Married to Amazement

Author: Mark Fenstermacher
April 29, 2022

The late poet, Mary Oliver, was a true gift to many. 

I thought of her poem, When Death Comes for Me, as we travel through the current sermon series (“God’s Easter Community”). Last Sunday we came face-to-face with God’s call to refuse to let fear control us, and this coming Sunday we will look at being a Church that has the courage to cast in new directions.

Refusing to let fear control us and having the courage to cast in new directions: these are where this series of messages has begun.

Mary writes, in her poem, about—as Easter people—living boldly and fully:

When it’s over, I want to say all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.
When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular and real.
I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.
I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world

-Beacon Press (revised edition), p. 10

One of the gifts that Easter can give us is the gift of living free from a paralyzing fear of death. Just as the safety new may allow a high wire trapeze artist to do what they do with confidence and freedom, so know God has shattered the power of death through the cross of Jesus Christ can set us free to live fully, love well, take risks, and get into—as the late John Lewis would say—“good trouble.”

What would it look like for you to be “a bride married to amazement” or “the bridegroom, taking the world” into your arms? 

I have many prayers for you, but one of my recurring prayers is that you will live fully and well rather than simply “having visited this world.”

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Invite a friend to join you this week as we worship the Risen Christ together, and see what God has to say to us about being a Church and people living out our mission with courage.

I am blessed to serve Christ with you,
Pastor Mark

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