The period after Easter in the Christian year speaks of hopes fulfilled and dreams realised. It is also normal to feel a strange anti-climax; an uncertainty about what to do with the freedom we have been given; a trepidation about stepping into the light….. This reflection encourages us to hold our nerve and do just that.
Photo by Ryan Tauss on Unsplash
How did Jesus’ friends and followers feel immediately after the crucifixion? Perhaps that all their expectations had been dashed and it had all been a delusion. As news about sightings of a resurrected Jesus slowly spread, some disciples had gone back to what they were doing before and some, we are told, were very frightened and locked themselves away.
The Gospel according to Luke describes two of them walking despondently to a place called Emmaus (Luke 24:13 – end). However when Jesus joins them, mysteriously unrecognisable at first, and gives them a bit of a lesson –
“beginning with Moses and all the prophets he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures”
- they begin to understand the altered landscape they now inhabit.
Jesus came close to these two people and to others during his remaining time on earth. This demonstrated to them his resurrected self - and may also have helped them to prepare for his bodily absence.
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How is it for you when you sense the closeness of the risen Jesus?
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Later, in the book relating the Acts of the Apostles after Jesus left them, we can see that the disciples have got it together and are living in just the way Jesus taught them:
“Now the whole group of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one claimed private ownership of any possessions, but everything they owned was held in common. With great power the apostles gave their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all”
How might we behave as we begin to come out of Holy Week and this time of pandemic?
Will we go back to how it was before? …. or will we have learned to live a different way?
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What about you? Reflect on changes you would like to see on a personal, community, national and global level.
What can you do to move your dreams closer to reality?
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The early church slowly became corrupted, politicised and institutionalised. What can we learn from its experiences? How can we, in this time of rising hope, move forward in a sustainable way?
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Pope Francis’ book Let us Dream sets out the Catholic leader’s ideas of a better world and may inspire you. It says:
“a neoliberal economy ends up with no real objective other than growth. Yet market forces cannot on their own deliver the goal we need now: to regenerate the natural world by living more sustainably and more soberly while meeting the needs of those who have been harmed by or excluded from that economy until now. Unless we accept the principle of solidarity among the peoples, we will not come out of this crisis better.”
What do you think about this? Spend some time with your thoughts and feelings.