November 5, 2009
Vespers:
He answered, "I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out."
(Luke 19.40)

My brother Eric and sister-in-law Joan are down from Saskatchewan visiting mom and old friends. They went to Powell's today and I had fun asking them about where they went first...and why...and what did they find. Eric said that he wandered into the Geology section and was lusting after some expensive books that pictured and narrated the 'story of rocks'. Essentially he was delighting in the realization that every rock/stone has a story to tell about Creation. With today's technology a rock can be 'examined' and the viewer can be fairly confident about the 'story' it tells: part of a volcanic event, a sedimentary layer event, etc.... It is an ancient story that preceeds by thousands of years the biblical narrative.

People want instant gratification. Instant answers. Instant reciprocity: I do this. You do that.
The rocks tell a different story. They 'shout out' that our 'now' is a tiny piece of a narrative that is beyond our comprehension of time. We are captives to our timeline: birth, life, death....we are mortals. We end. Creation is a process. It does not end. It is a Promise!

The rocks/stones 'shout out': "Look! See!"....and we say, "You stones are dead! You have no life in you."

So Jesus makes his entry into Jerusalem. He has a deep premonition that he will not leave Jerusalem alive. His disciples "began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of power that they had seen,..." (Luke 19.37) The Pharisees (that's us!) don't get it. What are they shouting about? Life is hard...filled with pain, shame, guilt, and remorse. And Jesus kicks back and says: "Listen to the rocks!!"