Easter Day (Year A, RCL)

This Colossians reading is one of those distilled, cryptic passages that draws us into so much more than we can imagine. Such verses expand our capacity to wonder and give praise. They invite us into God’s mystery.

Transformation for Betsy, her congregants, and others will likely occur through encounters with members of the Muslim community. As a leader, Betsy can cultivate these encounters.

Each of the four Gospels’ depictions of the first encounter with the resurrected Christ suggests a different lens for perceiving the risen one. In Matthew, Christ’s resurrection looks like a theophany—earthquake and blazing light—and Christ appears suddenly and vividly to disciples on the run and on the mountain. In Luke, the risen Christ is first encountered as a peripatetic teacher and finally recognized in the breaking of bread. Mark apparently included no straightforward account of the risen Christ at all.

And in the Gospel of John, Christ rises from the ground in a springtime garden.

In John's Easter account, people spend the day running around trying to come to terms with what God has done in the night.

If Christian liturgy works on the imagination, so do disordered secular liturgies. Social media—despite its good uses—might be one example.

The risen Christ does not rebuke Mary for her error. He seems rather to enjoy the occasion of her surprise.

Regardless of its size, an Easter congregation can be an amazingly diverse audience. Consider the following as a thought experiment about those who will be listening.

After Jesus shared his last supper with his friends, they sang a hymn together. There is every reason to believe it was the Hallel, Psalms 113 through 118. How have I missed this before?

During college, I taped a religious poster on my dorm room wall. Under a photo of a white country church against a green, timbered hill were the words, "I lift up my eyes to the hills from whence cometh my help."

I liked the Bible verse, the scene was pretty, and I enjoyed the peaceful reminder of rural home places. But a friend who was knowledgeable in scripture said the poster was theologically incorrect.