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Time of refreshment
Thursday, March 31, 2016
Thursday in the Octave of Easter
Luke 24
Jesus stood in their midst and asked, “Why are you troubled? Look at my hands and feet. It is I myself. Touch me and see, because a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you can see I have. While they were still incredulous for joy he asked them, “Have you anything here to eat?”
We don’t do ourselves the justice God does for us. God’s joy in us can resonate like our joy for God-in-us. Those words get tied up on my tongue; here is how Psalm 8 puts it: “O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have made us a little less than the angels and crowned us with glory and honor.”
Jesus brings the glory home. Got milk? His body – Jesus’ physical body resurrected – rejoices with his brothers and sisters while he eats the meal he’s hungry for. And forever after we too can eat what is put in front of us and let our bodies lead the way to glory.
My body diminishes in strength and flexibility, and each of its important parts eventually wears out. My body dies. If I pretend this is not true I will be disappointed!
But the moment with Jesus shows me what happens next. As Jeff said Sunday, perhaps even heaven is not our final destination. Our own resurrected bodies will not inhabit a solely spiritual world, but a reborn physical one. Call it the Garden of Eden, as Genesis does.
This is the Good News for modern man. We need not be gnostic, barely breathing in suspended physicality. We don’t wait for heaven. We are alive and lifted up right now, in the presence of Jesus sharing our food and drink. The colors and tastes and smells and sounds and sights of our world are good, true and above all beautiful.
There are many awful things happening within me and around me. Great burdens, great pain, and great suffering flush out my pious innocence. What’s left? Not despair, but surrender.
What’s left is the determination to keep the journal: one good thing from today, one thing I’m grateful for. The One Thing shines through all the crud and creepy grimy gopher guts, all the suffering, all the evil. None of it is as real or true as the moment with Jesus when his mouth forms the words and he speaks them out, “Do you have anything to eat?”
We must not let each other forget it. Jesus is alive!
We put our hands together and praise your presence here, now, Jesus. When we open mouths to sing, we sing for joy and sing to you. You make all things new. You make us new. New every morning is your love, O Lord, fresh your compassion daily dawns. New every morning is your mercy and grace, you are faithful, you are strong. Lord, we thank you for this day!
http://www.christiancounselingservice.com/archived_devotions.php?article_id=1502
