Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, one of you will betray me….
           one who is dipping bread into the bowl with me.”
                        —Mark 14.18, 20

Those times when I feel as guilty as Judas,
Jesus reassures me.
Jesus, as host, has seated Judas next to him.
The seat next to the host of a dinner,
sharing the bowl with him,
is the seat of honor, the highest place.

This is the depth of Jesus’s love,
his absolute forgiveness.
Even as Judas’ heart unravels and he plots evil,
Jesus honors him, seeks friendship with him, and offers grace.
When you feel like Judas, remember
you are affirmed, welcomed, honored—cherished, even—
as you are.
You are invited to share the bowl with Jesus.
You are invited to enter into a closeness that doesn’t depend
on what’s in your heart, or your past, or even your future,
determined solely by Jesus’ perfect love.

There is no test. There are no rankings.
Jesus knows you, knows you are more screwed up
than you think you are, and still says warmly,
“Come sit with me.”

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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The first day of spring,
a day of Hope,
for Hope is not not a wish
for what will happen,
but trust in the unseen
that already is.
I hope the sun will rise
because I know it is already rising.
So it is with all I hope for,
in myself, and in the world.
The cross draws ever nearer,
but my hope is in resurrection,
for even now already,
Christ is rising,
and all the world with him.


And for my friends in the global South:
yes, even on this first day of autumn,
spring is already rising.
Hope!

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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             Those who went ahead and those who followed
             were shouting, “Hosanna!

             Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Holy One!”
                        —Mark 11.9


Barefoot, rag-bound, the shambles of a crowd,
babies on hips, and wounds and knives under cloaks,
we shuffle in. We cry out.
Our lives have ended up like the little bits
at the bottom of coat pockets: fragments, leftovers, shreds,
staggered hopes, fractured possibilities,
bumbled and doomed.
Smutted and smattered, guilty and longing,
we wave our palms in sweaty palms.
Yes, our prayers will soon turn sour,
branches, like praise, soon trodden.
Smug, having seen us five days later, you may scoff.
But friends, your prayers, even the finest, are no better.
This is the best we do.
Limping boldly under the emperor’s soldiers’ gaze,
for a moment we see a different kind of hope,
a different kind of king.
Here, for a moment, our cry to be saved is real.
Hosanna: Not “Hooray!” But “Save us, we beg you!”
Yes, we will soon be frightened of our own vision
and flee to the safety of the old headlines and the usual suspects,
nails and hammer waiting.
We know. We cry with hollow praise, yes—
to be saved from our hollowness,
from the infection of our very hosannas.
Even though we don’t know how to ask,
and are too afraid to receive,
please, save us anyway, we beg you, save us.
Hosanna in the highest.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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Gentle One,
I confess my saddest sin,
that I hurt the ones I love.
My deepest wound draws me to them,
but draws me in blood.
Instead of healing the wound I repeat it,
and they bear it with me.
Heal and bless those I hurt.
Give me courage to witness my own wound.
Open me to your deep healing; forgive me;
and transform me, that my wound may become
a source of wisdom and compassion, not fear.
God, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy.
God, have mercy.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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           You desire truth in the inward being;
           therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart.
                        —Psalm 51.6

Let me sit and watch my inward city,
come to know what lies within, unseen,
the wholeness of the truth of me,
the teeming population
and all their wounds and dances,
all their ancient stories, and love them.
To behold the whole landscape of me,
mountains with memory of seas,
the river of things I’ve done, and not,
and those once done to me.
To come to know the microbiome
of my inward being, the living things
and how they tangle in the jungle of my will.
The beauty and violence, the family bonds
of the wolves who live there.
The creatures that survive by deceit.
The worms that work the sin
and turn it soon enough to soil.
The moss and lichens that fur the stone to sand.
The tendency of all, when left, to rot and rest,
and rise again transformed.
To embrace the mystery, seething,
the underground reaching and touching,
the flowing through the air of life,
the germ and spore, the spirit of it all,
the whole body of my soul.
Teach me, not to pretend to understand,
but to silently witness, to wonder, to trust you there,
and to live wise to that mystery,
true to the grace that flourishes there.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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           Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies,
           it remains just a single grain;
           but if it dies, it bears much fruit.
                           —John 12.24

Beloved,
in love you have thrown the seed of yourself
into the soil of us.
You have sown yourself in the wound of us,
the dark, rich humus of our sorrow and lostness.
You have surrendered yourself to our pain
and the taunting of the demons that haunt us.
You’ve allowed the seed casing of your life to split open,
and your love to bleed out, reaching,
fingering tenderly through the dark soil,
infinite power of life creeping out.
You’ve already said, “Into your hand I commit my spirit.“
You have already died,
and been raised by life that is eternal.

So now you are ready
to ride your little donkey toward us,
Resurrected One, ready to be crucified.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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           Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies,
           it remains just a single grain;
           but if it dies, it bears much fruit.
                                  —John 12.24

          We have been buried with Christ by baptism into death,
          so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead
          by the glory of God, so we too might walk in newness of life.
                                 —Romans 6.4


I am making peace with death, with self-surrender.
But burial—to be forced to be still, utterly shut in and powerless—
this is yet more challenge,
to have no life, not even afterlife,
but what I have in Christ, my coffin.
To be dead is merely difficult.
To be buried with Christ is truly transforming.
Christ, may I die, and my life be buried in you.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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         “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth,
         will draw all people to myself.”
         He said this to indicate the kind of death he was to die.
                   —John 12.32-33

From the earth,
the soil of our open sore,

lifted up on a cross,
on a hill of our piled up pain,

you endure our suffering,
borne up on the threads of our anguish,

drawing us into your broken heart.
No one suffers alone.

We are raised in grace
for which willingly

we are woven into the sorrow of the world,
gathered in you.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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           Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies,
           it remains just a single grain;
           but if it dies, it bears much fruit.
                        —John 12.24

You are not just one seed.
You don’t have to go and die for Jesus.
You are a whole bag of seeds.
Strew yourself in this world.

With every act of kindness or generosity,
every time you forgive,
another seed slips through your fingers.
Every time you care about someone,
even a stranger, especially when it’s risky,
you scatter a handful of seeds.
Let them go.
Toss your love wildly into this world.

Scatter seeds in good soil and poor.
Many will be eaten by birds
or trampled under foot.
But only the ones you throw away will grow.

You have a whole bag of love. Sow it all.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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           …that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.
                        —John 3.16

Eternal life is not living forever. Are you kidding?
You don’t even want the service to go over an hour;
you don’t want to live another 13 billion years, do you?
No, it’s not you who are eternal, it’s the life that is.

Eternal life is not ridiculously long, it’s infinitely deep.
When you trust God enough to receive that love
(our lingo for that is “believe in him”)
you receive God’s infinite, eternal life. Like breathing.
Over and over. Like breathing.
It’s eternal because it’s eternally renewed.

And it’s eternal because it’s yours forever.
Nothing can take it from you, not sin, not death,
not your bad theology or lousy faith.
God keeps giving it to you. Like breathing.

When you love, you join in something infinite.
All you have to do is receive it, and pass it on,
and you outgrow your life. You become
the breathing of God.

Breath in. Breathe out. Now do that with love.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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