You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
One summer, my friend walked El Camino del Santiago – the pilgrimage route through France and Spain to the shrine of St. James (Sant’Iago) at Campostella. Many pilgrims told her that the people they came with were often not the people they walked with. Walking speeds and rhythms vary; disagreements can crop up. People often fall in with strangers on that trail, and sometimes those strangers have just the gifts they need for the spiritual journey that parallels the physical one. (For a film about this, check out “The Way,” starting Martin Sheen as a reluctant pilgrim on the Camino.) That's what happened to the disciples on the road to Emmaus and the companion who joined them.
In our Sunday readings, it's still the Day of Resurrection. On Easter Sunday, we visit the events of that morning. On Easter 2, it’s that evening. On Easter 3, this year, we find ourselves with two of Jesus’ disciples in the late afternoon of that same day, on a road outside Jerusalem:
Now on that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, and talking with each other about all these things that had happened. While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with them, but their eyes were kept from recognizing him. And he said to them, “What are you discussing with each other while you walk along?”
I wish I knew why “their eyes were kept from recognizing him.” It seems from other resurrection appearances that Jesus must not have looked like himself. It is also true that often we just don’t see what we don’t expect to see, especially if it is outside the bounds of probability. These two were already under great stress from the events of the past few days – seeing their Lord betrayed, arrested, tried, mocked, flogged, crucified… and just as they were coming to terms with that reality, Reality itself was turned upside down with the empty tomb and reports that people had seen Jesus alive, had talked with him. How could these things be? Was it a conspiracy? A hoax? Could it possibly be true?
We process things by talking about them. So these two, in the midst of great upheaval, were discussing it all, trying to make some sense of it. And along comes a stranger who doesn’t even seem to know what they’re talking about – it would be like someone who had never heard of coronavirus. Yet he knows more than anyone they've ever met. He helps them understand, and sends them running seven miles back the way they’d come, their world transformed.
Have you ever found yourself talking about traumatic events with total strangers? In our time of global trauma, in which reality has been turned upside down, such conversations may be happening more often. Are you aware of Christ with you in such encounters? Of Christ in you, or in another?
Ask God to send you alongside someone today who needs the gift you bring, the gift of the presence of Christ in you. Tonight, think back and see how that prayer was answered. Try it again tomorrow. Where will the risen Christ join us on the Way today?
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You can listen to this reflection here.
This Easter week we’ve been exploring the Gospel appointed for each day. Today’s passage from Mark sums up several of Jesus’ resurrection appearances – and in each paragraph we find some variant of “… but he/they did not believe it.” John says, in the passage set for this Sunday, why he wrote his version of the Jesus story: so that his readers may come to believe in Jesus’ messianic and divine identity, and “through believing you may have life in his name.” Paul, too, links spiritual vitality with believing in Jesus’ divinity. Even Jesus says that those who believe he is who he says he is will have eternal life. This believing stuff is not a minor detail.
Yet, if seeing Jesus risen from the dead did not quell doubt in his early followers, how will reading stories about his resurrection activities and conversations confer faith on us? What the written record does is invite us into the Great Story of God’s love for us expressed in Jesus’ life, death and resurrection. It brings us to the threshold. It’s up to us to step in and live it, as it was up to those disciples to say “yes” with their hearts to what their eyes and ears reported. We need to experience the Risen Christ for ourselves.
Do you feel you have experienced the reality of Christ in some way or fashion? If we expect to see him the way Mary or the Eleven or the two on the Emmaus road did, we may feel we’re lacking that experience. Visual and aural Jesus sightings are rare… possibly non-existent. Jesus said as much to his followers; he said when he left, the Father would send the Holy Spirit to them. So it is the Spirit who brings the presence of Christ to us in a way we can experience him.
When we feel the Holy Spirit in or around us – whether by a sensation, or an insight, by answer to prayer or some other way – it is the Spirit of Christ we are experiencing. When we have a holy encounter with another person, it may be that we are meeting Christ in them. As we learn to become more aware of that presence, we more readily accept that Christ is a part of us, in our lives – and thus we are led to believing more fully. His life in us leads to believing, and believing leads to more of his life in us. We become instruments for others experiencing his life, and on and on it goes.
That’s what the last verse of my song “Was That You?” is about. (You can listen to the whole song here; simple iphone recording; with Denise Bassett on piano and harmonies):
So where did you last see him, where he wasn’t supposed to be?
He told us he’d be with the poor, the lost, the last, the least …
He said that we would know him in Word and bread and wine;
He promised to be with us, now – and to the end of time.
Is that you breathing peace to me when storms rage in my head?
Is that you releasing power in me, the power that raised the dead?
Is that you, loving me more than I could ever understand?
Don’t know why it always takes a while for me to open up my eyes and see:
That it’s you, always next to me. Jesus, you, right here, next to me.
To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Next Sunday’s readings are here. The readings for Saturday in Easter Week are here.
You can listen to this reflection here.
This Easter week we are exploring the Gospel appointed for each day. Today, we’re in a fishing boat with Peter and six other of Jesus’ disciples, two unnamed. (John takes care to mention the exact number of fish caught in the nets – someone counted them? – but can’t be bothered to find out the names of two of the crew?). These disciples must have fled Jerusalem for the safer home turf in Galilee (like those heading to vacation homes in our season of contagion?), and Peter figures he may as well do what he knows, now that everything he thought he learned since leaving his fishing boat has been turned upside-down.
As happened when Jesus first called him away from his nets (Luke 5:1-11), Peter and the crew fish all night and catch nothing. In the morning they’re ready to call it a day, but someone on the shore suggests they throw their nets over to the right. Though that’s pretty much what Jesus had done three years earlier, they don’t recognize the guy as Jesus – not until their nets become so full they’re ready to burst. Then they know who he is, though perhaps he looks different. (“Now none of the disciples dared to ask him, ‘Who are you?’ because they knew it was the Lord.”) Peter, who I guess has been fishing in the buff? throws on some clothes to jump into the water and get to Jesus as fast as he can. That’s love – when you can’t wait to reach the other.
Then Jesus utters my favorite words in the whole Bible: “Come and have breakfast.” He’s got a fire going and some bread, and he invites them to add fish from their catch – his catch, which he has allowed to become their catch; that’s how God’s abundance works in our lives. He blesses the bread and the fish – and thankfully doesn’t say, “Do this in remembrance of me,” or our Sunday mornings would be a lot messier. He reminds them that feasting is a sign of God’s kingdom, and that no goodbye is really final in that realm.
Where has Jesus provided you with a feast lately? Where are you seeing abundance in this time of scarcity and turmoil? Here is the verse of “Was That You?” that goes with this story.” (Iphone recording of the song here, with thanks to Denise Bassett for piano and harmony.) Guess you’ll have to come back for a special Saturday Water Daily for the verse about Jesus’ latest appearance…
A bunch of us were fishing, just out doing what we knew.
The blues are all we’re catching, but what else we gonna do?
At dawn some guy calls from the shore, “Over there, you’ll find some fish.”
As nets start bursting from the haul, we meet our deeper wish:
Was that you, with abundance when I never see enough?
Was that you, showing what strength is, when all I know is being tough?
Was that you forgiving more than I could ever understand?
Don’t know why it always takes a while for me to open up my eyes and see:
That was you, watching out for me.
To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Next Sunday’s readings are here. The readings for Friday in Easter Week are here.
You can listen to this reflection here.
This Easter week we are exploring the Gospel appointed for each day. Today, we’re back in that upper room with Jesus’s disciples, grieving unimaginable loss (“How could he have died?"), processing unimaginable news (“He is risen?” “Some of the women saw him?” “Was it just a vision?”), enduring unimaginable terror (“They’re coming for us next…”). Into that swirl of emotions, Jesus appears. He doesn’t come in through a door or a window – he is just there, speaking peace, showing his wounds, explaining God’s Word and naming them witnesses of what God has done and is doing.
And, to quell their fears that they are seeing his ghost, in Luke’s version of the scene (we had John’s on Monday), Jesus invites them to touch the healed wounds in his hands and feet. “Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have." He asks for something to eat; they give him broiled fish. Not much of a meal for someone who’s returned from the grave, but they get the point.
Luke makes a wonderful statement: “While in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering…” The joy the risen Christ brings is our gift in the midst of disbelieving and wondering and grieving, not only after. We are invited to be people of joy in all circumstances, and especially this Eastertide. The dislocations caused by Covid-19 may not rise to the level of what Jesus’ followers were going through, but we might have more insight than in other years into their situation. We too are having to process intense and competing emotions, too much information – and too little – and cope with communal trauma if not personal. No wonder so many of us are more tired than we think we should be. (I found this piece very helpful on that subject.)
I was reminded by some post or sermon (they blur together!) that Jesus’ first followers didn’t know it was “Easter” either. It was just a Sunday, and they knew he had died, and learned he was risen, and being seen. And there he was. If we can let go of our expectations of what “Easter” is or should be, and remain present to where Jesus is around us, we might find ourselves filled with joy while disbelieving and wondering.
Here’s another verse from my song “Was That You.” (Modest iphone recording of it here.) This verse didn’t make the cut in what is already too long a song, but it’s the one that goes with this resurrection appearance:
Tonight we hid for safety, just huddled there in fear;
Though we’d locked the doors, he just suddenly appeared.
He spoke to us of peace, and he showed his hands and feet,
As if to prove he’s not a ghost, he asked for food to eat.
Was that you coming back where you’d spoken your goodbyes?
Was that you inciting joy in the face of all our “whys?”
Was that you imparting more than we could ever understand?
Don’t know why it always takes a while for me to open up my eyes and see:
That was you, bearing peace to me.
To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Next Sunday’s readings are here. The readings for Thursday in Easter Week are here.
You can listen to this reflection here.
This Easter week we will explore the Gospel appointed for each day. Today, we hit the road to Emmaus with two of Jesus’ followers. We don’t know why they are going to this village seven miles from Jerusalem, but we are told their conversation is all about the events of the weekend, Jesus’ awful crucifixion and burial, and then the astonishing reports from the women who found his tomb empty and angels announcing that he had risen. How could this be?
Then something more confounding occurs: they are joined by a stranger who asks what they are talking about. Is there anything else they could be discussing at this time? Has this guy been under a rock? They fill him in, and he surprises them further by interpreting all these events in light of their scriptures and what the prophets had foretold about the Messiah. “Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?” he asks. Had they thought to see the events of the past few days in terms of God’s deliverance? It just looked like God’s failure.
But still they do not recognize their companion on the way as Jesus. It is not until they sit down to supper with him, and he takes the bread, blesses and breaks it, and gives it to them that their eyes are opened – and as soon as they realize who they are with, he vanishes. It is that familiar gesture, which he had done just three nights earlier at the Passover feast, that reveals Jesus to them, just as his saying Mary’s name had revealed him to her.
We don’t have the advantage of lived experience with Jesus to draw upon – how do we know when he is with us? Sometimes we have an experience of our “hearts burning within us,” as these men had on the road when Jesus explained the scriptures to them. That happens to me more often in prayer or song than in bible study, but all of these are forms of worship. Sometimes we realize we’re in Jesus’ company in an intimate encounter with a friend who sees and knows and loves us. And churchgoers have experience of seeing the bread taken, blessed, broken and given – we too can recognize Jesus in that action.
Could it be that Jesus is always on the road with us, always willing to illuminate scripture for us, always ready to sit at table with us? Maybe we just have to open the eyes of our hearts and name him – invoking his name is always an invitation to him to be right here.
The second verse of my song, “Was That You?" goes like this (you can listen to it here – just an iphone recording… ):
Met a stranger last night, just outside of town
He didn’t seem to understand why we were so cast down.
But he sure did know where God had been, and he stayed with us to eat;
When he broke the bread and blessed it, the picture came complete:
Was that you coming close when I didn’t have a friend?
Was that you giving me hope when I was facing a dead end?
Was that you blessing me more than I could ever understand?
Don’t know why it always takes a while for me to open up my eyes and see:
That was you, walking next to me.
To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Next Sunday’s readings are here. The readings for Wednesday in Easter Week are here.
You can listen to this reflection here.
This Easter week we will explore the Gospel appointed for each day. Today, we go to back to that garden with Mary, distraught and bereft at reports that Jesus’ body has been taken from the tomb in which she saw him laid on Friday. …She turned round and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, why are you weeping? For whom are you looking?’ Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, ‘Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.’
We tend to see what we expect to see. Blind is blind. Over is over. Dead is dead. And a man in a garden is likely to be a gardener, right? The man in this garden was solicitous, asking Mary why she wept. In reply, she speaks her urgent need to locate Jesus’ body, which she assumes to have been stolen, as had been threatened. Answering the angels a few moments earlier, she articulated her deeper pain in these poignant words, “They have taken away my Lord, and I don’t know where they have laid him.” Someone she loved deeply, and depended on, and centered her life around has been taken from her, and she does not know how she will endure a loss of that magnitude.
That is a feeling most of us have experienced, or will, in our lifetime. Facing loss is inevitable when we love; I remember where I was sitting the moment that little insight hit me. But something happened for Mary, in this moment where she made herself vulnerable to a stranger, crying out her pain. Jesus revealed himself, though she had not recognized him. Once he spoke her name, she knew without any doubt whatsoever that it was him, that he was alive. She wanted to touch him, and he said no. Is it possible that this resurrection body that could pass through walls could not be embraced? That is mystery, as is all of this. But he had instructions for her: “Go and tell my brothers.”
Could it be that Jesus is with us in our moments of deepest loss and despair, and we don’t know? We can, in prayer, bring to mind some of those times and ask Jesus to show us where he was, even if we couldn’t see him or recognize him. It is a way of praying healing into those wounds.
Some years ago, I wrote a song exploring several of the encounters people had with the resurrected Jesus, in many of which they did not recognize him until he did or said something familiar. You can listen to it here – not a great recording, but it’s all I have. The first verse is about Mary; I will share other verses through this week (the last is about us).
Ran into a gardener, my eyes were blind with tears
Pretty hard to see straight when you’re living your worst fears.
The one I loved the most, gone without a trace -
Then he said my name, I knew that voice… my heart began to race:
Was that you standing next to me when all my hopes were done?
Was that you, alive and breathing, when it looked like death had won?
Was that you loving me more than I could ever understand?
Don’t know why it always takes a while for me to open up my eyes and see:
That was you, standing next to me.
To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Next Sunday’s readings are here. The readings for Tuesday in Easter Week are here.
You can listen to this reflection here.
Our Sunday lectionary doesn't let us linger on Easter morning; by next Sunday we’ve jumped to the evening. So today we will look at next week's Gospel, and the rest of the week use the Gospel appointed for each day in Easter Week, encounters Jesus’ followers had with his resurrected self.
By the time we meet Jesus’ disciples huddled in that upper room, they’ve had a very long, strange, dislocating day. It began before daybreak, when some women hurried to the tomb to do for Jesus’ body what Sabbath laws forbade them to do when he died; a day that went from sad to both joyful and bizarre as they were met at that now-empty tomb by an angel (or two) announcing that Jesus was risen. And then, there he was, right there on the road in front of the women, saying, “Tell my brothers to meet me in Galilee,” a travel bulletin which has always struck me as a bit prosaic from someone who’s just been to Death and back…
And Jesus’ disciples have not gone to Galilee but are holed up in that room – perhaps the one where they’d celebrated the Passover a few nights earlier, a lifetime ago:
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 Jewish leaders, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you.’ After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.
“Peace be with you.” I can imagine many emotions those men and women probably experienced that day, and none of them involve peace. Here they are, trying to process the cosmic developments they’ve witnessed, while hiding in a locked room because the threat to their lives has just intensified. And here is Jesus, just suddenly there, despite the doors shut and locked? “Peace be with you?”
But Jesus doesn’t only say, “Peace” – he can impart peace. This is the man whom they saw still a violent storm, and calm a violent man. This is the friend they watched endure ridicule and torture and betrayal and a horrible death. When Jesus says, “Peace,” he has the power to generate it. It worked on them – soon they are rejoicing.
And then he breathes upon them, imparting the Holy Spirit and authorizing them to release or to retain sins, to bind or to set free. Jesus’ mission was to set humanity free. Now he sends us to participate in that mission, and he breathes upon us his Holy Spirit. Take a deep breath in…. hold it, let it expand in you…. Feel the life of God fill you. And then exhale, breathing God’s forgiving love out upon someone (maybe yourself..). Then do it again.
Jesus invites us to rejoice too, even in the pain and disruption of a global pandemic. Jesus is still risen! He still speaks peace to us, and as we let his presence live in us, we can feel that peace spreading through our minds and bodies and spirits. This is one way we know we have received God’s Spirit. This is one way Easter becomes real for us.
To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Sunday’s readings are here.
The readings for Monday in Easter Week are here.
