Welcome to Wednesday! We’ve made it to the middle of the week. Our preparations for Easter Sunday are well underway!
This Easter we’re working with two well known texts: John 20:1-3,11-18 (Mary in the Garden with the Risen Lord) and I Corinthians 15:51-58 (“Death is swallowed up in Victory”). Their contrasting perspectives on the Resurrection, one being close-up and the other cosmic, provide us a broad view of what God is working in Christ’s rising.
Today we look not only at the contrasting perspectives of the texts, but how the Reality of Resurrection contrasts with the ways of our world. On Wednesday we always explore the life context for the Scripture text, the world into which the word speaks.
Throughout this series, Outbreak of Grace, the backdrop for our Biblical study, the world into which the Word speaks is so different than usual. It is conditioned by Covid-19. In its worldwide impact everyone has had to face into the reality of our mortality.
The signs of this have been everywhere: rising rates of infection and death, overflowing emergency rooms across the country, refrigerator trucks rolling into New York City, sheltering in place in every community, masking in public in your going out and coming in. It’s a new, sobering and somber normal.
Jot down your thoughts about our “new normal”. Where do you see signs of the “reality of our mortality”?
It’s a grim picture. It’s that “reality of our world” that sets the stage for the “reality of Resurrection”. As we “connect” with all that is happening in our world, we can hear ever more clearly the power and hope of Easter. We can receive with joy the proclamation of Paul as he rejoices, “this mortal body has put on immortality”. (53) And “Death has been swallowed up In Victory” (54).
I look forward to celebrating with you how what is “grim” gives way to what is “glorious”. Tomorrow as we make construct a draft of that Easter message, I’m glad that our hope in the risen Christ will lift our hearts. In that blessing I’ll see you again tomorrow In the Pastor’s Workshop!
Prayer: Gracious God, as we look at our world there is so much that burdens and breaks our hearts. There is so much to wonder and worry about. Who knows what lies ahead? At the same time Easter encounters us with this Good News, Life rises above Death and Hope conquers our Despair. In that blessing, which is your gift to us in the Risen Christ, we embrace what is before us knowing you are with us. In that goodness of your risen glory we give you our thanks even as we lift this prayer and live our lives in our Risen Savior’s name. Amen