Easter Thursday

Today Easter Thursday, the 8 April.

One Hope Project sings, ‘In Your Truth’.

Today’s reading is from the Gospel of Luke.

Luke 24:35-48

The disciples told what had happened on the road, and how Jesus had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.  While they were talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, "Peace be with you."  They were startled and terrified, and thought that they were seeing a ghost.  He said to them, "Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts?  Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself. Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have."  And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet.  While in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering, he said to them, "Have you anything here to eat?"  They gave him a piece of grilled fish and he took it and ate in their presence.  Then he said to them, "These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you—that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled."  Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures,  and he said to them, "Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day,  and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.  You are witnesses of these things.

Often in the readings for this week, Jesus refers to the law of Moses, the psalms and the prophets.  He opens the minds of his followers to understand the Scriptures as a way of grasping who he is and what it is he reveals.  As I’ve been praying daily with Scriptures in recent weeks, has this become a way in which the relationship between Jesus and me has deepened?

What is there about Jesus that perhaps still leaves me, like the disciples, feeling a little frightened and with doubts arising in my heart?

What, on the other hand, is the tangible evidence I have of God’s grace breaking into my life and transforming me, and of the living presence of Jesus in the world around me?

As you hear this passage of Luke’s gospel again, listen particularly to the mission that Jesus gives to his followers…

In what way is it being given to me to witness to the reality of the Resurrection?  What do I want to ask from Jesus so that I may help somehow to share the message of God’s forgiveness for all?

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.