Alleluia, Christ is risen! The Lord is risen indeed, Alleluia!
I have three personal favorite Easter stories: I can never decide the order between them, so they are all tied for first. I love Mark's original ending, before later theologians got a hold of his gospel and felt it was missing something, at 16:8 ""So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid." Brilliant! In a gospel where every time Jesus heals someone he has said, "shhh...please tell no one" and then they promptly go out and tell everyone, here when the message finally is "go and tell" they do not, because they are too scared. As I read this, Mark puts it back on us, the reader: it's up to us to spread the good news, up to us to overcome our fears, up to us to "go and tell."
The other story I love, of course, is Thomas. Preachers love to disparage poor old "doubting" Thomas but not Jesus, who meets Thomas where he is, who gives him what he needs, who encourages him to trust Easter, and trust the good news in order to become "believing Thomas."
Both are great stories. But if forced to choose I think I'd have to give a slight edge to the Emmaus story in Luke, in part because I think it is a never-ending story. Like those disciples, we too are "on the way." Christ meets us in surprising ways, but in particular when we take the bread and bless it and break it and give it--and our eyes are opened, and our hearts burn and we know that the Lord is risen indeed. Were not our hearts burning? My prayer is that readers of this blog during this Lenten season will keep their eyes open during these next fifty days of Easter to all of those places "on the way" where Christ is with us.
Peace and joy,
Rich
One practical note as our meditations come to an end. As always, I am grateful to all who wrote--numerous people have shared with me that they thought this season's meditations showed a particular depth and I agree; it is a privilege to serve among such faithful witnesses, truly. This is the first time we did this as a blog. I would like to solicit some feedback from readers of this blog and hope that in the next day or two you might send me an email with responses to these questions:
1. How often did you read this blog over the past forty days?
(a) daily
(b) several times a week
(c) occasionally
2. How did you read this blog?
(a) bookmarking the site and checking it
(b) I linked it to my homepage
(c) I signed up for emails
3. Many people, at least initially, were a bit "scared" of changing this over from emails to a blog. I did it for personal reasons, primarily because it is much easier to set up the devotions to be published this way. But I am curious about how it ended up working for you, and if in the end it did work for you (especially if you've done this in the past with emails) Comments?
4. Other comments/suggestions/feedback?
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