In him was life, and that life was the light of man.
He dwelt among us.
In an overcrowded town, he is born in a shelter for livestock.
Even as an infant, the world tries to end his life in a blood bath of babies.
In Egypt, already as a small child, he is an exile.
And when he begins his work, those who know him not try to fling him from a precipice
to his death.
Now, each breath he breathes draws him nearer to the clamor of crucifying.
Each stride over this hallowed ground brings him a step closer to gallery.
For three years, Jesus spreads the good news, which is the meaning of the word gospel.
Healing the lame so that we might walk with him.
Giving sight to the blind so that we might see in him the light of the world.
He is one of us, stilling the tempest when we tremble.
Filling our bridal cups with waters blushing into wine.
Making bountiful our catch so that we might become fishers of men.
He is one of us, our friend, our brother, our light.
Yet on several occasions, he walks only a shadow's length from death by stoning.
But he is pelted with stony epithets, defiler of the Sabbath, because he frees the spirit
of the law imprisoned by the letter of the law.
The people are so entangled in legalism that they've lost sight of why God gave them the
law.
The law which blazes the way for the Messiah.
The law's shadow is obscuring the one to whom it points.
When teaching in the temple, Jesus is frequently beset by hostile Pharisees bent on trapping
him.
Once in his presence, these enemies thrust a woman into a circle of men who mean to stone
her.
She had been caught in adultery in the very act.
The law of Moses commands her stoning.
Wanting to trap him, they ask Jesus, what do you say?
At first, Jesus is silent.
If he replies, release her, he is condoning the breaking of Mosaic law.
If he says stone her, he is without compassion.
At last, he speaks.
If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.
When Jesus asks the woman if anyone has condemned her, she answers,
No one, sir.
Then neither do I condemn you.
Go now and leave your life of sin.
For three years, Jesus had brought God to mankind.
Now the time has come when he must bring mankind to God.
Jesus is waiting.
Come to him just as you are.
Is your life filled with despair?
Have you cried till your tears fell like rain?
Have you broken your heart though broken still longs for someone who cares?
There is one faithful and true through the night.
Every time that you cried out in pain, he was there beside you, gently calling your
name.
Come as you are this very moment.
Surrender your heart and all that you have to him.
Come as you are.
Jesus is waiting.
Come to him just as you are.
The sacrifice for which he came into the world must be fulfilled.
Jesus is the perfect sacrifice.
The Lamb of God committed to doing his Father's will even unto death.
For the last time he sets out for Jerusalem, the City of God.
A sacred tapestry woven of the threads of history from the lengths of antiquity to the
knotty strands of its unpredictable future.
This is the holy city set among golden hills.
Jerusalem like a bride adorned for her husband.
Throughout time it has been under siege again and again, conquered again and again.
Its name means City of Peace.
It is the city where King David, a thousand years before Christ was born, built an altar
to the Ark of the Covenant.
It is said that the world has ten measures of beauty of which nine belong to Jerusalem.
It is the city of eight gates and no other city on earth so stirs the blood and fires
the imagination.
Jesus had visited Jerusalem before.
The first time he had been a boy of twelve but this was no ordinary boy.
At the temple he astounded the doctors of law with his wisdom and knowledge.
Another time in traveling from Galilee to the holy city he passes through Samaria.
Samaria.
Today's Samaritans are remembered because of Jesus' parable.
But Samaritan has become part of our everyday speech but in Jesus' time Samaritan was tantamount
to despised outcast.
They're hated.
The ancestors of the Samaritans had intermarried with their gentile conquerors the Assyrians.
Samaritans worship differently from the Jews.
Mount Gezerim is their Jerusalem.
On the outskirts of Nablus, Samaria's largest city, is the place where the patriarch Jacob,
Abraham's grandson, pitched his tents.
This church is built over Jacob's ancient well.
It is at Jacob's well that Jesus, thirsty and tired on his journey to Jerusalem, stops
to rest.
It's noon.
People are staying in their houses to avoid the midday heat.
A Samaritan woman, a woman with a history of casual relationships with men, comes to
Jacob's well to draw water.
She lowers her eyes when she sees Jesus.
Jesus asks,
Will you give me a drink?
She's surprised and a bit suspicious perhaps.
Surprised that a Jew would ask a despised Samaritan for water.
For anything.
Usually they wouldn't even speak to them.
If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have
asked him and he would have given you living water.
She takes Jesus to be a prophet.
There are many things she doesn't understand.
But then when the Messiah comes, he will explain everything to us.
And Jesus says,
I who speak to you, am he.
Others have spurned this woman, but Jesus accepts her and she accepts him, as do many
Samaritans.
But can this woman grasp what awaits the Messiah in Jerusalem?
Jerusalem has always been God's altar of sacrifice.
Today this massive golden dome, Harem e Sharif, covers the summit of Mount Moriah.
From here, Muslims believe, the prophet Mohammed ascended into heaven.
It enshrines this sacred rock on which Abraham prepared to sacrifice his son Isaac to prove
his faithfulness to the God of Israel.
But the Lord stayed to the knife and Isaac was spared.
That sacrifice will now be reenacted, father and son.
This time the victim will not be spared.
In the company of his disciples and with the dire prediction of his death, he turns his
face towards Jerusalem for the last time.
The first leg of the journey takes them through Jericho, believed to be the oldest city in
the world.
Being the oldest city in the world, today's Jericho continues to be the site of archaeological
exploration.
It's an oasis in the barren valley of the lower Jordan.
In Old Testament times, when Jericho was a Canaanite stronghold, its walls were encircled
by Joshua and the children of Israel.
With a shout and a blast of trumpets, its walls came tumbling down.
Here in Jericho, people have heard much of Jesus the healer.
A crowd surges after him.
Jesus of Nazareth is here.
Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me.
Be quiet.
Son of David, have mercy on me.
It is a blind beggar reaching out to Jesus.
Because of his faith, Jesus restores his sight.
On this last journey to Jerusalem, Jesus stops at Bethany on the outskirts of the city.
This church stands on the site of the house of Lazarus and his sisters, Martha and Mary.
Lazarus had been ill.
By the time Jesus got to Bethany, he had been dead for four days.
As is the custom, Lazarus' body is washed, then embalmed with ointments and perfumes.
This anointing is one of the few acts allowed on the Sabbath.
Then it is wrapped in a spice-scented shroud.
The face is covered with a cloth.
Within eight hours, the funeral takes place.
There is much tearing of clothes in the procession.
Wailing mixes with the playing of flutes, for the Jews love music.
Painting and sculpture are forbidden them, so their artistic drive is channeled into
music.
Lazarus' sisters, Martha and Mary, had torn their garments and covered all their mirrors.
They are in seven days of mourning.
It is Martha who greets Jesus.
If you had been here, my brother wouldn't have died.
Your brother will rise again.
I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.
I am the resurrection and the life.
He who believes in me will live even though he dies, and whoever lives and believes in
me will never die.
Take away the stone.
These steps lead to the actual tomb, where Lazarus lay dead.
Lazarus, come out.
The dead man rises.
He is bound with grave cloths.
But he is alive.
In raising Lazarus, Jesus offers proof of his words to Martha, I am the resurrection.
In Bethany, six days before Passover begins, Jesus attends a banquet in his honor with
Lazarus and Mary and Martha serving.
It is a sumptuous affair.
Israelites are known for their good cooking and use of spices, savory vegetables, stuffed
grape leaves, one of the most ancient of Middle Eastern foods, pitted dates filled with almonds,
rice which was introduced to the Holy Land by Alexander the Great.
During the feast, Mary anoints Jesus' feet with a costly perfume.
Then she wipes his feet with her hair.
Only one disciple objects to this extravagance.
Judas is gaiot.
The raising of Lazarus sets off a wild fire of talk.
Jesus is winning more and more followers.
Among the prominent, among the leaders, the chief priests and the high priest Caiaphas
convene a council.
What are they to do?
If they let Jesus be, the whole nation will follow him.
Rome will get into it.
Rome will punish the whole nation because of this Jesus.
It is better that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish.
Jesus is a wanted man.
His name may be posted in public places, condemned.
He's no longer free to wander among the Jews.
The temple guards have orders to arrest him on sight.
So he and his disciples go into hiding into the wilderness.
It is the tenth day of the Hebrew month of Nisan, when the lambs for sacrifice are set
aside.
Jesus bravely sets out for Jerusalem, and his disciples risk following there.
For the Passover is at hand.
From all over the empire, from the lands of the Aegean, from Carthage to Alexandria, from
Rome itself, Jews come to celebrate the holiest of feasts in Jerusalem.
These are the children whose ancestors were the slaves of Pharaoh.
Then the Lord smote the land of Egypt and its gods.
He destroyed the firstborn sons of the Egyptians, but the children of Israel placed the blood
of freshly slaughtered lambs on their doorposts as a sign of obedience to the Lord.
And the Lord passed over these houses.
In obedience to the Lord's command, Israelites commemorate this event as Passover.
The blood of lambs is a reminder of that fatal night.
But Passover is also a feast.
Throughout the land, ovens are being prepared for the roasting of sacrificed lambs.
Since Passover also commemorates the Jews' exodus from Egypt, it is the feast of unleavened
bread.
When fleeing Egypt, the Israelites had no time for their bread dough to rise, so they
ate unleavened bread.
Now special grain fields are the source of flour for matzah, the unleavened bread of
Passover.
This is the way it is baked in the time of Jesus.
According to tradition, leaven, yeast, symbolizes sin.
So at Passover, one searches one's house for foods made with yeast.
Even the smallest crumb must be found and burned.
Even this dough is kneaded and baked and made ready for the Passover supper.
Jesus is now nearing Jerusalem.
Despite being a religious outcast, his coming draws huge crowds.
Looking down from the Mount of Olives, you can see the route he takes as he rides into
the city.
His reception as he enters through its golden gate is stupendous.
The hopeful, the curious, the grateful and the gawkers are waving palms.
They even hail him as a king.
A king.
Politically, this is a dangerous reception in the land ruled by Romans.
Were it not for the adoring crowds surrounding him, he would have been arrested then and
there.
This lovely tear-shaped church is called Dominus Flevit, which means the Lord Wept, for it
commemorates what Jesus feels as he pauses to gaze at Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives.
He sees the entire city before him, the palaces and towers, the valleys and hills.
He loves this city.
But seeing it now, he weeps.
He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize
him.
Terrible suffering lay ahead of him, and he knows this, for it had been foretold by the
prophet Isaiah seven hundred years before.
The Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
Jesus does not weep for what lay ahead for him, he weeps for Jerusalem, because he foresees
a time when this city will be destroyed and left with not one stone standing on another.
It is the Monday of Passover week.
Jews from everywhere keep pouring into the city, heady with a kind of spiritual excitement.
Already pillars of smoke arising from the altars of the temple.
This day, risking a rest, Jesus goes to the temple to teach.
Little more remains of the temple that Jesus knew other than this masonry.
This western wall of massive stone blocks rising to a height of fifty-five feet.
Jerusalem's temples had always crowned Mount Moriah.
It was King Solomon who built the first temple, with cedars from Lebanon and copper from the
mines of Tinner.
Its wall reached the slopes of Ophel and the Pool of Siloam.
The gun in 955 BC, it stood a magnificent royal sanctuary for 368 years.
Babylon destroyed it.
King Herod the Great, who made Jerusalem one of the most splendid cities of the ancient
world, completed the new temple.
It took him forty-six years.
In architectural splendor, Herod's temple far surpasses Solomon's.
It can hold two amphitheaters the size of Rome's Colosseum.
Its platform takes up one sixth of the city.
In constructing it stone by stone, a thousand priests had to be trained as masons so that
the building site would not be defiled.
Now the temple overlooks the entire city.
All Jewry lives in its shadow.
A good Jew is obliged to visit the temple three times a year to be seen by God.
Thus, each step towards it is a path for pilgrims.
The path is varied, over bridges, through tunnels, up staircases.
The huge court of the Gentiles forming the outer closure of the sanctuary is open to
Jew and Gentile alike.
Here all people, Jews and non-Jews, can worship the one true God.
And here doves and sheep and oxen are sold for sacrifice.
It is to this temple and its splendor and glory that Jews from three continents come
to honor the God of Abraham.
And it is this temple that Jesus compares with his own body when he says,
''Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.''
Though the guards are on the watch for him, on Monday morning, Jesus goes openly to the
temple, which he regards as his father's house.
He teaches in the court of Gentiles, but he's appalled by the way it's been commercialized.
It's a market.
Foreign coins being exchanged for temple currency with which to buy lambs and doves for sacrifice.
He is here to call people to their prophetic faith, but here piety is being turned into
profit.
My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations, but you have made it a den
of robbers.
He drives out the money changers, bodily.
With his more astonished pilgrims, he overturns cash tables fearlessly and with great authority.
His father has been insulted, and he is furious.
And he has the audacity to remain, to heal the blind and the lame.
Children are calling after him.
While the temple guards are held back like dogs on a leash, the authorities are afraid
to have him arrested, afraid of riots.
To the masses of people crowding into Jerusalem, Jesus is a hero.
Common people hang on every word he utters, so the authorities bide their time.
That night, Jesus returns to Bethany.
Under cover of darkness, one of the twelve secretly contacts the temple guard captain
who takes him to the priests.
He offers to alert them of the first opportunity when Jesus is alone and vulnerable, so that
he can be arrested without rioting from the masses.
A purse is given, thirty pieces of silver.
Thursday of the Passover.
Jesus sends two into the city.
There he says they are to look for a man carrying a water pot.
An unusual sign, because in Jesus' day, men never carried water pots.
Women did this work.
Follow him.
Enter the house that he goes into.
Find the owner of the house and tell him, my master says, my appointed time is near.
I am going to celebrate the Passover with my disciples at your house.
This is how the arrangements are made for the supper.
Many believe that this is the site of the Cenacle of the Last Supper.
This rambling old building holds what is believed to be King David's tomb as well.
This is the upper room, the Cenacle, where the supper begins.
I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer.
Here Jesus and his chosen twelve partake of lamb roasted on a spit of pomegranate wood,
of roasted eggs, bitter herbs, unleavened bread.
To the twelve, Jesus is their teacher, their rabbi.
As his learners, which is what the word disciple means, they attend to their teacher's every
need.
But something they are never expected to do is to wash their teacher's feet.
Yet while they daydream of high places in the coming kingdom, Jesus assumes the place
of a lowly servant.
He washes their feet.
Blessed art thou, O Lord, our God, King of the universe.
During this supper, Jesus takes bread and breaks it.
Take and eat.
This is my body.
Then he blesses a cup of wine.
Drink from it, all of you.
This is my blood of the covenant.
He shocks them when he foretells that one of their number will betray him.
Judas quietly slips away.
With the eleven who remain, Jesus shares his deepest thoughts.
He will suffer, but be exalted.
His greatest humiliation will be the hour of his glory.
Now he foretells that Simon Peter will deny him before the cock crows.
This is Gethsemane.
Then as now, a lovely garden.
Here stand olive trees so gnarled with age that they may have been saplings when Jesus
came here to pray.
Here his chosen felt drowsy, while he felt agony.
Overlooking Gethsemane today is the church of all nations.
The façade is graced with Byzantine-style mosaics.
Its twelve domes stand for the twelve nations that contributed to its construction.
It holds what is believed to be the rock at which Jesus prayed in his agony in the garden.
That Thursday night, after the Passover meal, Jesus comes here with the eleven.
They are sleepy, and he implores them to stay awake, to keep watch with him, but they keep
dozing off.
Here in this lovely grove, Jesus is stung by the dread of what is to come.
By an inner agony, wandering further into the garden, his heart is near to bursting
with grief.
Abba, Father, take this cup from me.
Get not what I will, but what you will.
His work is coming to an end, and he is giving all that the Father asks of him.
Out of the darkness, Judas Iscariot appears.
Judas kisses him, identifying him as the Master, and a band of temple guards grab him.
Every day I was with you, teaching in the temple courts, and you did not arrest me.
But the scriptures must be fulfilled.
They lead him away, a prisoner.
Peter follows his Master at a distance, as the guards march Jesus to the house of the
High Priest.
This is St. Peter's Church in Jerusalem.
It's a reminder that just a few hours before the arrest was made in Gethsemane, Jesus had
warned,
It is written, I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered.
Peter had protested.
Even if I have to die with you, I will never disown you.
Simon Peter, this very night before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times.
He waits in the courtyard, huddling around a warming fire with some servants, while Jesus'
words haunt him.
Before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times.
A servant woman stares at him through the firelight.
You also were with that Nazarene Jesus?
I don't know or understand what you're talking about.
The death cellar was one of them.
I am not.
Surely you're one of them.
You're a Galilean.
I don't know this man you're talking about.
Peter breaks down and weeps.
The rooster's crow sounds the beginning of one of the strangest trials in the history
of humankind.
They want him dead.
The chief priests, the high priest himself, Caiaphas, the high priest, has hurriedly summoned
these priests from their homes and beds to condemn this outlaw.
Caiaphas asks bluntly, Are you the Christ, the son of the Blessed
One?
And Jesus answers, I am.
Blasphemy, cries the high priest.
You all heard him say it.
What do you think?
Should they condemn him as worthy of death?
The clamor for Jesus' death increases and Judas repenting his betrayal hangs himself.
It is early Friday morning.
The Emergency Council of Priests has pronounced a death sentence it has no power to carry
out.
This power is firmly invested in the Roman procurator, so the condemned is hurried to
the house of Pontius Pilate.
Their ploy is to paint Jesus as a threat to Rome.
He urges our people not to pay their taxes to Rome.
He claims to be our messiah, a king.
Are you king of the Jews?
Yes, it is, as you say.
I find no basis for a charge against this man.
Pilate is reluctant.
He doesn't want a medal in the Jews' religious squabbles.
When Pilate learns that Jesus is a Galilean, he squirms out of the situation, he thinks.
He refers the case to Rome's man in Galilee, the Tetrarch Herod Antipas, who is in Jerusalem
for Passover.
Jesus?
The Tetrarch is eager to get a look.
He's heard all sorts of stories about this Jesus.
He had hoped to see him perform some miracle.
But Jesus remains silent, and this infuriates Herod Antipas.
He mocks this self-proclaimed king.
He drapes him in a royal robe and has him shunted back to Pilate.
Pilate's wife is convinced that this Jesus is innocent.
She's been told so in a dream.
And the governor himself informs the chief priests that after examination he finds the
prisoner guiltless of any crime against the Roman government.
So lackeys in the pay of the priests are set to stirring a mob into a bloodlust.
The fortress of Antonia.
This is the way it looked during the time of Jesus.
A Hasmonean fort rebuilt by Herod the Great.
From its towers the Romans can survey everything in the area.
Today the Church of the Sisters of Zion roofs the fort's pavement on which Pontius Pilate
judged Jesus.
Here incised in a paving stone is a game of kings, a gambling pastime popular with the
Roman troops.
Now at the insistence of the priests, Jesus is being led to Pilate's judgment seat for
a second time.
It is a custom here for the Roman procurator to free a condemned criminal in honor of the
Passover.
The mob clamors for the release of Barabbas, a murderous thief.
Pilate's inner urging tells him to free Jesus and there's this urgent message from his wife.
Don't have anything to do with that innocent man.
I have suffered a great deal today in a dream because of him.
It's a mindless mob he faces, orchestrated to shout what they've been told.
Shall I crucify your king?
We have no king but Caesar.
The mob keeps hammering, free Barabbas and crucify Jesus.
To avoid a riot and a possible bad report to the emperor, Pilate orders the execution.
And tries to wash his hands of the whole affair.
Jesus is turned over to the rough Roman guards for flogging.
He is flogged with a Roman scourge called a flagellum of two or three thongs studded
with pieces of lead to tear the skin.
Before these roughnecks are through, they're having sport with this joke of a king, forcing
a hastily made crown of thorns onto his head.
He is made to drag the instrument of his execution, a heavy cross, through these streets.
Each crushing fall to the paving stones, each agony is forged into our memory.
At Easter time, Christians from all over the earth are drawn to these dark, narrow lanes
to bear their own crosses over the cobble, worn smooth by centuries of pilgrims.
To walk where he walked to the last, in the knowledge that it is they, humankind, who
are responsible for his death.
Romans clear the way.
He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and familiar with suffering.
A bystander, a man from Cyrene named Simon, who has just come to Jerusalem from the country,
is caught up in the grim procession.
He sees Jesus fall under the weight of the cross.
A Roman bullies him into shouldering the deadweight cross.
Him, a mere Gorka, in the trailing crowd are many grief-stricken women.
At last Jesus turns to them and says, Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me.
Weep for yourselves and for your children.
It is happening.
Now, the seven hundred year old prophecy of Isaiah.
He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth.
He was led like a lamb to the slaughter.
He believed that this is the place of execution, this hill, Calvary.
In Hebrew, Golgotha, the place of the skull.
Roman law orders crucifixion for non-Romans and slaves, and then only for the most terrible
of crimes.
It is the most agonizing form of execution known to Romans.
A sign board is fixed on the cross, announcing in Latin and Greek and Aramaic, Jesus of the
people of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.
Father, forgive them, for they know not what they are doing.
Mary Magdalene and other women are standing near the cross.
When Jesus sees his mother standing near his disciple John, he calls to her.
Dear woman, here is your son.
And to John, he says, Here is your mother.
Men in the military are given to gambling, and these Romans, no exception, are now throwing
dice at Jesus' clothes, while others stand around joking.
Come down from that cross if you are the son of God.
That morning two criminals, thieves, are crucified as well, one on either side of Jesus.
One of them scoffs.
Aren't you the Christ?
Save yourself, and us.
The other confesses that the two of them deserve this death, but that Jesus is innocent.
Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.
Today you will be with me in paradise.
Though it is only known, the sky begins to darken as though night were falling.
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
The mockers and gawkers think he has called on the prophet Elijah.
Let's see if Elijah comes to take him down.
It is darkness at noon.
I'm thirsty.
When Jesus calls for water, they try to force on him sour wine.
At about three that afternoon, Jesus bows his head and breathes his last.
Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.
A storm rages.
The earth shakes, and the curtain shielding the holy of holies of the temple is torn in
two.
A Roman soldier pierces the corpse with a spear.
Blood gushes out, and water.
The Roman officer in charge of the execution, a centurion, comments, surely this man was
the son of God?
In his death is victory.
He paid our debt.
Seven hundred years before this event, it was prophesied.
He was crushed for our iniquities.
The punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds are we healed.
There is in the Kidron Valley of Jerusalem a communal grave for paupers.
Jesus owned nothing.
It seems possible that his corpse might have been flung into a pauper's grave, but the
prophets foresaw that it would be otherwise.
A rich man from Arimathea named Joseph, a secret disciple, summons all his courage and
goes to Pilate and pleads for custody of the body.
Pilate gives in.
Again Isaiah's seven hundred year old prophecy is being fulfilled.
He was assigned a grave with the wicked and with the rich in his death.
The tomb that Joseph of Arimathea offers is newly hewn out of rock.
As with Lazarus, Jesus must be entombed shortly after death.
Today, particularly, there is no time to tarry.
It's Friday.
Sundown marks the beginning of the Sabbath.
Again, as with Lazarus, the body is washed and shrouded in linen.
Later, Mary Magdalene will want to embalm the body in an ointment of aloes and resin
called myrrh.
Myrrh for embalming the dead.
It was one of the gifts carried to the infant Jesus by the three Magi.
Joseph and the other followers carried the corpse to Joseph's family tomb.
This church was built in the 12th century by crusaders.
The first church to stand here had been built by the emperor Constantine in the 4th century.
It is the final station of the Way of the Cross.
The church of the Holy Sepulcher.
It is certain that it holds the tomb where Jesus was laid.
During Jesus' lifetime, this was indeed an area of tombs.
And the belief that this is the authentic tomb goes back as far as the first century.
A later discovery is this Sepulcher, now known as the Garden Tomb, near a skull-shaped rock.
Many believe that it is here that Jesus was entombed.
What we know for certain is that the place was in a garden and near Golgotha.
A great stone is rolled across the entrance and the tomb is sealed at the demand of the
priests.
But they are taking no chances.
Guards are posted.
The first night of the first day, the night of the Sabbath, is markedly uneventful.
The second day is increasingly tedious and hot.
But the night is chilly.
Then the dawn of the third day.
We have been told of an unusual autopsy.
Church.
As the new day dawns, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary are on their way to the tomb.
They're fretting. How can they roll aside the huge stone at the entrance,
so that they can embalm the body with the ointments they've brought?
Something is wrong.
The stone has been rolled away. The Roman seal is broken. The tomb is empty.
Do not be afraid, for I know you are looking for Jesus.
He is not here. He has risen.
The women flee, frightened, but bursting with fear.
Frightened, but bursting with joy.
I come here to proclaim he is risen again, risen again.
And there's no other name that's given to men, given to men, by which they might enter heaven.
And I rejoice to tell you he's coming again, coming again.
Oh, hear his voice, he'll tell you.
Be born again. I stand at the door.
I want to enter. Know that I'm for you.
He wants you just to surrender your will and to trust he's a friend.
He'll do all he can do, and he won't be through till all is new.
Anything I am that's in any way right was wrought by his skillful hand.
No matter who I am, when I stand in his light, I know I will understand.
I am something when I'm with him in my heart.
Now I can see he's all I ever dreamed would be.
And if I can't admit he's risen again, risen again,
then I am to be pitied more than all men, more than all men, for my hope is all barely in vain.
But I know that he's risen. Yes, I know that he's risen.
I know that he's risen again. I know that he's risen again.
Suddenly Jesus is there in front of them.
Jesus shows himself first to the women, the Magdenain.
They had been steadfast throughout his ordeal, while his disciples hid themselves and despaired.
Though the temple priests claim that the body has been stolen, news spreads of the resurrection.
Emmaus is some seven and a half miles from Jerusalem.
Here two who had been disciples are discussing the sad turn of events.
A stranger appears to them.
They speak together.
As evening draws near, they invite the stranger to supper.
It is at the table as the stranger breaks bread and blesses it that they see, truly see,
the stranger is Jesus, the risen Christ.
Still those closest to him, the eleven apostles, stay in hiding.
They fear the temple leaders.
Suddenly Jesus is standing there among them.
Some, such as Thomas, cannot believe their eyes.
Why, now the others are convinced and joyful.
Yet Thomas must finger a wound.
My Lord and my God.
Galilee.
A church stands over the place where Jesus meets with these closest disciples.
Apostles for the last time.
Here the eleven await him.
They wait.
At last Peter says, I'm going out to fish.
By dawn they are on the water fishing from a boat.
Day breaks.
They find themselves squinting at someone on the beach.
Haven't you any fish?
No.
Throw your net on the right.
There are so many fish that they can hardly draw in the net.
John's straining his eyes trying to make out who the stranger is.
Suddenly he shouts,
It is the Lord.
Peter plunges into the water and swims for shore.
The others stay in the boat pulling the net to land.
Over a small fire they share a breakfast of bread and the freshly caught fish.
With Jesus.
Now his ministry rests on them.
Jesus entrusts them with his work.
As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.
Many believe that it is from here, the ground that this church is built on,
that Jesus was taken up into heaven with a promise to return to this land,
where he walked some two thousand years ago.
And the word was made flesh and dwelt among us.
Of all the earth, God chose this plot of land,
this spiritual bridge joining the worlds of Asia, of Africa, of Europe, and the world.
This is the land God promised.
And God chose these people and spoke through their prophets.
When Jesus walked this land, he never went beyond a hundred miles from Nazareth.
Yet, for two thousand years, he has walked with men and women from the farthest corners of the earth.
I am with you always to the very end of the age.
Thank you.
Amen.