Welcome back from Spring Break. Christ is Risen! Alleluia!

We resume our regular weekly rhythm of communal spiritual practices, starting Tuesday (no text study on Monday, April 6).

Tuesday

11:00am | Contemplative Practice – OCC Meditation Chapel and on Zoom

Wednesday

11:00am | Service of Holy Communion – Chapel of the Incarnation or on YouTube. Rev. Dr. Mark Granquist, Professor and Lloyd and Annelotte Svendsbye Chair in Church History; Editor, Word & World, is preaching this week on 1 Peter 1:3-9. 

11:45am | Chapel Cafe – Luther Cafe

Thursday

11:00am | Lunch Church – Dining Room A

A Reflection on the Readings

The Readings from the Revised Common Lectionary:

Acts 2:14a, 22-32
Psalm 16:1-11
1 Peter 1:3-9
John 20:19-31

This is the first week of our Easter journey to Pentecost. The first and second readings and Psalms are all about Peter’s witness to the resurrection of Jesus and its power for salvation. We hear him quote Joel 2 and Psalm 16 to connect this event with the Hebrew theological expectation of the Messiah and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. The opening statment of his letter establishes a foundation of hope to bolster his people who are experiencing extreme persecution.

The Gospel reading shows us John’s version of how the Spirit came upon the disciples. Jesus breathed the Spirit upon them. The word breathed is the Greek word emphusao and is used only here in the NT and only in Genesis 2:7 in the Septuagint, translating the Hebrew Word nephesh, when God breathed into Adam’s nostrils and gave him life.

Thomas missed out on this moment. He doubted it when the disciples described it during the week. Jesus breathes hope into Thomas in a different way the next Sunday. Jesus says to Thomas, “put your finger here and see my hands.” Thomas breathed in hope that day.

Hope is the breath of resurrection. It seems that we have been holding our breath a lot lately. Things have seemed more precarious than usual in the last several months. My prayer for you this Easter season is that you might breathe again. God is with you, through it all. God has given us “a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.”

Alleluia!