I wonder how often Easter has fallen on April Fools Day? It’s hard to think of a better April Fools twist than the Resurrection! And it kept happening to Jesus’ friends and followers, that Easter day, and in the weeks to come. And they fell for it every time. Jesus just kept showing up in places he would never be expected – often unrecognized.
On the second Sunday of Easter (Easter being so great a mystery, it takes us seven weeks to fully explore it each year…), we always eavesdrop on one of these unexpected appearances by Jesus. This time he shows up right in the very room (or so we think) where the disciples last broke bread with him the previous Thursday – what must have seemed a hundred years earlier. So much had happened since that Passover meal; Jesus’ arrest, his sham trials, mocking and torture, execution. They’d endured all the shock and sorrow and fear that they’d be next, as his followers.
And then another kind of shock in finding his tomb empty – with several indicators that this was not a case of body snatching, but that the very laws of death and life had been overturned. And then – reports. More reports. A sighting in the garden. A sighting in Galilee. What must they have been feeling?
And now he appears among them, just materializing, for he did not come through the locked doors or windows. “When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you.’ After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side.”
He is suddenly just there among them, inviting them to the impossible: “Peace be with you.” Peace would be the last thing I can imagine anyone in that room feeling. But when Jesus says, “Peace be with you,” it is more than a suggestion – it is a declarative action, one that accomplishes what it proposes. They were at peace.
They must have been, for John tells us, “Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.”
I don't always feel joyful on Easter, or more joyful than I would any other day. Perhaps it’s because I’m often stressed and exhausted from Holy Week and the weeks of preparation before. Perhaps peace is a precondition for joy. This year, I found that taking the time for our short Holy Saturday retreat morning really did help me get to a place of peace, and I experienced much more Easter joy than usual. Funny how that works...
What kind of turmoil are you in the midst of? If none, give thanks!
If there is some, can you imagine Jesus showing up in the middle of it? In the middle of your life, uninvited and yet very much there? Can you hear him say to your spirit, “Peace be with you?”And receive it as a declarative action with power to accomplish what it purposes? That is what the Word of God always does.
What happens next?
No comments:
Post a Comment