“Alleluia! Christ is Risen!”
“Christ is risen indeed! Alleluia!”
Our Easter shout continues this week. Easter is a week of weeks (7 Sundays) and acts as a Sunday to the year. Fifty days of easter in a year of about 350 days is about 1/7th of the year. This year during this season we celebrate the mystery of Christ’s presence mostly through the Gospel of John. After all, remember how Mark’s Gospel ends with fear and no one telling anyone anything? This week we gather with the disciples, Jesus breathes the Spirit on us, we hear Thomas ask for a sign (perhaps a sign we long for too), and Jesus offers himself as the sign that God is continuing to act in our world. We are transformed by Jesus’ presence. We are called to live lives for the common good rather than our own gain so that no one would be in need or want for anything again. Come and see that the Lord is good and as the psalmist says: “How good and how pleasant it is, when kindred live together in unity!”
Readings
Acts 4:32-35
The believers’ common life
Psalm 133
How good and pleasant it is to live together in unity
1 John 1:1-2:2
Walking in the light
John 20:19-31
Beholding the wounds of the risen Christ
Worship Music
Our music this week continues to celebrate the risen Christ with Thine Is the Glory and Come, You Faithful, Raise the Strain. Thine Is the Glory is a direct prayer to God, praising God and ascribing glory to God’s name. We sing in praise of the risen Christ rising from the tomb, lovingly greeting us, and scattering gloom. In Come, You Faithful, Raise the Strain we sing the story to all who would hear that God has triumphed. This hymn sings our gospel story today with the words “but today, among your own, you appear, bestowing your deep peace, which evermore passes human knowing.”
Reflection Questions
Today we read about how Christ met with the disciples and showed them his hands and side. What about you? How would seeing the wounds change your faith? Is our faith all the more potent because we can not see these wounds first hand?
Our reading from Acts today espouses a view of a society where everything is held in common and no one held property for themselves. How does this go against our society? What barriers are there to being able to live this way? Does God call us to live a common life as is described in this passage?
