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This first week of Easter, as we continue to navigate our response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we are posting Scripture readings from two sources for your spiritual reflection and encouragement: 1) the selected Gospel texts originate from the Book of Common Worship: Daily Prayer (Louisville, KY:Westminster/John Knox, 1993); 2) the Home Daily Bible Readings for Monday through Saturday are selected in support of the Sunday lesson in the Uniform Lessons Series, ©Spring 2020.
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The Empty Tomb
Luke 24:1-12, NRSV
24 But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared. 2 They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, 3 but when they went in, they did not find the body. 4 While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them. 5 The women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. 6 Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, 7 that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again.” 8 Then they remembered his words, 9 and returning from the tomb, they told all this to the eleven and to all the rest. 10 Now it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them who told this to the apostles. 11 But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them. 12 But Peter got up and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; then he went home, amazed at what had happened.
Festival of Purim Established
Esther 9:18-23, 29-32, NRSV
18 But the Jews who were in Susa gathered on the thirteenth day and on the fourteenth, and rested on the fifteenth day, making that a day of feasting and gladness. 19 Therefore the Jews of the villages, who live in the open towns, hold the fourteenth day of the month of Adar as a day for gladness and feasting, a holiday on which they send gifts of food to one another.
20 Mordecai recorded these things, and sent letters to all the Jews who were in all the provinces of King Ahasuerus, both near and far, 21 enjoining them that they should keep the fourteenth day of the month Adar and also the fifteenth day of the same month, year by year, 22 as the days on which the Jews gained relief from their enemies, and as the month that had been turned for them from sorrow into gladness and from mourning into a holiday; that they should make them days of feasting and gladness, days for sending gifts of food to one another and presents to the poor. 23 So the Jews adopted as a custom what they had begun to do, as Mordecai had written to them.
29 Queen Esther daughter of Abihail, along with the Jew Mordecai, gave full written authority, confirming this second letter about Purim. 30 Letters were sent wishing peace and security to all the Jews, to the one hundred twenty-seven provinces of the kingdom of Ahasuerus, 31 and giving orders that these days of Purim should be observed at their appointed seasons, as the Jew Mordecai and Queen Esther enjoined on the Jews, just as they had laid down for themselves and for their descendants regulations concerning their fasts and their lamentations. 32 The command of Queen Esther fixed these practices of Purim, and it was recorded in writing.
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Our Essential Character
By Rev. David Williams, retired United Methodist minister and missionary.
But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty; and the base things of the world and the things which are not despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are.
-I Corinthians 1-27-28
As the coronavirus began to fill our space of awareness, I recently blurted out: “I do want to follow the best advice, and to cooperate with those around me, and I will try to stay ‘well.’ I’ve had a good life, and if I get seriously ill, I’m ready to go.”
My children have scolded me for saying this. They’re not done with me yet. even though I fit the definition of a most vulnerable person (So many layers of it that I lose count!), and in my mid-eighties, I HAVE had a blessed, wonderful life. I do get terribly weary and critical at times, especially when I see the panic buying (and participate in it), when I hear clear untruths, blather and bluster, glib estimates of “how long it will last.” I get tired of aggressive interviewers interrupting guests before they finish significant comments.
I have a serious spiritual-struggle challenge.
Our essential character as humans shines through again – we should expect that! We see on the one hand the persistent pull of narrow self-interest, tribal thinking, and “law of the jungle” values; but on the other hand, we see so many examples of serving others and “reckless” self-emptying love that transcends the primitive pull!
In our creation bubble, we go on living, each day needing forgiveness, each day given a fresh start. Passages such as the above help us to stay humble.
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