, or grandchildren, as well as readings for each day of the week, and a brief historical synopsis.

Holy Week Handout – SIS