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Weekly Devotional

July 28, 2008
 

Mark 16:1-7  When the sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him.  ² And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb.  ³ They had been saying to one another, "Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?"  ⁴ When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back.  ⁵ As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed.  ⁶ But he said to them, "Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him.  ⁷ But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you."

Although we are in the midst of the ordinary time of the church season (The time after Pentecost), it is always important to be reminded of why we are the church to begin with.  Lately all of our Gospel readings have been focused on the parables that Jesus used to teach the disciples and the crowds.  But we should never forget that the real reason we are the church is that on that Easter morning there was an empty tomb.

            I think Martin Luther put it best when he described this situation.  The following paragraph is taken from the sermon that he preached in the parish church on April 13, 1533.

“In fact, the time never comes when we have preached and heard enough concerning the significance of Christ’s resurrection.  We are not preaching anything new, but always, without ceasing, about that man who is called Jesus Christ, true God and true man, who died for our sins and rose for our justification.  Yet even if we were again and again to preach about and dwell upon these events, we could never really exhaust their meaning.  We would remain like infants and young children, just learning to speak, scarcely able to form half words, yes, scarcely quarter words.”

            What Dr. Luther meant is that even though we emphasize over and over again an event that happened one time many years ago, we can never fully understand the importance of it.  Our relationship with God is the same way.  No matter how much we grow and grow and grow in that relationship, we will never fulfill it until we also reside with God in the kingdom of heaven.  Through Christ’s death and resurrection, we can grow in our relationship with God and one another, realizing that an empty tomb is indeed an ongoing significance in our lives and the reason that we are a church today.

In our prayers this week: 

Alma (8^th floor of Regional), the moms of Doris and Gail, all those that are still traveling (we miss you, come back soon!).

God’s Peace,

Pastor Judson