It’s really the richest of seasons, for church peeps anyway. Consider our worship service that packs in Palm Sunday and the Passion of Christ in a single hour (OK, 70 minutes), clearing the decks for Easter just a week later. And for folks even marginally involved in worship presentation, communications tend to become by necessity short, terse, and on the fly – kind of like the Gospel of Mark. Still, there can be richness. Just after a quick (of course) run through of Palm Sunday’s Passion reading, Pastor Carla mentioned an inquiry from a Times-Dispatch reporter working on a video project that compiled the meanings of Easter from various respondents.
“What were yours?” I asked. She had three good things, but the one that struck me most was how the good news can come from unexpected sources: it was the women – in that male-centric time – who first conveyed the news of Jesus’s resurrection.
Good news, unexpected sources. Imagine being those guys on the road to Emmaus. Figuring out that you’ve been hanging with Jesus – great news, highly unexpected. Or consider not only the surprise of hot breakfast on the beach – but that your chef is the Big Guy himself!
Sometimes I think the Bible stories don’t end with the Bible, that in our best efforts we are part of the further stories of faith. We endeavor to walk and eat with Jesus, too. GPPC has identified some values that help us focus on ministries we try to do in Jesus’s name. We may walk with him, or perhaps we will encounter him, as we carry these ministries out. And surely when we’re walking with Jesus, our story becomes part of his.
We’re happy to have another of Alfred Walker’s reflections as we think about Jesus’ story and our story in this difficult week.