Devotion - Wednesday, March 30

As is appropriate for this week after Easter, the lectionary has us reading the Easter story from the various Gospel accounts.  There are aspects of the story which differ, thus giving a fuller understanding of how the first followers of Jesus made sense of the events which had happened in their midst.

At last week's Wednesday gathering, we joined the Jewish students for a Seder.  Dr. Cohen reminded us that in the Gospel of John there is no "last supper."  In that account, Jesus dies on the day of preparation for the Passover.  He is thus linked to the sacrificial lamb.  

This morning I was reading from Matthew 28.  In Matthew, the tomb is still sealed when the women arrive.  They witness an earthquake and the rolling away of the stone.  There are guards present when this happens.  "For fear," they became like dead men.

Matthew addresses what surely became an alternate explanation to the Easter morning events.  The verses speak of a plot to deceive, actually paying the soldiers to say the disciples had come and stole the body.

The events of Easter have many facets and angles.  There is much to be learned and many directives for our lives.  Something earth changing has happened; how could it be retold?  There is so much here, who could claim to give voice to it all in one re-telling?

We suffer from the modern age's insistence on factual information.  There are some events too enormous to be captured in bullet points or PowerPoint slides.  There are some events so life-altering that we need to hear from as many persons as possible how these events have changed their lives.  In each retelling, we might learn something of the event we did not know before.  In each retelling we are sure to see how these events have changed the life of the one doing the retelling.  Easter is that for us - it is a life altering event.  How it has changed and will change our lives is the story needing to be told and retold.