Friday, April 24, 2009

Today’s text

Luke 24:45-48

He then opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and he said to them, "So it is written that the Christ would suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that, in his name, repentance for the forgiveness of sins would be preached to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses to this.”

Reflection

We are witnesses, Jesus. We are those who have heard the proclamation going out to the ends of the earth. Our faith witnesses to the fact of that proclamation.

But it is being a witness to your resurrection that we most want, and to understand how it is written that you would suffer, die and rise.

All the Scriptures that speak of God’s suffering servant, the rejected witness of God’s righteousness are veiled to many eyes, and to mine, I suppose. Some of those ancient prophecies seem to apply to the nation of Israel, some to an individual who is present or one to come in the near future.

Yet, you treat those ancient words as applying to you, coming to the fullness of their meaning in your ministry, your witness, your death and resurrection.

And I believe you: the full intention of God to forgive and save, to love and make whole is fully realized in you. And that brings me joy, calling down the curtain on my restless search to know ‘what it’s all about.’

It’s all about you, experiencing you, nurturing in my being and in the world the life that I see and know in you, a life of continual turning from all that is not you, a life of knowing a graceful forgiving that is the heart of God.

This is a life of knowing that in each tiny moment of grace it is you that I know, Jesus.

It is you, and there I am a witness to the resurrection of your flesh into my own.

Pr. David L. Miller