Easter Sunday

Our readings for Easter Sunday:

1. Acts 10: 34a, 37-43
2. Psalm 118: 1-2, 16-17, 22-23
3. 1 Corinthians 5: 6b-8
4. John 20: 1-9

1. Shades of oppression
• How do you define healing?
• Is it purely physical?
• Is healing meant to make something just go away?
• How do you define oppression?
• Do you think that oppression can be carried out unintentionally?
• Do you think that an institution, a culture, a society can be oppressive?
• How can we be healing for those who have been oppressed?
2. Being the mercy of Christ
• One of the spiritual works of mercy is forgiving others.  Is there anyone in your life that you're having trouble forgiving?
• Sometimes, forgiveness isn't about a single solitary person, but an institution, a culture, a value system.  Can we, should we forgive such amorphous entities?
• What good does it do for us to forgive?
• How does forgiving others change us?
3. Being made new
• What in your life needs to be renewed, besides those old magazine subscriptions?
• Renewal often involves refounding: a deliberate process of finding the ultimate point of origin for a given movement and re examining what has happened since that founding in light of the renewed understanding of the foundations.
• What about your life needs to be renewed/refounded?
• Do you feel that those institutions that you have joined were perfectly aligned with their stated purpose?
• What to do about that?
4. Mercy above all else
• Have you ever had God lead you from one place to another in a process, rather than a sudden jump?
• Why do you think that God does that?  Wouldn't it be less error-prone if He just got these sorts of transitions over with sooner?
• Thinking about the raising of Lazarus, that was pretty dramatic.  But Jesus raised the expectations, and the faith of his disciples, Martha & Mary bit by bit.  How can we show that sort of mercy to others?
• Who has the time?

Preparation for Reconciliation:

1. If I am a witness for Jesus, what is it that my life is giving witness to?
2. Can I open myself up to all of God's possibilities for me and those that I love today?
3. What do I need to be made free of, that I might rejoice more fully during this season of Easter?
4. What is holding me back from hoping for the miracles in my life that Jesus has for me?

Tomb for rent, lightly used, inquire within

The thing about the Passion narrative that struck me this year is that Jesus gets so few lines.
After all, it was His words and His actions that got him crosswise with His world to begin with.
You would think that he would be bold, do bold, speak bold and show them who He really was.

Instead, He invited those around Him to ponder his life, relive what had happened, meditate,
And so come to understand what He had been saying in ways that mere words could never convey.
As if, by the time He was apprehended, everything needful had happened, and it was up to us.

Even though it often feels as though there must be some pieces missing,
Like trying to rebuild an old carburetor and coming up with parts left over.
Something that happened, something said, that never got recorded, leaving us lacking.

Maybe the missing piece is attentiveness, and time.
Attentiveness to the voices of the moments that we drive through.
Giving them their time to speak to us lovingly of the Father of Love.

Maybe the Gospel stories speak better when read slowly,
Letting them unfold in their own time, their own way.
Maybe the time to take time is now, always now, especially -

Especially in this time of rejoicing.

Shalom!