Second Sunday of Easter, April 24, 2022
Sunday of Divine Mercy                 Â
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
Gotta tell somebody
Many signs and wonders were done among the people at the hands of the apostles.
I’ve been reading a book called The Texas Ranger, written in 1921 by James Gillett. Republished with a different title, the book describes outstanding adventures, usually about good guys going after bad guys, mostly other white men who rob and kill and maraud and ignore the law keepers until the Rangers ride to the rescue.
So when I think of “signs and wonders” done in the name of Jesus, I am taken aback. I read about contemporary wonders on the webpage “The Optimist” published once a week or so by the Washington Post. Far less cynical and negative than most news letters, it’s a bright spot in my day.
I think many of us find it hard to trust others. But in the book of Acts, written as Israel was occupied by untrustworthy Romans, many were willing to trust themselves and their family and friends to the followers of Jesus.
The people carried the sick out into the streets and laid them on cots and mats so that when Peter came by, at least his shadow might fall on one or another of them … and they were all cured.
Long before I was born, world philosophy and politics had made a sharp turn toward the logical, the positive, the provable, the concrete and practical, don’t-believe-in-anything-you can’t-see way of thinking. No wonder that eventually the 60’s happened, the “dawn of the Age of Aquarius,” with its western world supernaturality.
I was hard pressed and was falling, but the Lord helped me. My strength and courage IS the LORD, and he has been my savior. Now there are joyful shouts of victory in the tents. Give thanks!
Must I read Psalm 118 and merely reminisce about the past? Nothing more than reminding myself of “godly” intentions toward a vague gratitude for God’s power, which he shows in the heavens of the past but hardly ever here in the trenches of the present? And why won’t I believe these words are true and not only poetry? Psalm 118 appears over and over in the lectionary. It’s important. I think it’s important that I learn to believe it’s TRUE.
Endures forever, everlasting, the Lord helped me, my savior, joyful shout of victory, this is the day the Lord has made.
Not just poetry!
So let us be glad and rejoice in it.
I spent some time with my sister Mary Kay and my brother John yesterday. We sat in Mom’s house and talked about how to get on with all the stuff you have to do when your parents are both gone, and the house isn’t. None of it is easy.
I, John, your brother, who share with you the distress and the endurance we have in Jesus …
Would that one of these days, sitting in Mom’s house, we would encounter Jesus like John did on Patmos.
I was caught up in spirit and heard behind me a voice as loud as a trumpet, which said, “Write what you see on a scroll.”
Mary and John and I looked. Our eyes popped open wide. We couldn’t believe it. On second thought, we COULD believe it, we just couldn’t tell anybody.
We saw seven gold lampstands and in the midst of the lampstands one like a son of man, wearing an ankle-length robe, with a gold sash around his chest. And we fell down at his feet as though dead. But he touched us each, and he said, “Do not be afraid.”
This happens at the north end of our family room, in front of the windows, about 3 in the afternoon, and at first we think it’s a mirage. But it is not. We would have been happy to see Mom and Dad, but no … this is Jesus.
I am the first and the last, the one who lives. Once I was dead, but now I am alive forever. I hold the keys to death and the netherworld. So write this down, write down what you see!
OK ok, Lord. We’re writing this down. Right now. What we see. We look at each other and are each of us happy to finally get clear of all that stuff we’ve been taught about proofs and concreteness and logic. We have been lifted out of our own middling minds and transported into His. This house stuff will get done eventually. Right now we’re listening to Jesus.
Maybe we CAN tell somebody.
(Acts 5, Psalm 118, Revelation 1, John 20)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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