April 11 - Remembering what Jesus told us
Contributed by
Shirley H. Showalter, president of Goshen College on Sunday April 11
Scripture
Luke 24:1-12
But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb,
taking the spices that they had prepared. They found the stone rolled
away from the tomb but when they went in, they did not find the body
While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men in dazzling
clothes stood beside them. The women were terrified and bowed their
faces to the ground, but the men said to them, ‘Why do you look for the
living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. Remember how he
told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be
handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise
again.’ Then they remembered his words, and returning from the tomb,
they told all this to the eleven and to all the rest. Now it was Mary
Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with
them who told this to the apostles. But these words seemed to them an
idle tale, and they did not believe them. But Peter got up and ran to
the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by
themselves; then he went home, amazed at what had happened.
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Devotion
My
father died May 2, 1980, two hours into his 55th birthday. Since I was
31 at the time, I was quite unprepared for the suddenness and
seriousness of his illness and eventual death. I went through shock,
pain, and then, a strange kind of joy. Were those feelings anything
like the experience of the three women who carried burial spices to
Jesus’ tomb on the morning of the first day of the week? I do not
presume to know the radical nature of their transformation, but my
experience helps me imagine. Let us travel with the women again this
Easter on a journey from grief, to disbelief, to joyful assurance.
The
discovery of the empty grave was a reframing experience for the two
Marys and Joanna. They had followed Jesus, they had even heard him say
mysterious things about the Son of Man and how he would die and rise
again. Yet their eyes and ears were closed, possibly because Jesus was
always talking in parables and metaphors, and probably out of a human
tendency to deny death and to disbelieve in resurrection.
After the angels at the tomb asked the probing question, "Why
seek the living among the dead?" the women had an awakening. "They
remembered what Jesus had told them."
As we open ourselves to the Passion of the Christ on Good
Friday, and as we move with the women from grief to disbelief to joy on
Easter Sunday, perhaps what Jesus wants most from us is to remember
again what he told us – all of what he told us. Today is a good day to
reread the whole gospel of Luke so that we can revisit the tomb and
share the wonder experienced by Mary Magdelene, Joanna and Mary the
mother of James.
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