Sunday, April 18, 2021 (today’s lectionary)
All aboard for the American tour
The God of our fathers has glorified his servant Jesus. But the author of life you put to death, and God raised him from the dead. Repent, be converted, and let your sins be wiped away.
Keep in mind that Peter is talking to his family, to the men and women he grew up with, to the Jewish nation he is part and parcel of. These are his neighbors, his countrymen, his fellow fishermen and their wives. Nothing he says should be mysterious to them. They know what happened just a few weeks ago. Many of them heard Jesus speak. Peter was not the only one cowed by Roman authority into denial at midnight. His listeners had abandoned Jesus too.
Lord, let your face shine upon us. When I call, answer me, have pity on me and hear my prayer!
Pink Floyd, when they were young, wrote a song about growing old, “One two free four.” Roger Waters knew his bible (at least Psalm 90), but it’s obvious he wasn’t so sure about heaven.
Life is a short warm moment and death is a long cold rest
You get your chance to try, in the twinkling of any eye, eighty years with luck or even less …
And who is the master of fox hounds, and who says the hunt has begun?
And who calls the tune in the courtroom, and who beats the funeral drum?
The memories of a man in his old age are the deeds of a man in his prime
You shuffle in gloom in the sickroom and talk to yourself as you die.
Oooh! The poetry wrestles me down to the mat and pins me quickly. Death raises its arms in victory. But as my friend John and I considered the song and the story, the present moment and inevitable future, we laughed. Our eyes sparkled. We knew what Roger refused to know.
Lord, let your face shine upon us.
We knew that the resurrection of Jesus changes everything. We can expect our own resurrection too. We can look wide-eyed into the unplannable, unforeseeable, unknown future. Because we wait for heaven.
I lie down and sleep in peace, for you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety.
These lives of ours are tangled webs of joy and sorrow, but we know deeper peace than those leaking skeins of sadness. John the Apostle knew that.
When anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the only righteous one. He makes atonement for our sins, every one, all the time. As we take his word into our lives, the love of God is perfected in us. Make our hearts burn as you speak to us, Jesus.
God is not safe, but God is always good.
The two disciples recounted what took place on the road to Emmaus, and how Jesus made himself known to them in the breaking of the bread.
I have been eating like a king this week. Crab with Marc, a Mexican feast at Maize with Stacey, chicken fried steak and homemade mashed potatoes with Jim, and last night a seafood platter of big shrimp and crayfish, corn and potatoes, alongside a bowl of shrimp gumbo. I have crab left in my frig, flautas too, and a lonely chicken Caesar salad that I will certainly get to, one of these days, in one of the towns I land in. Breaking bread with my friends, learning to be loved and be loving, God is so good to me. At the Apple Dumpling, I sang (too quietly) to Skyler, our server:
The Lord is good to me, and so I thank the Lord, for giving me the things I need,
The sun and the rain and the appleseed. O the Lord is good to me.
Oh, yeah that was apropos, right? Sing that song at the Apple Dumpling? I just now noticed.
While his disciples were still incredulous with joy he asked them, “Do you have anything to eat?”
Oh, yes, Jesus, there is plenty. Would you take it, please, and pass it out to everyone who is hungry? Make our little fishes and our loaves into thousands and blanket the earth with them? I know you want to. I’m sorry so sorry that we get so often in your way. Forgive us and one day take us home.
(Acts 3, Psalm 4, 1 John 2, Luke 24)
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