April 9, 2023
Oh to breathe again! After all the heavy self-reflection of Lent, the somber spiritual grieving of Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, the silence of the sealed tomb of Holy Saturday, we have a definite need to breathe!
Those last words Jesus uttered from the cross on Friday can put us in a place of ‘shoulda coulda’ – we should have been more forgiving, more compassionate, more repentant, more inclusive, more reliant on the Divine for our very existence! We shoulda – we coulda! And in the midst of those times of self recrimination, we might feel abandoned – suffocated by our lack – stifled by our unworthiness….
We need to breathe! We need some sort of CPR to revive us – to bring us to a place of hope and joy!
Well, hear the good news – the Easter news! Those last words from the cross were not just for our shoulda couldas in relation to how we are to act toward others; those words express how Christ feels and acts toward us as well!
As the dawn comes on Easter, as the tomb is found empty, as life breaks out as sure as the song of the early morning bird, the resurrected Lord appears to be sure all the world knows that we are worth dying for because:
We are beloved
We are forgiven
We are included in the family of God
We are sustained by Christ’s grace and mercy
We are comforted and strengthened by the ever-present Spirit
These words are truth – the spiritual CPR we need not only to share with others but to claim for ourselves. And as these truths are breathed into our souls we are revived!
Life isn’t meant to be a perpetual Lenten season. Life is to be a newly enlivened hopefilled life each and every day – as we remember who and Whose we are!
How do I know this is so?
Because Christ is risen!
The Lord is risen indeed!
So BREATHE in the Christ life and go into the world:
Blessed to be a blessing
Made worthy through the love of Christ
Healed by the forgiveness of Christ
Walking wrapped in the light of the Spirit of the Christ.
Have an extraordinary Easter – the season lasts for 50 days! Long enough to transform us to God’s people of joy once again!
And to God be the glory! AMEN.
Preacher Woman 