June 5, 2011 Seventh Sunday of Easter

John 17: 1-11

   1 After Jesus said this, he looked toward heaven and prayed:

   “Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you. 2 For you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him. 3 Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. 4 I have brought you glory on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do. 5 And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began.

    6 “I have revealed you to those whom you gave me out of the world. They were yours; you gave them to me and they have obeyed your word. 7 Now they know that everything you have given me comes from you. 8 For I gave them the words you gave me and they accepted them. They knew with certainty that I came from you, and they believed that you sent me. 9 I pray for them. I am not praying for the world, but for those you have given me, for they are yours. 10 All I have is yours, and all you have is mine. And glory has come to me through them. 11 I will remain in the world no longer, but they are still in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name, the name you gave me, so that they may be one as we are one.

May 7, 1978 “Living In Love ”

 “The petition that this community of believes be kept in God’s name is in effect a petition that love be the sign and seal of their common life.  Just as love marks the unity of the Father with his Son, and of the Son with his followers, so love shall mark the unity of God’s people and provide the power for their mission.”  From Proclamation

Living in love is the mark of unity - not sameness.

In the church we have had difficulty with differtness.

Our unity lies not in our sameness but in our love which transcends, embraces, encourages, applauds differtness!

To encourage differtness is healthy.

Love encourages differtness and is the power needed to live in unity with differtness.

There is only ONE holy, apostolic, catholic Church.  Only one!

Yet, the Church has never been ONE.  There have always been differences, disagreements and dissension within the body of believers.

“If Puritans had been, in part, driven by the haunting fear that someone, somewhere might be happy, Lutherans (have) been driven in part by the fear that someone, somewhere else might be right.”  The Cresset, May 1984, p.10

These words of our text are beyond our doing; but not beyond God’s doing!

Our task is not to create the oneness, the unity; our task is to discover it, affirm it, and share it with one another.

The irony is, unity can be discovered in places of division, even places of tension.

There is room for differtness in our oneness and sometimes it takes tension to discover it.

The unity of the Church is deeper then our differtness; the oneness is a great mystery born of God’s love at work ink our hearts and lives.

“Now They Know”

Jesus Christ came to make God’ knowable’; so we might know the one true God.

No one is prevented from knowing God by God.  God does not predestine anyone to blindness and disbelief.

Knowing begins with trust; trusting the person who has the word; trusting Jesus Christ.

Then knowing becomes a matter of obeying; acting on his word.

To know is to trust; to trust is to act, to act is to discover - now we know!

“And to those who obey Him, whether they be wise or simple, He will reveal Himself in the toils, the conflicts, the sufferings ( and we can add the joys) which they shall pass through in His fellowship, and as an ineffable mystery, they shall learn in their own experience Who He is.”             

                                  Albert Schweitzer, “The Search For The Historical Jesus”

May 29, 2011 Sixth Sunday of Easter

John 14:15-21

15 “If you love me, keep my commands. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever— 17 the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be[a] in you. 18 I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. 19 Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. 20 On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. 21 Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them.”

 “Love...As Struggle Together” 

“Love is, as much as it is anything, a struggle together that is always seeded with new possibilities and challenges...even in old age.”    Eugene Kennedy

Jesus is talking about such a struggle in our text for today.

He is not talking about a comfortable system for getting into heaven. 

He is talking about the struggle inherent in loving one’s neighbor as one’s self!

Jesus can be very demanding.  To know of his amazing grace is also to learn of his demanding love.  For once we are loved and know lit, we have to love so others know it.

To say that God loves me is to say something not only life giving, but also something life demanding.  This means we are to be about the task of healing where ever it is needed.

As Sam Keen says, “The task of the lover is to be an agent of healing.“ 

This is the struggle to be human in the image of Jesus. 

This is the bottom line with Jesus: to love God and live it by showing love to others.

This is no extra curricular activity we are called to do. This is the heart of it all.   

We have been loved with a great love!  We are to love with a great love!

“Unlike The World”   

“The disciplesare utterly unlike the world.  (They) live under a different command, are given a different spirit, serve a different God, and engage in a different love.  (this) community-defininlg command...is new and unexpected....the command is an invitation to live a different life together, unlike the sways of the world. The practice of love makes the church staggeringly unlike the world.”    Walter Brueggemann 

We are called to be different.  Not perfect, not sanctimonious, not judgmental, but different!  Different because of the role love plays in our lives and relationships.

 “All gestures of love however small they be in favor of the poor and the unwanted, are important to Jesus.”  Mother Teresa: 

“We can do no great things; only small things with great love.”  Mother Teresa: 

 “Let them say, ‘He tried to love somebody.’”   Martin Luther King:

We are called to be different in how we love.  This is the all consuming task of following Jesus.

May 22, 2011  Fifth Sunday of Easter

John 14:1-14

11 “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God[a]; believe also in me. 2 My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. 4 You know the way to the place where I am going.”

 5 Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?”

 6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 7 If you really know me, you will know[b] my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.”

 8 Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.”

 9 Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? 10 Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. 11 Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the works themselves. 12 Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. 13 And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.

Even with words we have heard many times, we must listen for what we have never heard before.  And with words we know we must listen for the unknown.

The words of John 14, which we often use to make out an exclusive defense for Christianity, were spoken in a powerfully intimate moment.  They are not meant to be used as a smug statement of egotistical arrogance, but  a expression of the extent of God’s love.  

It is through His love that all people come to the Father.  He who ate with tax collectors and sinners and forgave those no one else would forgive opens the door to God’s love for everyone - those who believe and those who don’t!

We are not called to save people; this is God’s task.  We are called to love people, as God has loved us. This is the greater work we are to do - trust in and live out the  way of love over hate, the truth of forgiveness over condemnation, and the life of faith which dares

keep compassion at the center of life.

An important emphasis of this text is that what it promises has already come to us.  We don’t have to live wondering how we are going to get there; we can live doing his work. And dare we say it, even doing greater things then he did because He is in all we do and makes more of it then we ever could alone.  

Greater works then Jesus - more accepting, more forgiving, compassionate, understanding, open to new possibilities then we would ever be left  to ourselves.  

May 15, 2011 Fourth Sunday of Easter

John 10:1-10

“Very truly I tell you Pharisees, anyone who does not enter the sheep pen by the gate, but climbs in by some other way, is a thief and a robber. 2 The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. 3 The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. 4 When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice. 5 But they will never follow a stranger; in fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognize a stranger’s voice.” 6 Jesus used this figure of speech, but the Pharisees did not understand what he was telling them.

   7 Therefore Jesus said again, “Very truly I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. 8 All who have come before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep have not listened to them. 9 I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved.[a] They will come in and go out, and find pasture. 10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.

“The Shepherd Gives Life”  

“The purpose of the shepherd is to give life to the sheep.”

This is why he exists!

He knows them by name. They know his voice.  The relationship leads to abundant life.

In the book, “The Little Prince”, the following conversion takes place between a boy and a fox:    

The fox is speaking to the boy:

“I have no need for you, and you, on your part, have no need of me.  To you, I am 

nothing more than a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes.  But if you tame me,

       then we will need each other.  To me, you will be unique in all the world.  To you, I

       shall be unique in all the world.”

That’s the key - to be unique to someone!

We are unique to God - who loves us with a unique love in Jesus, 

calls us by name and gives us opportunity to live life all the way up!

God won’t live our lives for us; God will live our lives with us.

The purpose of the Church is also to give life, fill life, enrich life so that we are pregnant with potential and then turned loose on the world.

April 16, 1978  “Discovering Life -  Abundantly”

Thornton Wilder in his play “Our Town” has Emily, the young bride who had died in childbirth, ask, in a return to live over one day with her family,:  “Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it?”  The answer given is, “No, the Saints and poets maybe, they do some.”

It is so easy to live for yesterday or tomorrow and miss today.

We must realize that life is a spiritual journey and it’s abundance is to be discovered on the way.  It is discovered as it is shared with others and as we open ourselves to new possibilities.  

Slowing down helps; so does a simpler life style; time to touch and be touched.

The abundant life in Christ is hidden in human form yet today; even as we are touched by His presence, we also must touch to live.

A story to spark the text

“Peter W Marty, in a short article titled “The Poetry of Sheep.” offers yet another ideal picture of the church:  ”Metaphorically speaking, it’s like a jumble of words coming together to form an unexplainable rich poem.“

His inspiration comes from a sheep farm in England in which a writer spray-painted a single word on each sheep in the flock and then set them loose.  As the sheep wandered around, the words took on constantly shifting poetic forms.

Marty says, “We the church would do well to think of God as writing poetry with our lives.  You can’t write a poem with one word.  It takes a whole flock...Always God is trying to figure out how to get us to be this unexplainably rich poem we’re capable of being.”

Nancy Claire Pittman, New Proclamation, Year A 2011 Easter through Christ the King

Peer W. Marty, “The Poetry of Sheep”. Christian Century. (Sept. 9, 2008), 10.

May 8, 2011 Third Sunday of Easter

Luke 24:13-35

13 Now that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem. 14 They were talking with each other about everything that had happened. 15 As they talked and discussed these things with each other, Jesus himself came up and walked along with them; 16 but they were kept from recognizing him.

   17 He asked them, “What are you discussing together as you walk along?”

   They stood still, their faces downcast. 18 One of them, named Cleopas, asked him, “Are you the only one visiting Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?”

   19 “What things?” he asked.

   “About Jesus of Nazareth,” they replied. “He was a prophet, powerful in word and deed before God and all the people. 20 The chief priests and our rulers handed him over to be sentenced to death, and they crucified him; 21 but we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel. And what is more, it is the third day since all this took place. 22 In addition, some of our women amazed us. They went to the tomb early this morning 23 but didn’t find his body. They came and told us that they had seen a vision of angels, who said he was alive. 24 Then some of our companions went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but they did not see Jesus.”

   25 He said to them, “How foolish you are, and how slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken! 26 Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?” 27 And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.

   28 As they approached the village to which they were going, Jesus continued on as if he were going farther. 29 But they urged him strongly, “Stay with us, for it is nearly evening; the day is almost over.” So he went in to stay with them.

   30 When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. 31 Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight. 32 They asked each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?”

   33 They got up and returned at once to Jerusalem. There they found the Eleven and those with them, assembled together 34 and saying, “It is true! The Lord has risen and has appeared to Simon.” 35 Then the two told what had happened on the way, and how Jesus was recognized by them when he broke the bread.

“Slow Of Heart To Believe”

Heart is: “the seat of both reason and will and carries the meaning of the inner essence of our being.”  It is an important word in the scriptures.  

To try make sense of the resurrection to the mind alone is impossible; it must be to the heart first and then the mind will live with what it cannot fathom.  We don’t understand baptism; we do it.  We can’t comprehend heaven or describe it; we believe in it, and leave the rest to God.  It’s his problem not ours!  

He created us; he loves us; he caused Jesus to be born; he caused him to rise from the dead; he will take care of heaven for us.  We can just believe it with the heart and live as if it is true; knowing deep within - within the heart - that it is true!

“Stay With Us - Hospitality”

The story of the text comes to bear on the story of our lives, creating change in the story we live. (Sheldon Tostengard)

“When all is said and done, the astonishing thing in this story is not that these two fragile human beings were ‘foolish’ and ‘slow of heart’ to believe.  The astonishing thing is that with all their foolishness and slowness of heart they offered their hospitality to an incomprehensible stranger and were given the Lord’s own gift of Easter faith, the Lord’s own gift of self, in the breaking of the bread.”  (Proclamation 3, p.20)

Jesus words were not enough to create faith - his actions were.

For what the mind cannot comprehend, the heart can see and believe.

“Offer an open and hospitable space where strangers can cast off their strangeness and become our fellow human beings.”  “Where the stranger can enter and become a friend instead of (remain) an enemy.  Hospitality is not to change people, but to offer them space where change can take place.”  Henri Nouwen

“Joys That Are Eternal”

In a Prayer Of The Day for the 3rd Sunday of Easter we find these words which point to the theme of the day:  “Grant your faithful people a share in the joys that are eternal...”

To share in the joys that are eternal is not only for tomorrow;  it is for now!  One way is hospitality.  When we practice hospitality our eyes are opened to see Jesus walking with us in people, places and ways we least expected.    We discover the joy of

Jesus present in the here and now - in acts of love and compassion.

The challenge for us is to recognize Jesus walking with us, even when at first he is hidden from our sight.

We were in Amman, Jordan, in a Orphanage for “throw away children”.  Children who were so severely challenged, both physically and mentally that they could do little for them selves.  We fed them, played with them, took them outside.  We tried to be hospitable with them.  Little seemed to make much difference in their miserable existence.

Then on Thursday morning a well dressed man entered the Orphanage.  Suit, tie, very “western” looking.  As soon as he entered all the children began to squeal and make what ever noise they could.  We stood in awe as he removed his suit coat and began one by one to call the children by name and gently but firmly move their twisted limbs.

It look like it might hurt.  They enjoyed every minute of it.   And each had their turn.

When he was finished he sat with us.  He told us he was a Physical Therapist, a Muslim who instead of going to Mosque came weekly to the Orphanage to spend some time

with the children.  The children who were hopelessly deformed and for whom he could do little good.  Except give them a few moments of loving touch.

When he left we all agreed that we had seen Jesus - in that man and in the hospitality of his touch!  We were surprised by the discovery; and overjoyed to have our eyes opened to see that Jesus walks with all who touch in love!  Hospitality at its best!

May 1, 2011 Second Sunday of Easter

John 20:19-31

19 On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jewish leaders, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” 20 After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord.

   21 Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” 22 And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. 23 If you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.”

  24 Now Thomas (also known as Didymus[a]), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. 25 So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord!”

   But he said to them, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.”

   26 A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” 27 Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.”

   28 Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!”

   29 Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

    30 Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. 31 But these are written that you may believe[b] that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

 “Loved Into Believing” 

 For John, believing in God and believing in the resurrection is all tied up with loving one another. It is not something we do in isolation, something we achieve by ourselves. 

 It is something which happens to us when we obey his commands and do good to one another. Faith active in love increases faith so we can see what we could not see, believe what we could not believe, and know what we could never know - even the awesome truth of the resurrection. 

 The near impossible task of self-forgetfulness, the unappetizing chore of loving one's neighbor as Jesus defined that person, has the qualities of a baptism by fire. Dostoevsky teats the problem of unbelief in a cruelly realistic, forthright way, as do the gospels themselves. In both cases, many of us wait for faith and wait some more for faith to transform us. We are the spiritually dead. but we can be resurrected by loving; we can recognize that we are called by love to love.” Alcyone Scott in Christian Century. 

 “Shalom - Peace”

Peace or shalom does not mean the absence of struggle and pain;  it does mean the presence of love in our wounded, fearful hearts.

No one lives without fear; God embraces our fear with his presence and gives us a peace which passes human understanding.  We are loved in the place of our greatest weakness.

This is the perfect love which casts out fear and replaces it with peace.

 “Life In His Name”

The Easter message still rings in our ears; it brings a peace which passes human understanding;  a joy which cannot be taken away; ; forgiveness which is God’s healing grace at work in our lives; and a faith which dares to doubt yet believes.  A faith which risks life on the resurrection and believes what it cannot see.  A faith which hears and believes! Rom 10:17 “Faith comes from what is heard and what is heard comes by preaching Christ.”

Doubting Thomas 

Be a doubting Thomas!  It is a part of healthy faith. 

 Luther: “There is more faith in honest doubt then all the creeds of Christendom.”

Be a doubting Thomas: 

It will keep you honest and open to change; open to Gods will for your  life. It will keep you humble - you will not get so easily caught in the idolatry of certainty. 

Faith will be a voyage of discovery, often disturbing, yet also fulfilling. 

Doubt helps faith happen - it opens us to the miracle of faith happening in us. 

For doubting is a part of believing. 

We don't believe by our own reason or strength...we believe by the power of the Holy Spirit at work in us. Our doubts lead us to faith. They keep us healthy - not too sure and thus blind.  Blind faith is not a healthy faith; it is a dangerous faith. 

Quotes On Doubt: 

 Frederick Buechner 

 “Whether your faith is that there is a God, or that there is not a God, 

 if you don't have any doubts you are either kidding yourself or asleep. 

 Doubts are the ants in the pants of faith. They keep it awake and moving.” 

 Alan Jones 

“In a world where there is no room for doubt, ambiguity, or questioning, there is no room for genuine faith.”  

April 24, 2011 Easter Sunday

Matthew 28: 1-10

1 After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb.

   2 There was a violent earthquake, for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and, going to the tomb, rolled back the stone and sat on it. 3 His appearance was like lightning, and his clothes were white as snow. 4 The guards were so afraid of him that they shook and became like dead men.

   5 The angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. 6 He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. 7 Then go quickly and tell his disciples: ‘He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him.’ Now I have told you.”

   8 So the women hurried away from the tomb, afraid yet filled with joy, and ran to tell his disciples. 9 Suddenly Jesus met them. “Greetings,” he said. They came to him, clasped his feet and worshiped him. 10 Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.”

 “With Fear and Great Joy” 

“Christianity begins with Easter.  Without Easter there would be no Gospel, not a single narrative, not a letter in the New Testament.  Without Easter, Christendom would have no belief in Christ, no proclamation of Christ, nor any Church, any divine worship, any mission.”   Hans Kung, “Eternal Life”, p. 107

Without Easter there would be no Christmas either.

Easter is vital to a vibrant faith and a vibrant church.  

Without it, we are of all people the most to be pitied.

The Resurrection created the church!  We celebrate this today with great fear - because it is always stunning, amazing, confounding, bewildering - this message which is so incomprehensible.  And we celebrate it with great joy - for it touches our hearts and lifts our spirits and gives hope to our living.

Easter is a celebration of something new happening in this old world which forever changes things.  It is a powerful reminder that “God’s steadfast love endures for ever.” (Ps 136)

Easter is a love feast!

“The Resurrection tells us that at the heart and center of the universe, love is reigning”

Morton Kelsey, “Resurrection”, p. 93

The Resurrection “is a vista that makes our world too small and it makes human life too great.”  Paul Scherer

The Resurrection is love’s finest hour!

Things are soul size now!

This we celebrate today - with fear and great joy!

 John 20:1-18  (An alternate text for Easter)

  1 Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance. 2 So she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, and said, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they have put him!”

   3 So Peter and the other disciple started for the tomb. 4 Both were running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. 5 He bent over and looked in at the strips of linen lying there but did not go in. 6 Then Simon Peter came along behind him and went straight into the tomb. He saw the strips of linen lying there, 7 as well as the cloth that had been wrapped around Jesus’ head. The cloth was still lying in its place, separate from the linen. 8 Finally the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed. 9 (They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.) 10 Then the disciples went back to where they were staying.

 11 Now Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb 12 and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot.

   13 They asked her, “Woman, why are you crying?”

   “They have taken my Lord away,” she said, “and I don’t know where they have put him.” 14 At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus.

   15 He asked her, “Woman, why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?”

   Thinking he was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.”

   16 Jesus said to her, “Mary.”

   She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means “Teacher”).

   17 Jesus said, “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”

   18 Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: “I have seen the Lord!” And she told them that he had said these things to her.

“He Saw and Believed”

Easter proclaims the most incomprehensible, illogical, mind boggling, far fetched idea ever proposed on the face of this earth.  It is way out, man!

There was nothing to prove it true for Peter or John; and there is nothing to prove it true for us.  It is a mystery to be embraced; not a truth to be reasoned.  It is the impossible happening and we have to be open to something that wild or we will miss it.

All things are possible now; life can break out in new and wonderful ways.

To believe in the resurrection is to embrace a miracle and live with possibility.

When Dr. David Read, then Chaplain and prisoner of war was released by the liberating armies in 1945 he went up to the first soldier he saw, held out his hand to him, and said,

“Sir, I’m glad to see you, and that’s an understatement!”

An understatement - “He saw and believed.”

Hidden in these words is the mystery of faith, which embraces a mystery; the mystery of hope, which dares live in that mystery; and the mystery of love, which carries that mystery into all of life with transforming power.

To believe in the resurrection is to be captured by it; and made different because of it. 

To believe in the resurrection is to let God love you and trust as someone has said, that “Hence forth, all safety is in love.”

Dad died this past Jan. (1878) At his death bed he said to us (Mom and I) “It’s been good.”

I said to him, “You’ve been good.” ( A classic understatement to be sure!”)

He said three times a word I couldn’t get; then he spelled it - “Hurrah!”

And he died.  With a word of thanks, a word of joy, a word of love on his lips.

A word which was also, an understatement, for in that word was all the words of faith, hope, and love, born of a resurrection.