The slow work of Resurrection
 
There is a moment after Easter—after the lilies have done their best, after the brass has quieted, after the last triumphant “Alleluia” has floated up and out of the sanctuary—when things get… ordinary again.

The disciples knew something about that.

Resurrection morning was dazzling, bewildering, world-altering. But by that evening, they were back behind locked doors. A week later, they were still trying to make sense of it all. And not long after that, some of them went back to fishing—as if the nets and the water might help them understand what the empty tomb could not yet explain.

It turns out that resurrection is not only something that happens in a moment. It is something that unfolds over time.

We might prefer the sudden kind—the stone rolled away, the grave emptied, the light breaking in all at once. But most of us, if we are honest, experience resurrection more like a slow sunrise than a lightning strike. It comes quietly. Gradually. Almost imperceptibly at first.

A hardened heart softens, just a little.

A long-held grief loosens its grip, not all at once, but enough to let a bit of laughter sneak back in.

A relationship, once written off, shows the faintest sign of healing.
Hope, which had been packed away somewhere deep, begins to stir again—stretching, blinking, unsure but alive.

The slow work of resurrection.

It is not flashy. It does not make headlines. It rarely arrives on cue. But it is no less real for its patience.

In fact, it may be closer to how God usually works.

Jesus does not just burst out of the tomb and disappear into glory. He lingers. He walks with confused disciples on a dusty road. He stands on the shore at daybreak and cooks breakfast. He shows up in locked rooms and meets people exactly where they are—fearful, doubtful, uncertain—and breathes peace into them, one quiet moment at a time.

Resurrection, it seems, is not just about defeating death. It is about restoring life. And restoration takes time.

So if you find yourself this week not quite feeling the full force of Easter joy—if the alleluias seem a little distant already, if life feels more like Friday than Sunday—take heart.

You have not missed it.

You may simply be living in the slow work of resurrection.
Pay attention to the small things. The subtle shifts. The quiet mercies that arrive without fanfare. The ordinary moments that carry, somehow, the unmistakable scent of new life.

Because the same God who raised Jesus from the dead is still at work—patiently, persistently—bringing life out of all the places we had given up for lost.
And sometimes, if you look closely enough, you can see it happening.

Not all at once.

But surely.

Blessings -

Pastor Greg
pastorgreg@lawrencevillepresbyterian.org

The Sound of Palms, Before the Silence

There are certain kinds of noise we welcome without thinking about it. The roar of a crowd. The rustle of leaves. The kind of excitement that rises when something feels like it’s finally going to change.

Palm Sunday is full of that kind of noise.

Branches waving. Voices shouting. Cloaks thrown down like confetti on the road. It is loud in all the ways that feel hopeful – like the beginning of something good, something long-awaited. You can almost hear the relief in it: At last. Here he is.

And yet, if you listen closely, there is another sound underneath it all.
A quieter one.

The sound of a donkey’s hooves on a dusty road.

The sound of a man who knows exactly where this road leads.

The sound of a heart that is not swept up in the crowd because it is already breaking for them.

Because while the crowd is celebrating what they hope will happen, Jesus is carrying what he knows will.

That is the strange holiness of this week.

It begins with cheering, but it moves toward silence.

It begins with branches, but it ends with a cross.

It begins with people who think they understand, and it ends with people who realize they never did.

And still – he comes.

Not because we get it right.

Not because we welcome him properly.

Not even because we stay faithful all the way through.

He comes because that is who he is.

So as we move toward Palm Sunday, maybe the invitation is not just to join the crowd, but to listen more carefully.

To hear both the celebration and the sorrow.

The hope and the cost.

The joy and the love that refuses to turn back.

Because the One who enters Jerusalem does not come to meet our expectations.

He comes to meet us.

Right where we are – waving branches, full of hope, and not yet knowing what love will ask of him… or of us.

See you Sunday!

Pastor Greg
pastorgreg@lawrencevillepresbyterian.org