Doors

This past Sunday I worshiped with a small congregation I had not been with in awhile.  As I sat in the familiar sanctuary and listened to the prayers of the people, I gazed once again upon the cross on the wall. However, in recognition of the Easter season, the horizontal arms of the cross had been draped with a white cloth in such a way that I was reminded of a gentle grandmother holding out a towel for a child getting out of the tub.  I could hear the words from Matthew 11:28, "Come to me, all you who are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest."   I was reminded once again of the One whom I call, "The Welcoming Jesus,"  who greets us with arms outstretched,eyes wide open, and a smiling face. The One who beckons at the ever present cross with the promise that we do not go alone.   

There are many struggles in our world, and I do not dismiss people's sufferings as inconsequential. In just about every direction we turn we can see and experience sorrow, physical pain, mental anguish, deep weariness, fear, and betrayal. There are heavy burdens to bear, and frightening thresholds to cross.  Yet, there are also profound gifts of transformation which ultimately is what the cross is about.  The journey is always to God, and into this realm there is only welcome. 

My thanks to a colleague who shared this poem on his Facebook page yesterday.

Everything Becomes a Door

"We’ll know we have been raised from the dead
when everything becomes a door-
every brick wall
every dead end
every Judas friend
everything we see and smell and taste
everything we think and feel and are
every mountain top and valley bottom
every birth and every death
every joy and every pain
every ecstasy and infidelity-
when every single thing
becomes a door
that opens to eternity
and we pass through
as we could never do before.
And then we’ll wonder why
we’ve spent so many years
just stopping at these doors;
why we’ve always pulled up short,
and turned around,
and walked away,
instead of passing through."

-- Francis Dorff