The Upload
Posted on Apr 25, 2014 by
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ:
I pray that you had a blessed and happy Easter.
What a great day of joy and celebration Easter was. I love Easter morning! And this year, with the sun shining and the weather so gorgeous, it seemed especially joyous. Almost 300 people came to Salem to worship. We shouted that Easter proclamation, “Christ is Risen! He is risen indeed, alleluia!” A trumpet played and beautiful music “ushered us in” as we sang songs filled with joy and hope. And then we heard that age-old story from Matthew (28:1-10) of how “Mary Magdalene and the other Mary” went to the tomb, but when they got there, the earth shook and an angel that looked like lightening rolled away the stone, and he announced to them that Jesus had been raised from the dead and was going ahead of them to Galilee as he had promised. What great news! But, to be honest, it sure seemed impossible.
Now, Matthew doesn’t tell us anything about how the men reacted to the two Marys when they returned with the great news, but he does tell us that, even when Jesus appeared to them at his ascension, some still doubted (Matthew 28:17). In Mark, Luke and John, we are told that the men did not believe this “idle tale” (Luke 24:11) at first. According to John, it was not until evening on that first Easter, while the disciples were still locked away in the upper room because they feared for their lives, that they came to believe he was alive, and only after he came into their locked room and spoke to them (John 20:19-23). As I noted last week in my letter, believing in the Resurrection was not, and is not, easy; thus, every year on the first Sunday after Easter we read the story of “Doubting Thomas” (John 28:24-29). This story is not about Thomas’ doubt being a bad thing; it is about how doubt is what can and will draw us closer to Christ. Doubt should encourage us to ask questions about our faith and who Jesus was and is in our lives. When we have the courage to ask these questions and we are willing to really seek the answers, what we discover is that Christ comes to us, too, just as he did to Thomas.
About a year ago, I had a woman share with me that her husband was going through some hard times and was questioning his love for her. She was crushed and beside herself, but instead of kicking him out of the house, she began to pray. Over the course of this past year-and-a-half, she has yelled at God and questioned his existence and his love for her and her family. She doubted her faith and the faith of the church, but she never stopped praying. She told me just last week that her husband is now in counseling and he, through his struggles, has come to know that he does love her and he desperately wants to stay married. As she shared this last part of the story with me last week, she realized that it was in their doubts and their questioning that Christ came to them.
Brothers and sisters, as we enter now into this Easter Season, as we celebrate the gift of the Resurrection, I pray that none of us believes blindly. I pray that as we celebrate the Resurrection and our faith that we constantly seek to ask questions and acknowledge our doubts so that, like Thomas, we can profess, “My Lord and my God” (John 20:28) with a faith that fully sees the truth.
Have a blessed week for Christ has risen! He has risen, indeed!
Shalom,
Pastor Dave