That is exactly where you are, where I am, right now. No matter how you measure time, by life or work, vacation, retirement, school, or play-time, today is the first day of the week: your week, my week, earth’s week, and the week of life that we are in, now.
A recent “stint” with cancer showed me a little more about that. My diagnosis was very early, and required a fairly minimal invasion on life’s schedules, intentions, hopes. But, there was required time away, time of wondering, time of worrying, time of looking out the window and saying “Okay God, give me more patience, give me more calm. Okay God, this the first day of this week, and the first day of what comes next, whatever that will be; give me ways to enjoy the people I meet and the beauty of the day in whatever day arises.” Something like that were words that God gave me to say to God, just about every day for the last few months. God gave me the prayers to say, and in the midst of uncertainty, gave me the trust to find the answer of a little more patience, a lot more calm—and beauty in people and creation that brought enjoyment.
Which brings me back to this Day, my Day, your Day, right now: the First Day of the Week, by however you are measuring. It is the Season of Easter—and we celebrate the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus from the dead— the Resurrection through which God brought death to death (what a Mystery these words are)! Still, within and behind this Mystery, it is the First Day of the Week, your week. In the Gospel of John, the disciples huddled together, fearful, hidden away in a room shut-tight. Jesus had been crucified, murdered, entombed. Then, the Mysterious truth of the Resurrection of Jesus from death showed up, right in the midst of their Day, their Week, their lives: Jesus, Alive, stood among them again.
When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked in fear…Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” (Gospel according to John 20:19).
We can’t know what that felt like—but we get hints when the Holy Spirit reminds us, “pray for what you need most: patience, calm, joy in who you meet, what you see….” We can’t know what it felt like to be the followers of Jesus who saw his death, saw him buried, and then found themselves, on The First Day of the Week, again in his Presence. But we get hints in new treatments for illnesses and diseases, in warming spring sunshine, and (even when the ground does not yet yield new growth) the promise of flowers, like springtime marsh-marigolds, to brighten each First Day of our upcoming life. On this First Day–Peace be with you, in Christ.
Each month a member of the Cook County Ministerium will offer Spiritual Reflections. This month our contributor is Pastor Kris Garey, Trinity Lutheran Church, Hovland.
Leave a Reply