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pjschurchdenver
Mar 302 min read

EASTER DAY, MARCH 31

Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord.” ~ John 20:18


This is the final reflection on this journey, and I want to end by saying what a privilege it has been to accompany you along the way during this season of Lent. Having walked through these forty days together, let us now share in Easter joy.


Each Gospel has a different account of the moment the disciples discover Jesus’ empty tomb. In reading the four accounts this year, I was struck by the way angels appear in the texts. In John 20, two angels dressed in white sit where Jesus had been lying. In Mark 16, an angel appears as a young man, dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side of the interior of the tomb. In Matthew, the earth trembles as an angel descends from heaven to roll back the stone and sit on top of it. And in Luke 24, two angels assure the women who have come to Jesus’ tomb that Jesus is alive.


Sometimes the angels bring words of reassurance. In other stories, they simply state that Jesus has been raised. And in one instance, the angels are confused as to why Mary Magdalene is crying. Doesn’t she know? Christ is alive and has been raised from the dead.


As we come to the end of this season, I am reassured by the physical placement of these angels. The Gospels tell us that these messengers are seated on top of, beside or just inside death’s tomb. They have come to announce a new reality, and I wonder if we, as Christians, aren’t called to join these angels in doing the same. Fearfully, tremblingly, very imperfectly, we are called to sit in places of darkness and terror and proclaim that death has no victory here.


Today’s readings



Alleluia. Alleluia. Alleluia.

Christ has risen indeed.


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pjschurchdenver
Mar 302 min read

HOLY SATURDAY, MARCH 30

So Joseph took the body and wrapped it in a clean linen cloth and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had hewn in the rock. He then rolled a great stone to the door of the tomb and went away. ~ Matthew 27:59–60


About a year ago, the United States Surgeon General warned of an epidemic of loneliness. He described acute isolation as significantly more widespread than previously imagined and as equally or more dangerous to Americans’ health as smoking and obesity. I found myself thinking about this epidemic of loneliness while reading Matthew 27:57–66, which describes Joseph of Arimathea wrapping Jesus’ body in cloth, laying the body in a tomb, rolling a stone to shut the tomb and walking away.


Jesus is isolated and shut away, separated by a wall of cold stone.


In Christian tradition, Holy Saturday commemorates the time when Jesus descended into the depths of hell. I recently saw a dramatic, medieval Christian painting portraying Jesus entering hell through the open mouth of a crocodile-like demon. As a person in the twenty-first century, though, I imagine this scene somewhat less literally. Today, as Jesus is entombed, I imagine Jesus entering the hell of acute loneliness, descending to the depths of isolation and pain.


Tradition has it that Jesus enters hell in order to share in this experience—and to redeem and liberate us from its grip on our lives. Let us pray that this may be so. There is so much isolation and loneliness in our world today and so much hunger for genuine connection. Easter has much to do with the grace found in friendship and community.


Today’s readings



Reflect on how the Good News of the Resurrection can take away the sting of loneliness. How can you be Christ’s hands and feet in that work?


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pjschurchdenver
Mar 292 min read

GOOD FRIDAY, MARCH 29

The woman said to Peter, “You are not also one of this man’s disciples, are you?” He said, “I am not.” ~ John 18:17


On this Good Friday, I invite us to reflect on the imperfections of Peter. This is the disciple who Jesus calls his rock, and who, in time, becomes “the rock” on which Jesus’ church is built. But John’s Gospel doesn’t present Peter in a particularly positive light. Some of Jesus’ last words to Peter are a chastisement: “Put your sword back into its sheath. Am I not to drink the cup that the Father has given me?” (John 18:11). Famously, Peter devotedly follows Jesus as he is bound and led away but also saves his own skin by denying three times that he ever knew Jesus. At the moment of Jesus’ arrest, “the rock” that Peter resembles isn’t granite—a rock that you can build on. Rather, he is more like porous pumice, rough around the edges and caving in all too easily.


Why does John’s Gospel include these embarrassing details about Peter, who becomes perhaps the most important disciple? I see these details as a sign of hope.


Through Peter’s fallibility, the story involves all of us. Christianity is not only for the heroic, the unspeakably wise or the extremely brave. It is also a faith for people who overreact, who get it wrong quite often and who run away. On Good Friday, Jesus is arrested and led away to be crucified, and Peter utterly fails to live up to what he had previously promised to do. This is a source of embarrassment, yes, and yet it’s exactly this full and complicated humanity that Jesus redeems in the days to come.


Today’s readings



Think of your life and spiritual journey. When have you, like Peter, failed to do what you promised?


When have you, like Peter, been a rock for others?


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