Forward with Jesus!
During the Easter season, instead of the first Scripture reading during the worship service being from the Old Testament, it’s from the Acts of the Apostles. It seems this has been the practice in the Christian Church since at least the 4th Century. So what’s the reasoning? The idea is that with the good news of the resurrection, we don’t look backward, but rather forward, walking with Jesus as He lives among us through His Spirit. The promises have been fulfilled. No more staying at the grave and thinking about how things were. The grave is empty. Jesus is not there. We walk with Him to accomplish what He wants done in His Kingdom now as we look forward to heaven.
Obviously, the evil one is not happy with that and tries to rob us of the joy of the Lord’s salvation. This weekend’s readings give us a few examples of what he does. There is the case of Thomas who would not believe unless he personally experienced seeing and touching Jesus as proof that what the others were telling him was true. One could say that the evil one is always sowing seeds of doubt, but perhaps also jealousy and comparison. Is it possible that Peter was upset that Jesus didn’t come when he was there with the others? “Why didn’t Jesus wait for me? I must not be important to Him. I bet they’re making this all up anyway to make them feel more important than me.”
And then there is the case of the Sanhedrin (Jewish ruling council) who put the apostles in prison and kept threatening them so they would stop talking about Jesus. The evil one uses that tactic too, doesn’t he? He likes to intimidate, bully, and, if necessary, bring physical harm. But Peter, who before the resurrection had, out of fear, denied he even knew Jesus, now moved forward with Jesus and wrote these words in 1 Peter 1:6-9, “Now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. Though you have not seen Him, you love Him; and even though you do not see Him now, you believe in Him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls.”
Don’t let the evil one keep you from the joy of Easter. Forward with Jesus!