From The Pulpit To The Balcony
Written by Pastor Rich

A corporal is a white linen cloth upon which the communion elements are placed when we celebrate the Eucharist. This corporal is a beautiful piece of fabric, a square, upon which a Cross is embroidered. This Sunday past, after our early morning liturgy was completed, as I was cleaning-up and preparing for the next service, I noticed a small dark mark on the otherwise brightly white corporal. More than that, the little mark was scurrying across the cloth, and I came to see that it was, egad, a spider!

This unanticipated appearance of an arachnid in an otherwise holy place struck me as both comical, the little thing seemed to be running for its life, and also deeply illuminating, in a theological sort of way. For, are we not all like that little insect, hanging around where we don’t belong, running for our lives across the sacredness of God? We can be sinful marks upon the goodness of God’s Creation, a profane speck spoiling the unmitigated beauty of the universe.

I left the spider go on its merry way, other webs to spin into being, important things to accomplish in the world of minute trapeze artists. There was no reason to crush the spider, although I certainly had the power, for it was tiny and I was mighty. The spider was inhabiting a space that was rightfully of God, for it clearly did not belong. It was an alien in a strange world, it was out of its element, but I granted it life, not out of innate goodness on my part, but mostly because crushing the bug might have left a permanent stain on the sparkle of the corporal.

Obviously, next to God we are the tiny and the Deity is the mighty. We are the specks that can dirty God’s magnificent handiwork, we might soil the perfect as we leave stains behind in our hurry to spin our own webs and construct our own worlds. God is often forgotten in our haste to go where we should not, and be what we ought not. And yet, God has our lives in hand and chooses to spare us. Not because in crushing us we might leave behind an unflattering stain, we have already and always done that, but due to a love that is as infinitely great as the spider is small. God allows us to run our stupid paths across the glory of Creation out of pure unadulterated love.

This is what we remember and celebrate next week, the grace extended to us, not because we deserve it or have earned it, but rather through the greatness of the gift of Jesus Christ, the Holy One of God, killed on the Cross. This sacrificial death, this complete abandonment of self for others, meaning you and me, is the center of what we believe. God became one of us in Jesus, emptied everything that might be self-serving, and then filled that human vessel with the greatest love ever known.

The love of God is so great that the evil of this world could not contain the Son in the tomb, for the grave was left behind as Jesus triumphed over the forces of sin, death, and destruction. The power of the Resurrection is the enduring testament of God’s Love for us and the unvanquished statement that the evil of this world is powerless before God. Easter means we are now and forever one with our God!

I was further astounded that same Sunday when I saw another little spider crawling on the veil that our Elders place over the gifts in the back of the nave before they are brought forward to be blessed. What are the odds that another spider might be found running across a second sacred cloth? Was this just a grand coincidence or a sign from God? I would prefer to think the latter, for stranger things have happened. After all, the King of the Universe loves and cares for a tiny spider like I.

Happy Easter, Rich Please give the Holy Week Schedule on the colored paper to a friend/ relative and invite them to worship!