Every sign Jesus performs, every declaration Jesus makes in the Gospel according to John needs to be run through that lens of love. “I, the love of God, am the way, the truth, and the life.”
Sermons
Imagine with me: We were on that road to Emmaus with Cleopas that Easter afternoon. Those things happened to us. Those questions are questions we had, both before and after this encounter. How do we make sense of them? What do we do with them, now?
Jesus is alive – death is defeated and love and life have triumphed – and not only on that wild, confusing first day but every day – which means that resurrection is the way God orders creation. Hope triumphs over despair; joy over sorrow; life over death. On the first day. On the last day. And on every day in between, even when we don’t see it. The world is full of resurrection stories.
Where was Jesus’ backup? Where were the disciples? Where were the swords and the bows and arrows and the karate chops?
…sometimes, this is what waiting for the resurrection requires of us – clarity, conviction, and courage in the face of that which we know to be wrong, know to be a perversion of the Good News of God in Christ.
I think this is what is required of us now, as Christians living in a time when the Christian faith is being named as source material and motivation for self-serving hatefulness, bigotry, and violence.
We know that, most of the time, resurrection is a long time coming. So how do we avoid getting stuck in sorrow or outrage; how do we hold on to hope in the face of despair; faith in the face of evil; no matter how long we have to wait for Easter Sunday to come?
With the woman at the well, water is not water. With the disciples, food is not food. With both, Jesus is referring to something bigger, something beyond mere physical needs.