March Newsletter 2008

For the past four years at ten in the evening, I have kept the vigil with El Mirador on the Eve of the Resurrection. The streets are quiet as we gather in the darkness outside the church building. Inside the church the altar is stripped and all lights and candles are out. Outside Victor and Ishmael light a bon-fire and I ask once again, like every year, for the Christ candle to be brought out of hiding. Gathered around the fire the vigil begins with an explanation of the light of the world as we bless the Christ candle, placed in its recycled chicken consume container, for a new year and each of us in turn light our own candles.

Following the light of Christ we enter the church and listen to the promises of our Lord from Genesis forward… weaving our way through the Words of our Lord for us on the night in which we await the moment in which every promise has its yes. Between lessons we sing our faith and pray. It is a time to simply be the people of God nothing more, nothing less. As midnight arrives we sing a tired but no less joyful Alleluia out into the slumbering streets of El Mirador and read from one of the Synoptic Gospels the accounting of the tomb that early morning when the women visited. After preaching, Horacio and I distribute communion and by one in the morning we are heading home for a few hours of sleep. The Easter procession begins a mere four hours later followed by another service in which Horacio and I serve as pastors.

This year I was struck by the presence of a white, dirty, mangy dog that entered the church with us during the vigil and sat in the middle of the aisle completely still the entire three hours. The next morning, the same dog was in the church, under a pew for most of the service. Throughout the vigil, I kept recalling Matthew 15:21-28 in which the Canaanite woman asks Christ for help only to be compared to a dog… yet the woman’s response is uncomfortably honest, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.” The moments in which we grasp who we are in sin and what Christ freed us from—in other words what Easter means-- at once draws me to the table to not just receive crumbs but to receive all of Christ but also frustrates and saddens me since many do not commune in Guatemala precisely because they only see their sin and at some point in their life were told they cannot receive while in sin. They see themselves as the dirty mangy dog but never as a beloved child of God.

In short, we are called to preach… to preach freedom to those held captive… and to receive the life that our Lord gives us.

As Monday arrived, Horacio and I headed to the airport to pick up the delegation from St. Paul Area Synod to share a week together in our common call.

He is Risen Indeed!

Blessings in Christ,

Amanda Olson de Castillo
Missionary and Pastor
Iglesia Luterana Agustina de Guatemala