The title of today’s post is about preachers on Easter Sunday, but it’s also an appropriate description of the Dallas Stars as they begin the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs the day after tomorrow. The Stars closed out the regular season in Nashville last night by losing their seventh straight game. It’s the longest losing streak in more than a decade for a team most considered favorites to represent the Western Conference in the Stanley Cup Finals.
They’re in a bad way right now. Through these dreadful seven games, the Stars have been outscored 34-18 and out-shot by an average of 36-26 per game. They got Tyler Seguin back last night after he’s missed almost five months following hip surgery, but they lost Jason Robertson for the last half of the game with a fluke knee injury.
I don’t think you can just flip a switch Saturday and immediately remedy everything that’s gone so wrong the past three weeks with the Stars’ defense, their power play, their penalty kill, and blowing third period leads. I think momentum means something heading into the playoffs, especially when you’re facing the dreaded and feared Avalanche.
I’m hoping Robo’s knee issue is minor and won’t limit him for the postseason. I’m also hoping that my attitude and expectations will improve between now and Saturday night’s playoff opener. Right now, none of it feels very good.
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Reinhold Niebuhr is quoted as saying that he would always attend a “high church” on Easter Sunday where there would be great music but very little preaching. In his view, “No preacher is up to the task on Easter.” I think he’s probably right.
John Updike wrote a poem called “Seven Stanzas of Easter” that perfectly and beautifully captures every preacher’s frustration leading up to Easter Sunday. One of the lines is “Let us not mock God with metaphor and analogy / sidestepping transcendence / let us walk through the door.”
It is a waste of time to try to explain the resurrection of Jesus. Some things can’t be reduced to an explanation and are greatly diminished in the process of trying. The task on Easter is proclamation, not explanation. On Easter, we preachers should offer an invitation to walk through the door, into a brand new world, where the ultimate reality is not death and dying, but everlasting life in the God Almighty of love and grace who brought our Lord Jesus out of the grave.
Proclaim the resurrection–that’s what the apostles did. And that’s what we need to do Sunday.
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I’m really looking forward to our annual 4Midland Maundy Thursday service this evening, hosted this year by our brothers and sisters at First Methodist. We’re changing things up a bit tonight with more of a Tenebrae vibe than a Maundy Thursday vibe. We’re not sharing the communion meal, deciding instead to focus on the events following that last supper, from our Lord’s prayers in the Garden of Gethsemane, through the trials and the crucifixion, to his burial. The service will flow from the Scriptures, lots and lots of Scripture, punctuated with dramatic visual and audio effects to immerse us in the sacred story. The combined choirs of our four churches will bless us with some special music, but we’re also going to sing some old familiar hymns together like O Sacred Head, When I Survey the Wondrous Cross, and Jesus Keep Me Near the Cross.
Anytime our four churches get together for worship or service, it’s a powerful witness to our city that our Lord lived, died, and was raised to eternal life to break down all the barriers between us and him and between us and one another. That will happen again tonight and it will be glorious. By God’s grace and his Holy Spirit, we’re also going to be drawn closer to our Lord this evening. And to each other.
If you live anywhere in the Permian Basin, I invite you to join us at 7:00 this evening at First Methodist in Midland.
I thank God for our 4Midland partnership, for the holy friendships I enjoy so much with these three pastors, and for the ways our churches are learning from one another and growing together in Christ.
Peace,
Allan
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