Christ is risen!
Christ is risen indeed!
Alleluia!
We had a wonderful celebration of the resurrection this past Sunday, with beautiful music, flowers, liturgy, and hearing the amazing story of God’s victory over all that would separate us from God and one another in this life and eternal life.
We now enter into the season of Eastertide—the Great 50 Days of contemplating the mystery of the resurrection. As the disciples caught glimpses of the resurrected Christ in their midst for 50 days after Easter, they began to put the pieces of the story together, remembering what Jesus had told them about what would happen, and what it all meant. This season offers us the same opportunity, to put the pieces of the story together, applying them to our lives so that we might live lives of resurrection as Easter people.
The Stations of the Resurrection series by Scott the Painter will guide us. He offers us fourteen pieces of art to help us reflect on this time between Jesus’ resurrection and ascension. The installation of our art show was delayed this week due to the storms but should now be out on our front lawn to enjoy. We also have devotional booklets available near the sanctuary doors for you to use throughout this series.
This week we will focus on the story of the Walk to Emmaus in Luke 24:13-49. There are two stations that are connected to this story: Disillusionment and Participation. In worship we will focus on Participation. We will have missed a lot, however, if we don’t pause to identify with the feelings, like disillusionment, of Jesus’ followers in this time before they realized and understood what had happened.
The disciples who were on their way to Emmaus that Easter day were tired and disillusioned. All of their hopes seemed to be dashed and they were walking back home in defeat. Their sorrow and defeat was so overwhelming that they did not even recognize the one who came and talked with them and interpreted the scriptures for them along the way. And yet it was the resurrected Jesus. Though they didn’t realize it until afterwards, he was with them in these hardest and most hopeless moments.
As we experience moments of exhaustion, disappointment, grief, and questions about our faith, this story gives us hope that even when we don’t realize it, God is walking with us. Scott Erickson writes about this part of the story, “So often the story God is telling with our lives is not the story we are telling about ourselves. Sometimes the story of disillusionment and despair, a story of walking away, becomes a story of resurrection…May you see your disillusionment as the road to a whole new way of understanding.”
Blessings,
Pastor Suzanne