Today’s readings: Click on today’s date at http://www.usccb.org/bible/
Go to Galilee
Monday, April 21, 2014
Monday in the Octave of Easter
Matthew 28:2-3
Jesus met Mary Magdalene and the other Mary on their way and greeted them. They approached and embraced his feet. Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid. Go tell my brothers to go to Galilee, and there they will see me.”
The scapegoat has returned from the desert. He was cast out and killed, and now here he is in plain sight, with marks on his feet and hands and in his side, eating fish with his brothers, comforting his sisters with his gentle words. Jesus is alive!
Our faith is built on nothing less. And the words that echo most in my own life are the simple four he said so often, “Do not be afraid.”
Jesus knows the fear returns to taunt me. In the noisy darkness full of thoughts, my mind isn’t ready to simply “go to Galilee.” Surely there is more. Like Naaman, I want something magical to touch my leprosy and make me whole. My mere obedience is not enough. Is it? Am I making this too complicated?
I think the truth is that I expect God to pay lots of close attention to me (which he does), but I am rather unwilling to pay lots of close attention to him. God listens much better to me than I do to him. When I shut my mouth and open my ears I hear such simple instructions as, “Go to Galilee.”
There is where I’ll see Jesus.
Since I’m not in Israel, and since these were the words of Jesus for his disciples then, not his words now for me, I keep listening. What I hear first is the sound of feet, taking one step at a time on one day at a time. I know so little for sure when it comes to God. But my feet itch to join the walk.
Father, you seem to only tell us a little of your thoughts, higher than ours, and show us just a little of your ways, often so different from ours. What of it? I know that my Redeemer lives. Each step I take makes that more clear, Lord, at least in retrospect. When you walk with me, Jesus, I am not alone. You are near.
http://www.christiancounselingservice.com/archived_devotions.php?article_id=1282
