We will have our last worship service of the school year on May 13th at 5pm at the Cedar House. We’ll meet again on Sundays starting in late August.

Okay, I now it’s fiction. One of my favorite fiction books from C.S. Lewis is “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.” I remember reading it with rapt attention when I was in fourth grade, and I especially loved the part when the littlest and the youngest of the children found the land of Narnia. I loved her bravery, her willingness to go into the unknown. To walk through an open door.

I don’t remember thinking, “Why in the world did she do that?” or “She’s going to get in a lot of trouble if she does that.” No! I was thinking, “Where is my open door?” I wonder if that is what most people in the world think when they watch such things in movies. When is it my time to be a hero? When will it be that I get to fight the good fight? Where is my open door?

My friends, your open door could be right in front of you. The next generation in America is going to colleges and universities across our country. They are open to ideas, activities, and mentors that will expand their mind and challenge their heart. They have no time for pretenders, salesmen, or the status quo. They believe and they want to change the world. They want to walk through the open doors – especially the ones that haven’t been explored. Yet who will walk with them??

At ULC we are walking with them – but it isn’t easy. Their questions aren’t easy. Their lives and backgrounds aren’t simple. Even the very way their mind work challenges us. Yet, God has opened multiple doors to speak into their lives. These doors must remain open in order for mentoring and facilitating to continue. There are good people leading the charge, and we welcome other mentors or volunteers who harken such a call.

However, we also need your financial support to keep the ministry moving forward into the lives of all sorts of students and young people around the community of the University of Texas. We need your help. It’s going to take strength like Lucy’s to keep the doors open. So if you have been asking yourself, “Where is my open door?” Maybe this is it.

Thank you so much for your prayers and support for ULC-Austin. I pray that we all have the strength like Lucy to walk into the open doors that God sets before us.

In Christ’s Peace,

Pastor Jonathan

Well actually, a bumper of a parked truck hit me.

I was so involved in my feelings I didn’t even see the car right in front of me. My eyes saw everything except what I needed to see. Trust me, after that I kept my eyes opened for those cars…moving or parked.

The knowledge of the resurrection is kind of like that – at least it was for the guys walking down the road to the town of Emmaus.

These guys were so involved with their feelings of confusion, sadness, and mystery that they couldn’t see what was right in front of them.

And it hit them.

Right in the face.

Actually right in the eyes.

Jesus’ resurrected self slammed into their reality, and they were jolted awake to the fact that Jesus was right in front of them. They needed to see that. And I bet after that they kept their eyes opened to where they might see Jesus again.

That’s what we want to do. Coming out of Easter. Entering into a new time of eyes open wide.

We want to see what we need to see. We want to look for the resurrected reality that Christ has won for us, and look for where we might see Jesus…no matter who and where that may be.

The light of reality hurts.

He was comfortable, safe, and secure. He didn’t have to get food, he didn’t have to work. He literally floated along through nine months enjoying this new existence that was his.

Wouldn’t it be nice to float through life like this? Comfort, safety, security.

Jesus once spoke to a group of people whose eyes were hard to open saying,

“The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!
No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.”
We can’t serve two realities. We have to choose.

Ben had to choose eventually. Jesus’ disciples had to choose as well.

ULC stands at that same choice. Close our eyes or open our eyes.

We choose to open eyes to what God would have us see. No matter how difficult, challenging, or painful it may be. For we know it will also be uplifting, exciting, and beneficial to the community which needs us to see them…all of them.

We have to open our eyes to a new cultural and spiritual reality that has happened here in Austin and in our world. We cannot float along in naive comfort any longer.

We invite you to see, with your own open eyes, the people, the faith, and the service that is happening right here in the University of Texas community.

That vision launches on Easter for you to see at www.ulcaustin.com.

Going Forward with Open Eyes,

Pastor Jonathan

Tuesday. It’s the unidentified day of the week.  It isn’t the first day.  No one thanks God for it.    And for most, it is truly just a work day.  Yet the eyes see what they want.  

On Tuesday Jesus was hungry.  An ordinary urge for an ordinary day.  He sets his eyes on a fig tree for nourishment.  The tree was barren of fruit.  Oh well, right?  Nope, not for Jesus.  He cursed it and it shriveled up.  The man killed a fig tree with a word.  What the disciples saw astonished them, perhaps frightened them.  He pointed to what they needed to understand, “You’ll be able to greater things than this.  If you have faith”.

If you have faith.

If you see clearly.

You can do these marvelous things.  If you want to.

The eyes must open to see, but they must look for the marvelous to truly be…opened eyes.

The Friday before Easter in some places is called Good Friday.

Yet it is also called in other places Black Friday.

However still other places call it Holy Friday.

What kind of day is this that has so many names, especially when the names seem to contradict each other??

This is indeed a unique day. A day where light and dark, divine and profane get intermingled in the mud, splinters, and blood at a place called The Skull.

On this day we see ourselves for who we really are, and then we are shown right afterwards who we were created to be.

As we approach such a day, I invite you to join us on Friday at 8:30 pm in the sanctuary at ULC to meditate, sing, and pray about what all this means.

Maya Angelou observed, “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”

Each of us have a unique story to share, to gift with the world because each story is a gift from Him who made us.

Seder is about story-telling and about Him who made us.

Stories from the past (the Exodus from Egypt), the present (how does God continue to liberate us today) and the future (after being freed where does God lead us).

If you like stories.
If you are interested in the past, present, and future.
If you are interested in Him who made us.

Then our Seder meal on Thursday night at 8:30 pm at the Cedar House might be for you.

Come and share stories with us!

Eyes are sealed shut at night.  We call it “sleep” in our eyes.

Can you imagine the disciples eyes the day after Palm Sunday?  Now that was a party!  They were probably up late into the night with deep discussions, plans for the future, and the pure adrenaline that comes with such events.

However, the next day had to come.  Where dreams were washed away with the cold morning air and reality.  The reality that Jesus had opened their eyes and they were changed forever.  No amount of sleep would ever undo that.  Their eyes opening took a long time, but it was happening.  The cracks in the seal were exposed, and the light was pouring through.  What would the rest of the week bring?

What will the rest of this week bring for us?  It will bring change that can’t be avoided or undone.  This holy week ULC will wake up into a new reality.  Because our eyes are opening.

Seder meal on thursday @ 8:30pm at cedar house

Easter service at 12:01 am on Sunday at Ulc.