Blogging Towards Sunday, April 11, 2021
John 20: 19-31 & Genesis 12:1-5
Throughout Lent – the season leading from up to Easter, we’ve been talking about the theme of Flourishing. We’re going to continue and deepen that reflection around the theme of legacy.
A Legacy is:
1: a gift by will especially of money or other personal property : BEQUEST
2: something transmitted by or received from an ancestor or predecessor or from the past
3: a candidate for membership in an organization (such as a school or fraternal order) who is given special status because of a familial relationship to a member
Legacies are in the past and also the present. We also can be mindful of the legacy we leave as we live. To-day’s scripture in John is the end of the story of Jesus, which is actually sends us back to the beginning of the story of the people of God and the calling of Abram (and Sarah) in Genesis 12. And this ending is also a new beginning in its own right.
How do the disciples not recognize Jesus? Just like the women in last week’s reading (John 20:1-18). Maybe it has to do more with emotions and thoughts than physical senses. Could it be that they’re all so shut up tight behind the closed doors of their fears, unmet expectations, and dashed hopes, that they can’t recognize the Jesus that is – that is right in front of them? It’s not until Jesus offers his peace – a peace that the world doesn’t give or know – that they can see what is right there. It’s a healing, a liberating release from the shackles that kept them from living and flourishing in faith and confidence in Jesus and his Way. It’s a creation of a community of those who know love and love others in the same grace. Thomas, is he a doubter?; a stickler? Or does he feel left out since he wasn’t with everyone else for the big reveal?
They are sent – to love as Jesus loves, healing, forgiving, releasing the captives – just as Jesus did (Luke 4); to testify to the light in the darkness, the love, grace, mercy that makes us all into the children of God (John 1). That same call and sending is in the story of Abram and Sarah who are blessed to be a blessing. The legacy of faith seems to be a flourishing, an active giving of love, a freeing of those who are captives, a healing of those who are broken. It’s not an afterthought as much as our purpose.
QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION & EXAMEN:
- What engaged, enraged, or surprised you in the text?
- What does life in the name of Jesus mean? (in particular as the name Jesus means “Yahweh saves” or “delivers”?
- Who in your life has left you a spiritual legacy? How?
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