It is the week after Easter...things are very quiet as we all recover from the joy of Easter Sunday. We kind of wander around looking for something to clean up or something to do that has the same meaning as the preparation of a week ago, but it isn't there...
I do lift up that the day after Easter was pretty big - baseball season opened, and the Duke-Butler game kept us all on the edge of our seats - there was comfort in the rituals of Spring.
As is the custom of churches with more than one pastor, the Sunday after Easter is considered a "low" Sunday and is usally preached by an associate. So I have been working on my sermon and it has the story of Thomas as its center. I'll not reproduce my sermon here - you have to come and hear it, but rather I reflect on the two worlds I find myself in. The disciples are saying "what does this all mean?" They are trying to get their bearings because everything Jesus said has come to pass and I'm sure they are replaying all those hours of teaching to get some sense of what is next....I would also imagine they are also trying out different realities of "what now." Do we go back to fishing, how do we get out of Jerusalem, has dad replaced us on the boat? The details that make us human.
So here in the 21st Century, I know what happened to the disciples, but I wonder what is in store for the church. How do we best teach our children the faith or our ancestors? How do we "compete" with soccer and track and football? How do we make space in our busy lives for the still small voice of God to lead and guide? How do we live as Easter people in a world that thinks Easter is chocolate bunnies and jelly beans?
The palatable answer is: one minute, one relationship, one act of mercy at a time. All those "the Kingdom of God is like..." parables - it starts small but grows large, it is priceless in its worth, it is worth the risk to claim and create, it is infectous once it begins....yes, this I know...but sometimes I wonder if it is enough.
Our family went to the "Casting Crowns" concert in St. Charles on Good Friday - a wonderful night of worship...they sang thier song "If We Ever Needed You" It rings so true for the times we find ourselves. Would you pray with me...
click to hear the song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjRQKhzWGQw
1 comment:
I've just discovered the blog - I'm late with the comments, but Thomas and his story are not season bound.... Thomas is practically my patron saint. I, too, came late to the reality of the resurrection but have been blessed anyway. I agree that believing Jesus was resurrected is the simplest, truest, explanation for all the things that happened next. N.T. Wright points out that all the other phenomena people try to substitute for real resurrection (ghosts, recognizing how a loved on lives on in us, etc.) were known to the first witnesses and they had words for them. But the word they used for what they witnessed in Jesus was the very specific word “resurrection.’ We moderns have this tendency to think that if somethiang has not happened to us personally it can't have happened at all.... From Thomas I also learned that doubt and faith can coexist rather than wipe each other out. I don’t have to understand it all to proceed with the parts I do understand. I'm grateful for that! Do you know this rather recent hymn text by Thomas H. Troeger?
These things did Thomas count as real:
The warmth of blood, the chill of steel,
The grain of wood, the heft of stone,
The last frail twitch of blood and bone.
His brittle certainties denied
That one could live when one had died,
Until his fingers read like Braille
The markings of the spear and nail.
May we, O God, by grace believe
And, in believing, still receive
The Christ Who held His scarred hands out
And beckoned Thomas from his doubt.
Karen Jones
Jamestown
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