Jesus returns from the dead and meets his disciples in different places: the garden, the Emmaus Road, the seashore, the Upper Room. He witnesses to them that he is alive, that he is back from the dead with a body.
Jesus isn’t content to send them an email from heaven: HAVING A GREAT TIME! WISH YOU WERE HERE! No. He shows up among them as his own witness.
And he recruits as witnesses those other people with bodies. Jesus wants them to move out and tell everyone who will listen and everyone who won’t listen, that bodies count….that he’s back from the dead with a body, threatening them with life.
Those who recognize his witness become witnesses themselves. They put their bodies on the line. They become contagious with the forgiveness they’ve caught, carriers of his Resurrection themselves. A God Notice
So many of the doctors, nurses, health professionals and paramedics we see on TV are doing just this. They are putting their bodies on the line for you and me and for Jesus. They are CARRIERS – CARRIERS of the New Life of the Resurrection.
That’s what this back-to-life Jesus wants of us: not names on a list, or what has called “pew potatoes.” The only way some people practice their faith, is to sit in a pew. There have been no “pew potatoes” the past few weeks. The churches have been closed and the pews are all empty.
Jesus wants us as witnesses. Not airy spirits or pious ghosts, but bodies like his own with wounds to show…..bodies that witness to his Resurrection, threatening the world with life. Jesus wants YOU and ME to threaten this quarantined world of ours with life – with RESURRECTED ETERNAL LIFE.
The only Easter some people may ever see….
Is the Easter they see in you and me.
What are YOU doing in our quarantined world via your phone or computer to be a witness to New Life and the Resurrection of Jesus?
