May 2021
May 2021
“I am going to send you what my
Father has promised” Luke 24.49 (NIV)
Oh how we need the outworking of hope that these words of the risen Jesus
promise us! Our Lord speaks these words at the end of a confusing, topsy-turvy
first Easter Day, which begins in darkness and despair and ends in light, joy
and hope. Luke 24 begins with a group of faithful women getting up in the
darkness before dawn, gathering their spices to anoint the body of Jesus now
the sabbath is ended. How heavy their hearts must have been. How heart-broken
they must feel. In the cold light of dawn they make their way to the tomb, only
to find it empty – even the body of their Lord gone. How utterly bereft and
confused they must have felt.
We have lived through a dark time full of confusion and uncertainty. A
time that has separated us from those we love; when the foundations of our
world have been shaken – both individually and globally; when anxiety has
threatened to rob us of our God-given peace; when, more than ever, we need to
hear (and experience deep in our souls) those first words of the risen Jesus to
his fearful disciples in that locked upper room: ‘Peace be with you’.
As we contemplate, we enter into communion with the Trinity – we enter into
the presence of our Creator God which is the heart of worship. We are grounded
as our souls and bodies engage and align within the incarnate Body of Christ.
Then we are able to hold the concerns of our hearts within the love of God in a
way which weaves together our loving concerns with God’s abiding love. And so
we sit either sharing the burden of our hearts and feeling God’s peace, or else
the movement to action stirs within us like a fire in our bones and we begin to
know clearly what we should do to help those in need who are on our hearts.
So we come towards the end of Luke 24 and the promise of Jesus that his
Father will send us the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, the Strengthener, to give
us the grace and love and strength to face whatever the future holds. For
surely Christ is with us always, even to the end of the world.
A Watchword might be “I send you my Father’s promise…”