Resurrection
Day 406, Sunday, Sept. 21
John Chapters 20 and 21
“I have seen the Lord.”
With those words Mary Magdalene became the first person to witness to others about her experience with the risen Christ, setting a model that is still for us to follow today.
To us, looking back through the lens of 2,000 or so years of Christianity, the resurrection following the crucifixion seems like it would have been expected. To those first disciples, though, it would have been a shock.
Remember how long it took them to realize it was necessary for him to be crucified, even though he had told them it would happen. By comparison his statements about returning were vague and imprecise.
The gospels differ in their accounts of exactly how many people Jesus appeared to after his resurrection, but in all of them it was a fairly limited number, meaning that there weren’t that many eyewitnesses.
When Thomas saw the resurrected Jesus, Jesus said, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”
We are among those blessed; it is to us to spread the good news!
-Rev. Mark Fleming
Sunday meditation
Job 36:22-33
“God is exalted in his power. Who is a teacher like him? Who has prescribed his ways for him, or said to him, ‘You have done wrong’? Remember to extol his work, which people have praised in song. All humanity has seen it; mortals gaze on it from afar. How great is God—beyond our understanding! The number of his years is past finding out.
“He draws up the drops of water, which distill as rain to the streams the clouds pour down their moisture and abundant showers fall on mankind. Who can understand how he spreads out the clouds, how he thunders from his pavilion? See how he scatters his lightning about him, bathing the depths of the sea. This is the way he governs the nations and provides food in abundance. He fills his hands with lightning and commands it to strike its mark. His thunder announces the coming storm; even the cattle make known its approach.
Prayer focus
Lord, let us be witnesses to your resurrection to those around us and our world.