Unfolding Light

             “Unless I see the mark
             of the nails in his hands,
             and put my hand in his side…”
                         —John 20.25

Thomas, you are not doubting,
you are reaching

deep into Jesus’ pain,
pain you have caused,

into your own pain, your loss,
the wound of your own betrayals,

feeling the marks of the nails
in your own trembling hands.

Not till you’ve felt what you’ve done
can you know it forgiven.

A laying on of hands
for the wounded—both of you.

Reach, Thomas, stretch out your hand,
and feel the scars of your Beloved,

and of yourself, reach out, reach
deeper, lay your hand upon this broken world,

still wounded, yes, yet raised from death,
alive, forgiving, and made whole.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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You know of forests rising
and sinking into themselves.
You know of breaking yourself open
and letting the secret miracle
flow from within.
Your creatures pass through
the valley of shadows,
caterpillars that entomb themselves,
decay, and turn to mush
before emerging, changed,
rain and rivers that become seas,
seeds and tadpoles that become
something other that what they were.
The tree that surrenders its fruit
so that there may be trees.
You know of life falling like leaves
into death, to become life.
On your back you carry us
wrapped in streams and currents
of self-giving that breathe in and out.
You hold us with a gravity
that is something like love.
You know our demands, our cruelty,
the marks of the nails in your hands,
and yet you forgive, and give,
and give, that we may live.
O Earth, Word of God made flesh,
teach us of resurrection.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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That broken morning it was clear
all that talk about mercy went nowhere,
and God had lost out to the power of evil.
Crushed by how badly love had failed,
afraid for whatever came next, we went to the grave
to anoint him with oils and ourselves with tears.
But he wasn’t there.
                                      He wasn’t there.
Instead, an angel, who cocked her head at us.
“Why y’all weeping? Failure? Fear?
Hm. No such thing,” she said,
solemnly swinging incense around us
and our pitiful little handful of love,
as if over the holiest thing.
“Some things just don’t die.”
With the smile of a comforting mother
whose kid thinks she’s hurt worse than she is,
she said, “Honey child, you have no idea,”
and walked off, all casual, grinning, swinging incense
and swinging her hips like she knew something,
singing a little tune.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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God of love and grief,
the Empire seems to have won.
Forces of domination
have crushed our hopes.
We weep. We mourn what is lost.
And we take sabbath time,
grave time, time to be, and not to do,
to let your grace be our only hope.
Crucified One, Holy Murdered One,
dead and buried God,
in the awful silence is the space
where your mystery gathers,
already moving
toward what is next.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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          By a perversion of justice he was taken away.
                                                 —Isaiah 53.8

We stand by as he is detained,
one who has done no wrong
but upset the rulers.
He disappears into their machine.
Horror seeps in like night,
like leaking ink, like a disease.
We will never have their power,
the weapons, the armor.
(But you can feel the urge, no?)
We have only love and anguish, and guilt.
Warming ourselves by the fire,
our silence screaming out,
we had wanted to be safe from them,
but we are not safe
from our betrayals and denials,
our weakness, and our shame.
Our violence nailed up for all to see.
Our neighbor, our victim, our damnation.
There is no undoing this:
this is our doing, our undoing,
so wrong, all of it, all of us so wrong.
Guilt and grief and terror in our veins,
we watch, unable to watch,
desperate for courage, or at least forgiveness.
For a moment, not meaning to,
we imagine being in his place— — …
We shudder and look down.
There is no saving here, is there?

From the cross flows blood, and all his life,
and love, infinite love.






Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve

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

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             He took off his outer robe,
             and tied a towel around himself…
             and began to wash the disciples’ feet.
                         —John 13. 4-5

Beloved, preparing to confront
the Powers on high, a reed against an axe,

you do not gather strength,
you empty yourself, becoming even less,

the smoke of incense no chains can hold,
a song no sword can stab.

You take the lowest place, kneeling
before us who would kneel to you,

a menial laborer, a servant, a nobody,
whose work will amount to nothing

in the kingdom of kings,
but treasure in the realm of friends.

You wash our feet of the dust of high places,
the weariness of being effective.

You baptize us in the grace of little acts of love
even under the boot of the Empire.

You pour yourself out and bathe us
in your nobodiness,

that we may trust your ocean of power
in our most insignificant deeds.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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            “Satan has demanded to sift all of you like wheat,
            but I have prayed for you that your own faith may not fail;
            and you, when once you have turned back,
            strengthen your companions.”
                         —Luke 22.31-32


Our hardest challenge is still to come:
all we trust, in crisis; all we love, at risk.
He knows our follies and our frailty.

But the Beloved is not demanding;
no, the One who holds the stars
is praying for us, lending us his heart.

For even as we fail, sustained
by strength that’s not our own,
we’re called to carry on.

He holds our imperfections
and our gross defections
in already nail-scarred hands,

and bids us strengthen one another
for the road ahead, with love
to contradict the Powers that harm.

It’s likely we shall know that harm
and suffer some, be sifted clean of all
we grasp and all we love but love.

And yet the one who’s sifted with us
still remains, and bears our scars,
and with forgiveness grants us grace

to witness and to serve and guide each other,
lifted in his love that now is ours,
fine-sifted, then, made pure and whole and strong.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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O Lamb,
there is no blood
that is not yours,

no guilt passed on,
and passed on again,
that is not ours.

Centurions, we stand bloodied
over the steaming carcass
and stammer.

Your uncomplaining blood
washes us
of doing this again.

The angel of death,
who would use us to wound,
passes over.

Through the Red Sea of your tears
we go with your blessing,
on washed, forgiven feet.

Holy One, Lord of Tenderness,
slaughtered and ever beseeching,
spare us from our deathfulness.

Forgiving One,
unreturning our violence,
set us free.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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Now then, put down your palms.
This is the astonishing story of ruin,
a devastating drama of weakness and failure.
Our Savior will attain no victory.
He will defy the Empire of Fear.
We will deny him.
The Empire will have its way.
We will be left with humiliation and sorrow.
Broken bread, shared with betrayers.
Spilled wine, not understood yet.
Hymns drowned out by taunts and curses.
Palms crushed under crowds chanting for death.
The Emperor’s order,
and the fear with which we put him up to it.
Blood and nails in our otherwise empty hands.
On washed feet we run away.

This is the horrible good news,
the awful grace that redeems our lives
by taking them out of our hands.
We are shattered. And in that, in that,
God is present—embodied and powerful.
Our rebellion against love is complete,
and Love overthrows it all.

The Beloved is inside our suffering and our evil
and from there, nowhere lofty, loosens it,
forgives and heals, makes of our grave a womb,
and with terrifying gentleness invites us in.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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             “This is my body.”
                                       —Luke 19.19


The ancients fought over how literally
the Communion bread becomes Jesus’ body.
But Paul says when we eat we should
“discern the body.” So look around
and perceive: we are the body of Christ.
The bread becomes Jesus’ flesh
not when some priest says some magic words,
but when we share. When we love each other
we take Jesus’ flesh into ourselves.
Christ is raised not as an individual
but as a community.
The story of Jesus’ passion, then,
is our story: to embody courageous love,
to stand against Empire for mercy and justice,
to be willing to be broken, to be scorned,
and to fail…
and to be raised again in a new form.
Feast on this mystery, take courage,
and go in love.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
Listen to the audio recording: