We will be hosting a zoom meeting on this Wednesday, April 22 at 7:00pm. If you are interested in joining us, please send an e-mail to ancientstreams10@gmail.com and we will give you the necessary link and instructions to log on and be a part of this time of connection.
At our meeting we will spend some time with the devotional below to help us continue to reflect on this Easter season. You may want to read it and reflect on the questions ahead of time.
May you be encouraged in Christ,
Nancy Keery and Ancient Streams team
The church calendar is a beautiful gift to us. One thing I especially appreciate is that Easter is a season—7 weeks, including Ascension Day. Seven weeks of rejoicing in the reality that death is not the end, and the power of sin—in me and the fallenness of this world does not have the final word. Seven weeks. That’s a long enough time to experience some leisure around this truth—stay in it for a while, explore each “resurrection appearance” of Jesus. In seven weeks, I can take some time in each account, wondering: how would I react if Jesus all of a sudden showed up in the room while we were all talking about him appearing to others? (Luke 24:36-49) When he offered, “touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have”, would I risk reaching out my hand to feel his arm? Or would I timidly hold back, my mind slowly processing, fear dissolving into amazement, as he asked, “Do you have anything here to eat?” Surely, we would all burst out laughing as we watched him chewing the broiled fish in front of us. Jesus, in the flesh, right before our very eyes! Jesus, who only a few days before hung mutilated on the cross. Sometimes, profoundly good news takes a while to sink in—for our minds to grasp that this could be…actually is true!
Maybe that’s why we need an extended period of time—weeks, instead of a day—to contemplate the fullness of the message, “Christ is risen indeed!” I wonder if the first Easter season wasn’t more like the slow dawning in our brains of incredibly good news—an unbelievable, earth shattering alteration of what Reality is that takes time to grasp. “Death has been swallowed up in victory. Where, O death is your victory? Where, O death is your sting?” (1Cor. 15:54-55)
However, life in the 21st C. moves fast. We’re tempted to power through the story of the resurrection as one big thrill on Easter Sunday, and we’re on to the next big event. “When’s Pentecost coming, anyway?”
What if we took some time this Easter season 2020? Perhaps we have more open space during this Covid 19 pandemic (and if not, our prayers for strength and grace are with you). What might it be like to take a leisurely walk through the resurrection appearances of Christ? Would each account touch me in some way; would something about Jesus stay with me? How do I read these differently this year than I did last? Is there something profoundly true, some Reality that needs to sink into my mind and heart during this unique time?
Eugene Peterson in his book, A Long Obedience in the Same Direction, encourages us to take up this slow, imaginative and prayerful way of reading scripture, “We must let our conversations and experiences and thoughts be brought into the story, so that we can observe what happens to us in this new context, through this story line, rubbing shoulders with these characters.” For it is in this way that we encounter, “God speaking to us, inviting, promising, blessing, confronting, commanding, healing.”
I wonder how Jesus might come into our “self-isolation” the way He came and stood among the disciples when they were behind locked doors because of their fears. (John 20: 19, 26) What would He have to say to me…to you…in this story…in all the others…today…and over the coming weeks?
Ancient Streams 