Today’s readings: Click on today’s date at http://www.usccb.org/bible/
Full to bursting
Wednesday, April 8, 2015
Wednesday of the First Week of Easter
Acts 3:1-5
A man crippled from birth asked Peter and John for alms. But Peter looked intently at him, as did John, and said, “Look at us.” The crippled man paid attention to them.
What do you do when you’re so full inside that you are about to burst? This moment might look like either joy or despair at first glance. But the deepest moments are both-and, not either-or. God is alive, and magic is afoot.
We try to describe these moments to each other. Deep calls to deep. God is so big and real inside us that we cry, we laugh, we shout at the top of our lungs. Or we fall silent, struck with awe, slipping into warm, awful blackness – a womb – turning to face the loving, glorious gaze of God.
Our words fall short, no matter how poetic they might be. God is God, and I am not. His thoughts are higher than my thoughts. So then, beyond the words, we look intently out at what is there to see, and give our bodies, give our minds, give our mouths over to God. Peter and John spoke to the man they saw.
“Silver and gold I have none, but in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk!”
The Holy Spirit burst out of them, and “immediately his feet and ankles grew strong. He leaped up, walking and jumping and praising God.” Now the Holy Spirit was bursting out of him, too.
We stretch, and we burst, and then what caught hold of us catches others. Such a fine infection! “When all the people saw the one who used to sit begging, they were filled with amazement and astonishment at what had happened to him.”
To turn T.S. Eliot’s famous line on its head, “This is the way the world begins, not with a whimper but a bang.”
Lord, you change us whole. We are no longer hollow but full, and no longer poor but rich. You change our fear into confidence, and our uncertainty into glorious hope. No alterations necessary; one size fits us all. And yet you know us each so well, down into our fingerprints, down into our souls. We are made and known and loved by you, Lord, and we are grateful, thankful, full to bursting.
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