Resurrection of the Lord (Year A, RCL)

A good joke can reveal the distance between what is and what should be.

The phenomenon of women in groups, in community, has been near the front of my mind for some time.

At grief’s mercy, Mary stays at the site of her loss.

Many people are bound. Some don’t even know it. The difference between being free and being bound is at the center of our Gospel text this week.

I didn't start my day thinking about gang killings. But then a man showed up and asked about a funeral for his nephew—on Palm Sunday.

When she knew she was dying, my grandmother took me to see the cornerstone of a small brick church in my hometown of Kansas City, Missouri. I didn’t recognize the sign outside. It was a Baptist church, I think. It was pretty rundown, but still in better shape than the neighborhood. Overgrown vacant lots were everywhere; it was like visiting an abandoned church in the jungle.

My father died about three years ago. As May comes around, the azaleas spring to life, and I remember my father's passing. Just as sure as the tulips and dogwood blossom, my mind wanders back to my dad. Even when I begin to open up to these strange and wonderful stories of Easter, struggling with the notions of recognition and revelation, I think about the last few months of my father's life.

This Colossians reading is one of those distilled, cryptic passages that draws us into so much more than we can imagine. Such verses expand our capacity to wonder and give praise. They invite us into God’s mystery.

Transformation for Betsy, her congregants, and others will likely occur through encounters with members of the Muslim community. As a leader, Betsy can cultivate these encounters.

Each of the four Gospels’ depictions of the first encounter with the resurrected Christ suggests a different lens for perceiving the risen one. In Matthew, Christ’s resurrection looks like a theophany—earthquake and blazing light—and Christ appears suddenly and vividly to disciples on the run and on the mountain. In Luke, the risen Christ is first encountered as a peripatetic teacher and finally recognized in the breaking of bread. Mark apparently included no straightforward account of the risen Christ at all.

And in the Gospel of John, Christ rises from the ground in a springtime garden.

In John's Easter account, people spend the day running around trying to come to terms with what God has done in the night.

If Christian liturgy works on the imagination, so do disordered secular liturgies. Social media—despite its good uses—might be one example.

The risen Christ does not rebuke Mary for her error. He seems rather to enjoy the occasion of her surprise.