SERMON SAMPLING

Beyond Blacksburg: From shots of death to shoots of life
April 22, 2007 Sermon
Calvary Baptist Church of Denver
by Rev. Bruce Greer, Interim Senior Minister

April is a cruel month
In his famous poem, The Wasteland, T.S. Eliot reflects on the month of April with these words.

April is the cruelest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain (1)

Eliot’s words refer to April in the northern hemisphere as a month of proverbial and perpetual frustration, when winter has long since worn out its welcome and spring is reluctant to accept our invitation to stay a while. His words have unwittingly taken on a strange irony for many of us yet again. For too many of us, April has become the“cruelest month,” a month that has bred violence out of barrenness, mixed memory with evil intent, and stirred deep-seated fears with the reign of violence.

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