- Acts 10: 34a, 37-43
- Psalms 118: 1-2, 16-17, 22-23
- 1 Corinthians 5: 6b-8
- John 20: 1-9
- Altar call
- In Evangelical circles, a church service will often conclude with an invitation to come to the altar and pray for God's forgiveness of your sins and dedicate your life to God. Such an event in a person's life can mark a real turning point in their existence, but I imagine that there was a lot that led up to that trip down the aisle to the altar to be prayed over.
- How have you witnessed the goodness of God in your life?
- Based on your past experiences with God, what expectations do you have on how the rest of your life is going to turn out?
- How have you witnessed about the goodness of God in your life?
- Do you think that we, as Christians, should have a "don't ask, don't tell" policy regarding our faith?
- Enduring mercy
- When I was young, I wanted to be more athletic. I did not dream of making a seven figure income shooting hoops, I just just did not want to be picked last when we picked teams for pickup baseball or football games. I gradually realized that even that modest goal was not going to happen, but one thing I was better at than most was distance running. All it took was grim determination, and discipline: endurance. Maybe that's what the psalmist means when he talks about God's enduring mercy.
- What does divine mercy mean for you?
- How has God shown you mercy in your life?
- When you die, and see God face to face for the first time, what expression do you think that you'll find on His face?
- How does that influence the way that you will be to yourself and others today?
- Being a people of hope
- New Year's resolutions have an attraction because we hope that turning that last page on the old year's calendar will somehow free us from some of the habits, addictions, thought patterns that have dogged us, and allow us to move forward in a new direction. Maybe we ought to schedule our New Year's resolutions for Easter instead.
- What are some of the resolutions that you have had? Maybe it's spending more time with your family, making time in your life for more regular prayer, donating time at a local food bank, staying awake through an entire Mass, ...
- What caused you to make those resolutions?
- How/when did you review how you did?
- What could you do to make that process of making/keeping resolutions more successful?
- Doing what needs to be done
- Mary Magdalene is sometimes called "the apostle to the apostles" because she is the one who told them that Jesus was not in the tomb. How did she get that position? By being there to serve and minister to Jesus the best way that she knew how at the time.
- Think of a time when you went out of your way to serve someone in great need. Did that encounter go just the way that you had planned, did their real needs match up with what you thought they needed most?
- How did you respond to any of those changes in plans?
- How did that encounter change you?
- Preparation for Reconciliation
- How/where can I share God's goodness?
- How/where can I show more mercy to others, to myself?
- How is God changing me today?
- Where is God calling me to minister, however humbly, to someone else?
One Step At a Time
He isn't where He's supposed to be!
That's all that I could think of as I raced back to where His friends were hiding.
Just one last duty, one last service that we could provide our Master and friend,
And we were even denied that comfort, that closure, by cruel events.
Someone, some they had moved his poor broken body with cold indifference.
And now He is gone from our midst, almost as if He had never been here at all.
There are angels in the tomb instead!
Light shone from them, not just around them.
Illuminating that cold, dark grave.
Infusing light, and maybe the beginnings of hope,
Into this little theater of despair,
Scene of the last act of a kind and generous man.
Maybe the gardener will help me make sense of all this?
Confusion and grief, loss, desolation all clamoring for my attention,
Find a measure of relief from a stranger.
I so wanted someone to weep with,
Someone who could journey with me through this grief,
Help me make sense of it all.
He knows my name!
The gardener called my name with such tenderness,
Somehow touching me even at the bottom of my pit of despair.
Somehow knowing what I was going through,
And caring enough to journey with me through that dark place.
Just like Jesus.
He is risen!
Somehow, He is back, back for me.
Back for all of us.
Back to rescue us from despair as a people, as a community, as a family.
Back, sending us forth to help others find His hand in the darkness.
Back to save us in, and through saving others.
Shalom and a blessed Easter to you!
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