| Message from Pastor Toelke | ||
Dear Friends in Christ, One of the Gospel Lessons that comes after Easter is about Jesus appearing to disciples on the shore of the Sea of Tiberius and making a breakfast of fish and bread on a charcoal fire for them. I thought I might try to write something here about Breakfast with the Risen Christ. Two problems I couldn’t work out. Although Our Redeemer isn’t really that far away from the shore of the Mississippi, my guess is that none of us goes there for breakfast. And, do you normally eat fish for breakfast? Instead, I figure we can go with something light—like a whenever-you-read-this Bible Class and how Eastern thinking can give us some insight into Jesus’ and our resurrection. Actually, this is the type of thinking we find in most of the Bible and the background of the people in Jesus’ time who spoke Aramaic, a dialect of Hebrew. Eastern thought goes in circles (Another year is another time around the circle.) Western thought is in lines (Another year is an extension to the line.). Think of eternity, a word we say usually means no beginning and no end. Western people think of a line that keeps continuing forever and ever at both ends. Easter people think of a circle. There are no open ends. A circle has no beginning or end—or middle, for that matter. Ancient Eastern languages, like Hebrew, don’t have the same tenses we do. They think more in terms of what continues from before the present and what is happening now and will always continue to happen. Here’s the view that all that explanation brings to the resurrection. The new life in the resurrection is not something that happened to Jesus Christ and is going to happen to us. It is something that happened and continues with Jesus Christ and—in our baptism into his death and resurrection—is happening and will continue to happen also to us. Our whole life, our whole attitude and outlook has been turned around by Easter. The resurrection is not something we merely live for. It is something we live in. It means that our resurrection is not something we merely look forward to. It is something we look forward from. In our participation in Christ’s death and resurrection, we have already passed from death to life; we have already passed from condemnnation to forgiveness, from sorrow to joy, from poverty to riches; we have already passed from bondage to freedom, from weakness to strength, from concern about the future to absolute joy in our Come to think of it, BLESSED EASTER |
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