An Easter Epistle
Happy Easter, Friends!
I wrote this epistle-style devotional for my church and wanted to share it here. I’m praying your Easter is filled with jubilant hymns, the joy of the resurrection, and the best chocolate available to you.
From the saints of the here and now, 2023, to the brothers and sisters who were in and around Jerusalem after the Resurrection - Peter, Mary, Thomas, and Paul - Grace and Peace to you from our Risen Lord -
In all our prayers, we remember you, for it was you who first taught us that God truly dwells among us, even those of us whose impulsivity causes us to harm others and whose desperation beckons us into sin. In your stories we see ourselves, we whose passion can blind us to kindness and we who are prone to doubt. Praise be to our God for your stories, stitched together into His Holy Word, which we rely on today as we remember why God dwelt among us — to call us to follow after Him in His own triumphant emergence from darkness into light.
I write to you with questions concerning the resurrection of Jesus. We know well His words, “blessed are those who have not seen and yet believed,” and yet, in truth, we wish to have seen it - the empty tomb, the folded cloth, the stone rolled away. Because you all were there, I’m longing to know…
…Peter, what took your breath away more? The race to the tomb or what you found once there? Did you cry tears of regret as the cock’s crow echoed in your mind, or did you cry hallelujah along with the mighty sound of the curtain torn in two? When He first appeared in the locked room, did you stumble towards Him, your mind churning like stormy waves, first with disbelief, then with wonder, then hope of true salvation?
…Mary Magdalene, were you angered when the disciples didn’t believe your account of shining angels and the stone rolled away? Did you feel chills when you recognized the voice of the Gardener? Did He wipe the hair out of your face as you wept, the scented remnants of His perfumed feet still lingering in your long locks? Were you baptized into new life at the softness of His voice when he called you by name?
…and Thomas, oh how I thank God for you. You who have become the Patron Saint of All Who Doubt. You, who like us, longed to truly see. Were His hands smooth like a newborn's or rough like a survivor's? Did He meet your eye as you traced the scars? Were you raised in that moment to a new life of certainty where once you had been plagued with disbelief?
…and Paul, our unseeing seer, who encountered our risen Lord on a road in a moment of blinding clarity, did you, like us, wish you could have seen Him actually cook fish on the beach? Did you sometimes regret being born too late to have known what His laugh sounded like as he sent Death scuttling back into the darkness?
We who are still living as foreigners on this earth, who are bound by the minutes of mortality, long to be with you and with our Lord whose exit from the tomb signaled the beginning of the end of the curse. We labor now to make His resurrection known, far as the curse is found, until the day when we can join you in knowing Him face to face, where we can together revel in His defeat of death forever.
May the the intimacy of His incarnation, the mercy of His death, and the power of His resurrection eternally be with all of those who love Him and walk in the light of His life.
Your thoughts and questions made these people so relatable. So sweet!
I love this. So unique and beautiful.