Happy Easter everyone! This week Melissa Florer-Bixler preached from the Gospel of Luke. The women Disciples (the men having scattered) around Jesus, despite their deep grief and despair, stayed with Jesus through his arrest, death, and burial, and then returned only to find the tomb empty save for shining beings that declared his resurrection. The women shared this with the other Disciples, only for them to disbelieve because they had not stayed to witness and to suffer the same trauma as the women during Christ’s crucifixion. Melissa reminds us that the resurrection in meant for those nearest to despair. Like these steadfast women, we are drawn with grief and despair to a tomb in our own times – the suffering and evil deeds that we see all around us in this extremely unsettling year. Christ’s resurrection however, in freeing us from sin and death, transforms that deep hopelessness into a freedom to participate in the radical and surprising redemptive work that God is doing in the world.
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