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The Last Monday Moment

Writer's picture: Rev. Dr. Ben HuelskampRev. Dr. Ben Huelskamp

Happy Monday, my friends! Before I get into some of my thoughts on Easter, I have some news to share with you. Between all of my responsibilities for LOVEboldly, my work as a pastor, and my goal of completing my degree at MTSO as soon as possible, this will be my last Monday Moment. I had considered wrapping up at the end of our series on hermeneutics, but it felt right to make it through Easter.


Everything comes to an end, the old adage says, and yet here we sit on another Easter Monday with the realization that Jesus came back. Imagine for a moment, you are one of Jesus’ apostles. For three years you’ve been following this guy around. Some of it must have felt like an adventure, but Jesus says some really weird shit and he performs miracles. Heck, Lazarus came back from the dead! Three or four days ago—the math is a little hazy—he died on a cross. Yesterday, you saw an angel sitting in the tomb where his body had been. Now you’re sitting on a beach staring out over the water as he cooks fish with wrists marked by the wounds of crucifixion. You still can’t wrap your head around it all. He was strange before now he’s odd if not a little scary.


Resurrection—literally coming back from the dead—is a hard concept whether you have the privilege of Thomas or are hearing the story removed by 2,000 years. Despite this, far less ink has been spilled about the resurrection than about the atonement. One could reason that the resurrection is therefore an afterthought. Yes, Christianity from approximately 1,000 CE to the present has put its hopes in Jesus being the savior of their sins. Whether you ascribe to this orthodoxy or embrace a progressive view, had Jesus not risen from the dead then the act of the atonement would have been in vain.


Growing up in Catholic schools, our teachers told us that Christians were a Sunday people and because each Sunday was a recreation of Easter, we were an Easter people too. Preaching at church yesterday, I called us a “resurrection people” and discussed how everything changed for Jesus’ followers at the resurrection. Never again could those followers, the nascent Christian community, go back to being Jews or a particular set of people within the broader Jewish community. The resurrection, for better or for worse, made them a distinct community.


We are a resurrection people. We have hope in the resurrection of Jesus and we have a home in the kin-dom of God that he came to make manifest on earth.


What are your thoughts on Easter? Where does Easter challenge you? Where does Easter give you hope?


Let us pray: God, help live everyday as resurrection people; to live everyday as if it was Easter. Give us hope when hope seems far away. Amen.


Blessings on your weeks, my friends! Speaking of hope, I hope you weren’t too upset with my April Fool’s joke. No! Monday Moments aren’t going anywhere! 😉 “See” you next week.


Faithfully,


Ben

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