Is there room for skeptics … those with questions, perhaps even doubts … is there room for skeptics in the Church today? Today’s gospel reading is the same one we hear every year on the Sunday after Easter: the story of Doubting Thomas. Portrayed by the author of John’s gospel as a skeptic it is given a negative, or pejorative, slant. Personally, I think Thomas gets a bad rap. Although he may have been the first to question the veracity of the claim of the bodily resurrection of Jesus, he was certainly not the last.
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Alleluia! Christ is Risen!
Christ is risen indeed! Alleluia! What a wonderful Easter morning! This sacred space is filled with the beauty of these flowers and the spirit of delightful music. Today we celebrate the power of God to bring new life out of death, to give us joy instead of weeping, to empower our lives into wholeness after being broken, to throw off the burden of guilt once and for all so that we may live in God’s loving forgiveness. The good news of Easter morning is that the abundant life that Jesus lived as a blessed and beloved child of God did not end with his death, and the grave could not hold it. That is good news for us today. We are blessed and beloved children of God invited to live that same abundant life. We just heard the Passion of Jesus read from John’s gospel. It is the story of his trial, his scourging, his last steps, and his crucifixion. Jesus died on a cross. We know that from the biblical accounts in all four gospel and also from some extra-biblical writings. Jesus died on a cross. It must have been a horrible death. The Stations of the Cross which hang in the church for our weekly meditation during Lent tell the story of the Passion in a visual depiction. It was a horrific way to die.
Printer-friendly version The Valley of Dry Bones and the Raising of Lazarus … what great stories. God was not finished with people of Israel … even if they were like dry bones in a desert. And God was not finished with Lazarus … even if after his corpse had lain in a dark cave for four days.
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PAST SERVICES
October 2024
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