Dear Friends in Christ,
It was an amazing gift to be with people from so many of the synod’s ministry sites during our recent Synod Assembly. I again want to thank everyone who was part of planning and hosting this faithful gathering as well as each person who attended. It was so good to experience Peace at the Now. This month, as we continue through the Easter Season, I am turning to hope.
I often use the word hope at the end of funeral sermon. In my attempts to not gloss over the grief people feel, not wanting to give into cultural pressures that make little room for real mourning, I say that we honestly grieve the loss of whoever has died, but we grieve as people with hope. This is one way live into this Easter Season. Jesus’ resurrection appearances in the various gospels will surely be our guide to hope, but we also might turn to the Revised Common Lectionary for this year’s Easter: 1 Peter. This letter is one of the most hope-filled books in the New Testament. Its purpose is to encourage Christian converts living in the midst of a hostile society. Like most of the letters, there are a few passages that I would rather ignore; I have to remember that the letter was written in a very different time and place. Still, there is enough life-giving in the letter to hold our attention. The author names “a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (1:3). That living hope is ours as well, even as the world around us groans. We hope that the God who created life out death on Easter morning will continue to create life from death. We hope that transformation is possible. And finally, like those disciples in the Emmaus Road story, we might say “Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road?” (Luke 24:32).
We are people with living hope, a hope that is not of our own making but is pure gift from God. How we share that living hope may look different across our vast geography, but it is as important as ever. This hope cannot be summed up and put onto a bumper sticker. It is shared in continuous acts of love and relationship. It is sometimes beyond words, but it is real all the same. Claim the living hope of the resurrection as your own in whatever way you can (some days it will be easier than others and that’s okay). Then share that hope through your love for neighbor and stranger.
Christ is risen indeed. Alleluia!
Bishop Meggan