This week’s lectionary texts: Acts 10:34-43 or Isaiah 65:17-25, Psalm 118:1-2 and 14-24, 1 Corinthians 15:19-26 or Acts 10:34-43, and John 20:1-18 or Luke 24:1-12.
It might not quite look like it in Boston today, but spring has sprung! Tiny green buds are covering the trees; daffodils and crocuses are dotting yards and birds are chirping in the bushes and branches. The snow is long gone -- rain keeps falling, but that rain is sure to bring even more new vegetation to life after the cold slumber of winter. The world, it seems, is waking up.
April 4th is Easter, the day that we remember Christ's triumph over death -- a triumph that allows us to wake up, to start fresh, to begin a new day full of hope and joy and renewed perseverance. On Easter, we are called to awaken to new possibilities, to new awareness of the needs of our world and our neighbor, to new understandings of how God is working in our lives. The resurrection of Jesus stands as a testament to God's unfathomable love for us -- through Christ, we have been roused from our complacency, our despair, our stagnancy, and urged to claim our new lives as beloved children of God.
This week's lectionary texts are full of beautiful reflections on the power of God to create and recreate, to awaken and enliven the world and all its creatures. In Isaiah, the prophet gloriously recalls God's promises to the world:
"For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth...But be glad and rejoice forever in what I am creating; for I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy, and its people as a delight...no more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it, or the cry of distress." (Isaiah 65:17-19)
God has promised to restore and renew us, to give good things to God's people and to encourage all of creation to live together in new ways that are life-giving and love-increasing. "They shall be offspring blessed by the Lord," we read; "Before they call I will answer, while they are yet speaking I will hear. The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, the lion shall eat straw like the ox" (Isaiah 65:23-24). God wants to help us build a world of peace: "They shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain, says the Lord" (Isaiah 65:25).
We all understand that this world can be full of pain and destruction, just as it can be full of beauty and goodness. But as Paul tells the Corinthians, there is hope in Christ: "For as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ" (1 Corinthians 15:22). His is an eschatological vision, in which Christ has destroyed death itself, opening us to new chances to live spirit-filled, courageous, radically loving lives. Even if we feel held back -- by our circumstances, by our pasts -- God has promised us forgiveness and urges us to preach peace (Acts 10:42-43).
The resurrection story in the Gospel of John presents Mary Magdalene as the first witness to the resurrection of Jesus. Upon arriving at the tomb and finding two angels where Jesus' body had been, she begins to weep. Turning around, she runs into Jesus -- whom she fails to recognize -- and he asks her, "Woman, why are you weeping? For whom are you looking?" (John 20:15). She asks Jesus to tell her what has been done with the body -- but then, as Jesus calls her name, she suddenly recognizes that the man in front of her is her dear friend, the man who was once dead but who has been restored to life.
So often we sleepwalk through life, our eyes closed to new opportunities for service, new ways to develop our God-given gifts and talents, new understandings of community and interconnectedness. How many times have we failed to recognize Jesus in a person in need? How many times have we been unable to see God's glory because we are just too tired to shake up our usual patterns and look at the world with fresh eyes?
Indeed, God understands that it can be difficult -- sometimes seemingly impossible -- to wake up. We can be held back by challenges both external and internal, difficulties that prevent us from awakening to the new life God has in store for us. But this Easter, let us hear the call to the joyful, vibrant, beautiful promise we have been given in Christ. Let us ask ourselves how we have fallen asleep and become disconnected from God and from our neighbors. And let us wake from our slumbers and greet the morning with boldness, proclaiming with the psalmist,
"This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it!" (Psalm 118:24)
No comments:
Post a Comment