Letting in the Light of Easter

 

Our scripture yesterday was full of so many profound and powerful metaphors, I want for us to let this passage linger and leave an impression upon your life this week.  Today, I want you to read this passage two times slowly.  Savor every word as if it was the best dark chocolate you have ever tasted.  After each reading, pause for thirty second.  During that time, ask yourself, what word or phrase reverberates and resonates in me?  I encourage you to read aloud!  I know we are all taught in school to read silently to ourselves.  But history tells us that in ancient times, when you went into a library you would hear people mumbling, reading, aloud the words to themselves.  For Scripture to be embodied and embraced, it needs to be heard as well as seen.  By both seeing and hearing the word, we can awaken our imaginations.  So, step into the story and ponder what do you smell or sense hovering in the air.  I pray you will be playful as you read Luke 24:36-48, two times.

While they were talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” They were startled and terrified, and thought that they were seeing a ghost.  He said to them, “Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts?  Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself. Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.” And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. While in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering, he said to them, “Have you anything here to eat?”  They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate in their presence. Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you—that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.”  Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures,  and he said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day,  and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. 

What word leaps off the screen into your soul?

For me, it is “Peace be with you.” I long for peace like a river in my soul.

Where do you, like the disciples, feel started and terrified amid the weary, worn world today?

Where do you sometimes feel faithfully bewildered trying to move about or make sense of the world today?

Can you smell the broiled fish so that your mouth starts to water?

Now, read aloud the words again.  As you engage this story, where do these ancient words connect to you today?

When we say scripture is true and can be trusted, this means we see, hear, encounter ourselves in these words.  These words can be like a mirror showing us a reflection of who and whose we are.  So, read and read again as we let these words sink deeper into our lives in such a time as this.

Prayer: Creative God continue to open our minds, imaginations, hearts, and souls so we might let the Easter light fully into our lives in these days.  Amen.