Preaching the Scriptures

The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Luke 24:1-12 Fear in the Age of Resurrection It was Easter Sunday and the tomb was empty.   And while the wide world struggled under the weight of those same ancient foes – fear and pain, sorrow and death – God had just whispered a word into the darkness, the darkness that would soon give way to the dawn.   It was a word much more powerful than any terror that stalked the human race.   The world waited and wondered and God had the answer.   The women, the first to see the stone rolled away, had stumbled into, rather unexpectedly and unawares, this new age of Resurrection.   When they willed themselves out of bed on that first Easter morning, nothing seemed different except the heaviness in their hearts.   And yet, everything was different, because the tomb was empty.   Everything was different because resurrection was in the air; everything was different because Jesus was alive and on the move.   They just didn’t know it – at least not yet.

The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson John’s Passion I am thirsty. Given the circumstances “I am thirsty” was not the most obvious statement to fall from Jesus’ dying lips, on that first Good Friday.   It seems much too small a thing.   One might think he would be preoccupied, instead, by the vast soteriological implications of his crucifixion, as many theologians have been throughout the ages.   This was, after all, an especially noteworthy moment in salvation, and human, history.   Thirst seems to be a rather mundane concern on such a cosmic stage. Or perhaps he might be expected to be fixated on more pressing earthly concerns: distracted by the nails that tunneled through his wrists and through his ankles.   And the crowds with their disrespectful taunting.   And his friends with their fleeing.   And the death on either side.   But as the air was strangled from his desperate lungs, it was the thirst, his parched tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth, that seemed to bother