High schoolers.
Bonfires. Banana splits. Bodies every direction that you turn.
There are either 130 of them here or 140, a tightly packed crowd of heads that we count, instinctively and with varying levels of success, as if there might be a point in the night where we were asked to give a reckoning. A moment where the Divine might step down and require a roster, a list of what we've done with these precious lives.
There are either 130 of them here or 140, a tightly packed crowd of heads that we count, instinctively and with varying levels of success, as if there might be a point in the night where we were asked to give a reckoning. A moment where the Divine might step down and require a roster, a list of what we've done with these precious lives.
It's a children's ministry habit, not a high school one, this always knowing how many you are responsible for. This counting of bodies and souls before you even realize that you are counting. Because, not all of these are even "ours." We've combined with another youth group tonight. But, we count them anyways.
So long as they are here, they are ours.
So long as their faces echo in our prayers; so long as their voices fill this space with truth and laughter and music; so long as they are here to pour out and be poured into, they are ours.
Some of it is simple Grace, boys still young enough to come at me with a lowered shoulder or a gentle kick to the back of the knee, to laughingly acknowledge that I could no longer take them down -- but that it no longer seems to matter. The physicality of draping a scarf around a freshman neck while we talk. You are seen. You are known. Even in the midst of all of this. Let me use the solidness of our beings to prove it.
The smell of 120 shoes thrown into the middle of the room for a mixer that might be suited to better ventilated spaces. AC that can't quite seem to kick in and decorations that flutter loudly when the kids prop open the doors for air flow.
Ice cream. Wood smoke. Soccer balls and name tags.
Not because of the things themselves, but because of the sense memories that follow them, the grounding-ness of food and warmth and wind and sunshine. The relationships that they make a space for, the layers of reality.
Because, Divinity hovers over and in this place, Grace and Love and Mercy that would comfort these kids. See them as messengers of healing and wholeness. See them healed and whole.
So, we come, months into this process, this transition, messy and beautiful and hurting. "Calvary Night" we have been calling it, after the name of the church that has joined us. Calvary Night. Calvary. Where the Christ came, messy and beautiful and hurting. Where Divinity hovered in and over and, somehow, incomprehensibly, turned its back, so that we might be healed.
Calvary night. It would have been Good Friday. Mourning marked by a broken, impatient hope. Sorrow interrupted by Sabbath.
And, I wonder if we aren't so much the same.
We hold the match to these Sabbath lights that flicker in the parking lot. Offer food, community, music, tradition. And, underneath the consistency of it, some of our kids grieve.
They carry some of the same questions that the first disciples must have, the 'why's' and the 'how long's' and the 'what next's.' A milder set of the unmet expectations that must have sent Jesus' young followers reeling, knocked them from their feet as the world around them consumed an all too familiar meal of bread and wine.
These kids are excited by the possibility of what is going on here, awed by it, overwhelmed by it. Using the novelty of it to propel themselves through. But, a little lost in this sea of unfamiliar bodies. A little befuddled by what they have created.
It washes over their faces in honest moments. The loneliness of being one in a crowd. The uncertainty when we split up small groups not-quite-the-way-they-expected without warning them, because we didn't know ourselves. The wishing and the reminders of what isn't.
"It was nice," they tell us afterwards, child after child repeating the same words that must have been shared over post-youth group frozen yogurt, "having a youth pastor. Even if he wan't ours."
Because, we're still searching. Five and a half months later, we're still looking for someone to meet the sky high list of expectations we have for the one who will be allowed to shepherd our kids. Searching. Waiting. Watching to see God move.
Because, all of Jerusalem had been in an uproar about This Man, and, surely, surely as they lit small flames in the darkness, broke bread, and sang ancient prayers. Surely there were echoes fresh in their minds.
"...neither does one light a candle and hide it under a basket..."
"...collect the pieces that are left over..."
"...beware the leaven of the pharisees..."
"...do this in remembrance of me..."
"...this, then, is how you should pray..."
"What are you doing, God?" These teenaged disciples must have wanted to scream it at the sky. Wild flutters of hope mixed with desperate grief. "What have you done?"
And, yet.
Sunday came.
Resurrection.
God be praised.
Sunday changes the story, lights a fire that changes the world. Sunday brings joy and healing and disbelief. Triumph and victory like the world has never seen. Sunday makes Friday worth it. But, Sunday also gives us reason to remember.
Our Calvary night is on a Sunday, echoes of this older story, deep in the center of Lent, pulled between Good Friday and Easter Sunday. Already. Not yet.
So, they hurt. But, we also celebrate.
So long as they are here, they are ours.
So long as their faces echo in our prayers; so long as their voices fill this space with truth and laughter and music; so long as they are here to pour out and be poured into, they are ours.
Some of it is simple Grace, boys still young enough to come at me with a lowered shoulder or a gentle kick to the back of the knee, to laughingly acknowledge that I could no longer take them down -- but that it no longer seems to matter. The physicality of draping a scarf around a freshman neck while we talk. You are seen. You are known. Even in the midst of all of this. Let me use the solidness of our beings to prove it.
The smell of 120 shoes thrown into the middle of the room for a mixer that might be suited to better ventilated spaces. AC that can't quite seem to kick in and decorations that flutter loudly when the kids prop open the doors for air flow.
Ice cream. Wood smoke. Soccer balls and name tags.
Not because of the things themselves, but because of the sense memories that follow them, the grounding-ness of food and warmth and wind and sunshine. The relationships that they make a space for, the layers of reality.
Because, Divinity hovers over and in this place, Grace and Love and Mercy that would comfort these kids. See them as messengers of healing and wholeness. See them healed and whole.
So, we come, months into this process, this transition, messy and beautiful and hurting. "Calvary Night" we have been calling it, after the name of the church that has joined us. Calvary Night. Calvary. Where the Christ came, messy and beautiful and hurting. Where Divinity hovered in and over and, somehow, incomprehensibly, turned its back, so that we might be healed.
Calvary night. It would have been Good Friday. Mourning marked by a broken, impatient hope. Sorrow interrupted by Sabbath.
And, I wonder if we aren't so much the same.
We hold the match to these Sabbath lights that flicker in the parking lot. Offer food, community, music, tradition. And, underneath the consistency of it, some of our kids grieve.
They carry some of the same questions that the first disciples must have, the 'why's' and the 'how long's' and the 'what next's.' A milder set of the unmet expectations that must have sent Jesus' young followers reeling, knocked them from their feet as the world around them consumed an all too familiar meal of bread and wine.
These kids are excited by the possibility of what is going on here, awed by it, overwhelmed by it. Using the novelty of it to propel themselves through. But, a little lost in this sea of unfamiliar bodies. A little befuddled by what they have created.
It washes over their faces in honest moments. The loneliness of being one in a crowd. The uncertainty when we split up small groups not-quite-the-way-they-expected without warning them, because we didn't know ourselves. The wishing and the reminders of what isn't.
"It was nice," they tell us afterwards, child after child repeating the same words that must have been shared over post-youth group frozen yogurt, "having a youth pastor. Even if he wan't ours."
Because, we're still searching. Five and a half months later, we're still looking for someone to meet the sky high list of expectations we have for the one who will be allowed to shepherd our kids. Searching. Waiting. Watching to see God move.
Because, all of Jerusalem had been in an uproar about This Man, and, surely, surely as they lit small flames in the darkness, broke bread, and sang ancient prayers. Surely there were echoes fresh in their minds.
"...neither does one light a candle and hide it under a basket..."
"...collect the pieces that are left over..."
"...beware the leaven of the pharisees..."
"...do this in remembrance of me..."
"...this, then, is how you should pray..."
"What are you doing, God?" These teenaged disciples must have wanted to scream it at the sky. Wild flutters of hope mixed with desperate grief. "What have you done?"
And, yet.
Sunday came.
Resurrection.
God be praised.
Sunday changes the story, lights a fire that changes the world. Sunday brings joy and healing and disbelief. Triumph and victory like the world has never seen. Sunday makes Friday worth it. But, Sunday also gives us reason to remember.
Our Calvary night is on a Sunday, echoes of this older story, deep in the center of Lent, pulled between Good Friday and Easter Sunday. Already. Not yet.
So, they hurt. But, we also celebrate.
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