Luke 24:36b-48
Why are we reading about Jesus and the disciples in the upper room again? Last week we just read the story from John. The disciples were gathered in the upper room for fear, and then Jesus comes and says the same words as today, but there is no missing Thomas, and there is a part about the scriptures being opened to them so they might understand. This is important in Luke. Luke is the gospel which gives us the story of the disciples walking on the Road to Emmaus and Jesus opens the scriptures to them there as well.
This week a group I am in asked the question of each of us about spring. Since all these things are blooming and budding, getting green, what is emerging for you at your doorstep? What emerged was a sermon for Sunday. Colleagues sharing what was actually and figuratively emerging for them at this time. A season of proof in Jesus rising to new life. A season of beauty, a season of battling with nature outside the door. What emerges for us in this scripture? Differences.
It is not exactly the same story as John's. It asks us to walk and listen to what is emerging as a concern for another community. This emergence is in having minds opened to the scripture in fresh new forms. Wouldn't this be refreshing?
Opening the scriptures is a life-long practice. We don't just read a story and leave it and never come back to it again. We come to the scripture time and again, not like an old friend who we know everything about, but to have our minds opened once more. When we approach it this way we find the scripture ever changes, it isn't the same story with facts to be read. It is an ever-changing guide to our faith.
How many times have you read these particular stories about Jesus rising and standing among the disciples? When have you noticed something different in the story which opened your mind to something new? A new way of thinking, of being, of what Jesus says, it is coming to scripture with fresh eyes. Sometimes we employ guides on the way, a study book, or other. Sometimes it is in paying attention to the signs around us because God seems to be hitting us over the head with a point.
There are all sorts of different practices for this. There is a little book called Daily Prayer with the Corrymeela Community which poetically takes scripture and puts it into prayer and opens a new way to look at the text. They are just short texts, but powerful new ways of looking at them are opened in the prayers following each one. Sitting with the Psalms on a daily basis opens the whole of human emotion, and when you feel the same, it opens the Psalm in a new way.
All of this is practice. Practice in listening, practice in taking up scripture daily, practice with an intention to find Jesus among us. Isn't this another aspect the scripture is opening to us? How do we respond to Jesus among us? With fear, with disbelief and Jesus has to prove what is real, with anxiety about where we are being led all of these mingle with our encounter. Once we settle into this encounter we can know Jesus has been with us. Trying to open our hearts and minds to see the scripture anew.
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