Sunday is Coming

"Go quickly now, and tell his disciples. 'He has been raised from death, and now he is going to Galilee ahead of you:  There you will see him!'  Remember what I have told you." Matthew 28:7

The words of the Apostle's Creed stipulate both a belief and also, at the same time, the prime metaphor of our faith.  "I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, who was born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried...on the third day he arose from the dead".  Birth, life, suffering, death and burial, and finally Resurrection.   It is the path of Jesus, but also the path that we walk on a daily basis.  We struggle through the midst of life, we suffer loss and pain and ultimately death.  The death is not always literal, but sometimes figurative.

I watched a young woman the evening she contemplated the end of her marriage.  She is about to experience the death of many things that she values--her relationship with her husband, her style of life, her role in the world, etc.  Yet in the midst of this suffering she strengthened.  Her composure changed. In the words of one Gospel passage her "face was set on Jerusalem."



Her composure change caused me to observe back to her, "It isn't going to be easy, but you are going to come out the other side just fine.  You will be OK."  I think that is an announcement of a pending resurrection.

Life is filled with challenge, with difficulty and with suffering.  Christians live with a sure and certain knowledge that it doesn't end there.  It ends with God's plan; the very plan that says beyond this struggle is the promise.  The promise of God that there is a new life beyond.  That new life is before us in small ways for our small and everyday struggles.  It is before us in a grand way, for the ultimate struggles of this globe and of our existence upon it.

We are often so embedded in the Good Friday aspects of our lives that we forget who is ultimately in charge.  It is not us.  God laid the plan out before us in the life, suffering death, and resurrection of his Son.  In the words of an aging African-American preacher, "It may be bad now Brothers and Sisters...it is dark now...it is Good Friday now Brothers and Sisters.  But, don't you ever forget, it may be Friday but that means that Sunday is coming."

Give us vision, Lord, to see Your path.  Give us courage, Lord, to walk Your path.  Give us strength, Lord, to see Your path to the victory that lies at the end. Amen.

Reprinted with permission of L. Jackman from St. Mark Presbyterian's 1999 Lenten Devotional.