Now the Green Blade Rises

On this Good Friday, I invite you to  read the moving reflection by Quinn Caldwell, one of our UCC Pastors (below), read the text from Mark for Sunday. And then, plant Jesus.  Plant him in your heart, think of ways to plant him in our church and in our community and in the world. Then we will all be the Easter people we were meant to be! Blessings for today and for all the days ahead, Laura Lee

Beaten.

Mocked.

Imprisoned.

Underestimated.

A savior to millions.

Also a mother, also a scientist, also the first East African woman to earn a Ph.D., also the first African woman to win a Nobel Peace Prize.  Also a Christian.

When Wangari Maathai, of blessed memory, looked around her native Kenya in the 1970s, she saw two things: she saw millions of women with almost no way to support themselves or their families in a patriarchal culture.  And she saw arid death taking over her homeland; decades of poor land management had allowed the desert to advance further and further, swallowing thousands of acres of formerly arable land.  She began paying women to raise and plant tree seedlings.  Many (mostly men) laughed at her at first, saying that what those women put into that dead, arid place would be swallowed by it forever.

But the trees slowly took the dead places and made them green and full of life again.  They grew, the programs grew, the women grew and became the Green Belt Movement.  Now the trees aren't holding the desert back any more; these days, they're driving it back.

They thought they were burying Jesus when they put him in that desert tomb.  They thought he would stay in there forever.  But here's what they learned, what they taught Wangari Maathai, what she taught the ladies of the Green Belt Movement: they weren't burying Jesus that day; they were planting him.  And when he sprang up green and fresh, he took that dead, arid place and filled it with life.

He's been driving the desert back ever since.

Texts for This Week:

+ Isaiah 25:6-9
Psalm 118:1-2,14-24

I Corinthians 15:1-11

*Mark 16:1-8

Note: The texts in bold type will be read in the worship service and the one with an asterisk will be used as the focus for the proclamation of the word.