Saturday in Easter Week
Our site is under renovation. In the meantime, please enjoy this post from Easter 2014
After Jesus rose early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, from whom he had cast out seven demons. She went out and told those who had been with him, while they were mourning and weeping. But when they heard that he was alive and had been seen by her, they would not believe it. After this he appeared in another form to two of them, as they were walking into the country. And they went back and told the rest, but they did not believe them. Later he appeared to the eleven themselves as they were sitting at the table; and he upbraided them for their lack of faith and stubbornness, because they had not believed those who saw him after he had risen. And he said to them, “Go into all the world and proclaim the good news to the whole creation.” And they went out and proclaimed the good news everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the message by the signs that accompanied it. (Mark 16:9-15,20)
Dear Friends,
Mark’s Gospel recounts that when Mary Magdalene brought the Good News to the Apostles in the midst of their grief and mourning, they did not believe her. When the couple on the road to Emmaus encountered Jesus and raced back to tell the eleven, they did not believe them. It was not until Jesus himself appeared to them at table, and basically bawled them out for being stubborn and faithless, that they accepted the reality of Jesus’ resurrection.
Was it because the testimony of a woman was not acceptable? Was it because the word of two people was not sufficient? Was it because the news was second-hand? Or was it because sometimes we would rather sit in our sorrow than rise to new life?
Jesus is risen, and so are we. We can no longer hide behind our self-made walls of fear, despair or the sense of inadequacy. If we believe that he is risen, there is only one path before us. We must become evangelists. We must share with the world our conviction that death is conquered, that we are freed from the fear of oblivion; and that grace of God, eternally present to us, is now the truth in our hearts and the message on our lips.
“He is risen, He is risen! Tell it out with joyful voice;
He has burst his three-days’ prison; let the whole wide earth rejoice.
Death is conquered, we are free, Christ has won the victory.”
Alleluia, Christ is risen,
Glyn+
All Good Gifts 