Easter Sunday 2013

Spring

Mary Oliver

Faith
is the instructor.
We need no other.

Guess what I am,

 He says in his
incomparably lovely
young-man voice.

 
Because I love the world
I think of grass,
I think of leaves
and the bold sun,

 
I think of the rushes
in the black marshes
just coming back
from under the pure white
and now finally melting
stubs of snow.

 
Whatever we know or don’t know
leads us to say;
Teacher, what do you mean?
But faith is still there, and silent.

Then He who owns
the incomparable voice
suddenly flows upward
and out of the room
and I follow,
obedient and happy.

Of course I am thinking
the Lord was once young
and will never in fact be old.

And who else could this be, who goes off
down the green path,
carrying His sandals, and singing?

Image source 

Wayne Neal :  Jesus at Jerusalem

In Oscar Wilde's play Salome, when Herod hears reports that Jesus of Nazareth has been raising the dead.

" I do not wish him to do that, " says Herod. " I forbid him to do that. I allow no man to raise the dead. This man must be found and told that I forbid him to raise the dead."

The author T. Wright says, " There is the bluster of the tyrant who knows his power is threatened, and I hear the same tone of voice not just in the politicians who want to carve up the world to their advantage, but in the intellectual traditions that have gone along for the ride. Wright says : "But Wilde's next haunting line is the real crunch, for us as for Herod. 

" Where is this man ?" demands Herod.

" He is in every place, my lord," replies the courtier, " but it is hard to find him."