31 March 2016 - why are you troubled?

[ Today's Readings ]

Then he said to them, “Why are you troubled?
And why do questions arise in your hearts?
Look at my hands and my feet, that it is I myself.
Touch me and see, because a ghost does not have flesh and bones
as you can see I have.”

Jesus, you are risen indeed. You were dead but now you live. Help us, LORD, for we are troubled. We question. It is just hard to believe and accept even after hearing it is true and seeing the evidence of it in our own lives. Our memories become like memories of movies we watch rather than things we actually experience. Each and every time you do something new we are "startled and terrified" as if we "were seeing a ghost" because we quite get it. The resurrection is an idea. It surprises us whenever it impacts reality. But there is nothing more real than this. It includes even the mundane.

While they were still incredulous for joy and were amazed,
he asked them, “Have you anything here to eat?”
They gave him a piece of baked fish; 
he took it and ate it in front of them.

But the reality of a normal meal and the reality of a resurrection-powered meal are actually quite different. Normal food leaves us still hungry or too full. Even when it satisfies we hunger again. Even if we get some energy from the meal we again grow weary. But in the power of the resurrection we find the food which makes us never hunger again. This is the food of your word, Jesus.

“These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you,
that everything written about me in the law of Moses
and in the prophets and psalms must be fulfilled.”
Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures.

When this food nourishes us even eating regular food affects us differently. Something deeper is nourishes us at the same time. Even if our bodies go hungry our spirits remain satisfied. Our spirits foretell a deeper truth. They live now in the truth of the resurrection where death has no power and decay is cast out. They transform the world even now, from the inside out, to be more like the world to come. We don't have to struggle and fight to maintain ourselves and our place here below. This is because the life of the one "who has become a priest, not on the basis of a legal requirement concerning bodily descent, but by the power of an indestructible life" (see Hebrews 7:16) is now within us as well.

And this is the greatest gift we can give to anyone else.

The author of life you put to death,
but God raised him from the dead; of this we are witnesses.
And by faith in his name,
this man, whom you see and know, his name has made strong,
and the faith that comes through it
has given him this perfect health,
in the presence of all of you.

It is absolutely essential that we share the gift of the resurrection.

A prophet like me will the Lord, your God, raise up for you
from among your own kin;
to him you shall listen in all that he may say to you.
Everyone who does not listen to that prophet
will be cut off from the people. 

So help us to be bold, Jesus. Reveal yourself to us as the risen LORD! Only boldness acknowledges the truth and importance of the resurrection. If we shy away from this truth is it any wonder it loses power over our lives? We need to live like it is true, Jesus, because nothing is more true. 

O Lord, our God, how wonderful your name in all the earth!