A congregation of the United Church of Canada
Needless to say, Holy Week is a stressful stretch for ministers. It’s by far our heaviest week of the entire year, with services on Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter Sunrise, in addition to the usual Sunday fare. But more than that, because it’s Easter, it’s not only busy but it also feels extra important and consequential, theologically. I mean, if you don’t get Easter right don’t they take away your license? (Just kidding, kinda.)
So, needless to say, I’m a bit overwhelmed this week, like every minister in every Holy Week. Happily, I’m wise enough to know that when I don’t have enough words to cover my responsibilities that I can borrow from other theologians – and especially from smarter theologians than me! My favourite, go-to source when I need brilliance in a hurry is the Rev. Dr. Howard Thurman (none other than MLK’s spiritual advisor). Thank you, Howard!
The following excerpt is from the meditation “The Glad Surprise” from Thurman’s book called “Meditations of the Heart.” He says it better than I ever could. I pray you might find some “glad surprise” amidst your Holy Week and Easter celebrations this year.
Here are Howard Thurman’s words:
“There is ever something compelling and exhilarating about the glad surprise. The emphasis is upon glad. There are surprises that are shocking, startling, frightening and bewildering. But the glad surprise is something different from all of these. It carries with it the element of elation, of life, of something over and beyond the surprise itself.
“Often the same experience comes at the end of a long tunnel of tragedy and tribulation. It is as if a (person) stumbling in the darkness, having lost (their) way, finds that the spot at which (they) fall is the foot of a stairway that leads from darkness into light. Such is the glad surprise.
“It is the announcement that life cannot ultimately be conquered by death, that there is no road that is at last swallowed up in an ultimate darkness, that there is strength added when the labors increase, that multiplied peace matches multiplied trials, that life is bottomed by the glad surprise.” May your Easter be characterized by a glad surprise!