Transforming hearts minds and lives

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable to you Lord in your sight. For you are our Rock, saviour and confronter

The work of figuring out what it means to be an “Easter person,” is precisely the task of these 50 days of Easter. This week’s texts do a wonderful job setting us up to consider the deep implications of being a people who believe…. that God doesn’t leave dead things …dead.

Through each of the texts of the lectionary over the following weeks till the ascension, we see concrete implications of what happens when the Resurrection takes hold of the lives of individuals and communities…. Transformation happens to hearts minds and lives are changed forever.

Imagine…. even though the disciples are grief stricken from the Good Friday experience 3 days earlier, the resurrection has brought a glimmer of hope to the despairing followers of Jesus, a possibility that all Jesus said was true.

Throughout the story in Acts we see marks of unity, generosity, and fellowship, where before they were broken, insular and lonely.

The individuals who encounter the risen Christ, as the people walking with Jesus on the road to Emmaus aren’t just transformed as individuals, but they are made into a new kind of community, an “Easter people.”

I believe many in our communities are stuck in a Good Friday emotions, emotions and feelings of despair , doubting , helpless ….to name but a few. Some may have moved to Holy Saturday, feelings of numbness, paralysed where the events in their lives have affected them so deeply they cannot see any hope of restoration, and so they never move towards the transformative nature of the resurrection.

One of my colleagues keeps on her refrigerator a quote by Sister Helen Prejean, the Catholic nun made famous by the adaptation of her life in the movie Dead Man Walking. This film is a true story where she befriends a prisoner due for the death sentence, it is really worth watching.

Prejean writes, “I pay attention to what I do ….so I know what I believe.” Every time I see or hear that quote…I find myself wondering if the life that I live—and the life of my community of faith—“bears powerful witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus” (Acts 4:33) or not.

If I am honest, there is still plenty of evidence of fear, anxiety, disunity, selfishness, and unforgiveness in my own life and I am sure within all our lives.

We are not yet fully the “Easter people” that God’s grace is making us to be. Not yet. We need to walk with Jesus and be transformed , in our hearts minds and then our lives.

Revd Ruth Dillon