Weekly Readings Reflections: Third Sunday of Easter

Our readings for the 3rd Sunday of Easter are:

The person of courage is not someone without fear. We have another word for those people: fool. A person of courage faces their fears and acts to achieve what needs to be done in spite of their fears.
When was a time in your Christian walk that was fearful for you?
How did you move past that fear?
Did it work out in the end?
What did you learn from that?

Most of us are where we are today in life for a number of reasons, a number of people who have influenced us along the way. It's hard to remember to thank all of them properly.
Who is someone that you credit with showing the way to God in one way or another?
How and what did they show you about God?
If someone were to closely examine your life, what would then conclude about God from that examination?
Do you ever examine your life to see what you can learn from it?

In the Jimmy Stewart movie It's a Wonderful Life the character George Bailey discovers through Divine Intervention that his life has meant something, that he has made a difference, and ultimately that he can still make a difference.
What about your life do you think has made the most difference?
Is there anything that you thought was really important that later on turned out to not be all that important?
With so many things clamoring for our attention, it's hard to stay focused. How do you tell what to put your time and energy into?

When Mary & I were dating I went to my first family party at her parent's home and I remember Mary's mother, Jean, offering me sparkling apple cider. For nearly forty years after that, every time I went over there, Jean had a bottle of sparkling cider and for me, it became a symbol all of the love and acceptance that I have received from that family.
What are some of the people/events/gestures/songs/... that remind you of God in your life?
Do you ever get a chance to share those with others?
How has that deepened for you over the years?
How would you like for it to deepen for you in the years to come?

Where is God inviting me forward into greater courage?
Where is the path of life taking me lately?
Where might God be calling me/us to pay better attention to my day to day living?
Where in my life is God calling me to deeper intimacy?

The Road Back

We could not wait to get out of Jerusalem.
From the nightmare of His death -
Death by fear, hatred, and worse, indifference.

All but forgotten on Calvary's grim hill.
Almost all of His friends scattered like leaves
Before the shame of such a death.

Hope flickered while He was among us.
And died with Him.
Died while the guards gambled for His last belongings.

News of His empty tomb was just too much.
Someone had done the final indignity -
Not even allowing us a shrine to remember Him by.

But then He showed Himself to us.
Not in a blinding flash of glory,
But slowly, gradually, showing us what we already knew -

Showing us what we had known, in a whole new light.
And we were able to see His life, His touch, His death -
As never before.

Victory over, and victory through death.
He had come to become our defeat at the hands of our sin
That He might show us the road back to God.

And then we knew, we could not keep this to ourselves.
The empty tomb was not a pit of despair
But a font of hope.

We needed to share that simmering joy
With our closest friends, our brothers and sisters
And in the sharing, experience His rising even more deeply.

The late afternoon glowed with new life.
The setting sun glorious as it wove through the clouds.
Jerusalem refulgent in the glory of God.

Our friends beaming with the joy
That His life, our lives, were joined.
That resurrection was ours here, now, today, forever.

Shalom!

Weekly Readings Reflections