I Have Seen Jesus

Dark on a Sunday morning, Mary Magdalene approaches the tomb where Jesus had been hastily placed following his crucifixion. She finds it disturbed, rushes for help, returns, and when everyone else has left, has an encounter with Jesus.

She doesn't recognize him at first, thinking him a gardener, but at the sound of her name, Mary, recognition flowers, her heart leaps, her sorrow and disbelief evaporates.

This Sunday, Easter Sunday, we will spend some time reflecting on this encounter and Mary's response to meeting Jesus in that cemetery.

Celebration

Hosanna!

While this word literally means "O Lord, save (us)" by the time it was being shouted by a palm waving crowd, accompanying a colt riding Jesus, it was likely understood to mean something like "Hail the King". The people were excited, celebrating, the Messiah was riding into Jerusalem to, in their minds anyway, make some major changes, bring Israel back to glory. Celebration was in the air.


We will celebrate this week as well. Our Sunday School children will swing palm branches and we will sing songs of celebration, hosanna. We are also celebrating the completion of the restoration of our building, damaged by fire in August.

Of course, neither Jesus ride into Jerusalem, or the completion of our building are the end of the story. Jesus ride was really the prelude to the beginning and we find ourselves in the middle of the story of salvation, the time between Jesus' comings. We are kingdom bringers and, as such, will celebrate God's goodness and the help extended to us by our community in our special Palm Sunday service this week.

A Snake in the Wilderness

Esteban March (1610 - 1668)

There's a little story, tucked into the record of the people of Israel's movement in the desert toward the promised land. It's a story about God's punishment for disobedience, but also of a loving God who provides a way to survive the punishment, a way to come out the other side.

The story is only five verses. Its a story of a grumbling people who are punished with poisonous snakes. The way out is a bronze snake and whoever had been bitten, if they would look at the snake raised on a pole, would live. The way out was given because God loved the people.

This little story is echoed in the gospel of John. Even the well known words of John 3:16 have hints of the earlier story. The difference is that the Son of God, raised, cures more than a deadly snake bite.

This Sunday as we continue to examine God's covenants with humanity we will see how the serpent raised in the desert is a foreshadowing of a new covenant.