Week 28 - The new creation
Theme:
The theme today is the New Creation.
The full scale of what happened to Jesus, who passed through death,
becomes slowly more visible as one experience builds on another.
He is risen!
The old ways have been done away with. “Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?” Isaiah 43, 19
Jesus takes me by the hand in order to encourage me to be a part of the New Creation: to a new way of looking at God, of looking at my life, of looking at others. But a new way of looking doesn’t happen by itself. It happens one step at a time.
What I may wish to ask:
That I can let Jesus lead me, one step at a time, along the way of discovering that new way of looking.
I begin by placing myself in God’s presence: God who is looking at me with love.
Music: Comptine d’un autre été. Yann Tiersen (Amélie sound track)
Spotify Link: https://open.spotify.com/track/5WFk1hOPGDRwjm9ImVuU5A?si=f0b07e91f89548e1
YouTube Link: https://youtu.be/0uHCMt3wm04?si=RImDIqEwYB5V_U7T
Luke 24, 13-16 + 28–35
That very day two of them were going to a village named Emma′us, about seven miles from Jerusalem, and talking with each other about all these things that had happened. While they were talking and discussing together, Jesus himself drew near and went with them. But their eyes were kept from recognizing him.
I walk together with these two disciples who are walking away from Jerusalem. In the Bible Jerusalem represents the place where God is to be found. The story tells us how disappointed and sad the two disciples are, following the death of Jesus. They have lost all hope. At this moment in their lives, Jesus chooses to be with them, and walks with them, listening to them, even though the disciples are completely unaware of this at the time. As I sit here in this chapel before God, can I bring to mind moments in my own life when I was disappointed, sad, without hope? And if I think back to those moments, was Jesus also with me then, even though I might not have realized it at the time?
*
So they drew near to the village to which they were going. He appeared to be going further, but they constrained him, saying, “Stay with us, for it is toward evening and the day is now far spent.” So he went in to stay with them. When he was at table with them, he took the bread and blessed, and broke it, and gave it to them. And their eyes were opened and they recognized him; and he vanished out of their sight.
The disciples recognize Jesus when He breaks the bread during the meal they share with Him. The recognition is very short: a glimpse gone in a moment, and then it is over. Short little moments when I experience something of God. Moments which I am unable to hold on to. Moments which cannot be grasped. Do I recognize such moments in my own life?
*
They said to each other, “Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the scriptures?” And they rose that same hour and returned to Jerusalem; and they found the eleven gathered together and those who were with them, who said, “The Lord has risen indeed, and has appeared to Simon!” Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he was known to them in the breaking of the bread.
The disciples turn back, after this short encounter with Jesus in order to go back to Jerusalem, back to God. We can also turn back, time and time again, and go back to God. Maybe I have experienced that myself: to have strayed from the path of God, the way of love, and then to find my way back because of something someone said or did. I look back at the last few weeks. Was there such a moment for me?
*
Music: Comptine d’un autre été. Yann Tiersen (Amélie sound track)