Welcome to our new look, Daily Encounters, Living Sunday's Word! This daily email, which reflects on the past Sunday's Scripture from the Lectionary, is an attempt to help you live with and deepen God's Word you heard at Mass on the preceding Sunday. We hear the Scriptures proclaimed on Sundays; now, we are attempting to apply what we listened to in our personal lives during the week. We invite you to take 5 mins daily to reflect on God's Word. Allow that Word to start your day; it may help put all the other words you hear daily into perspective!

On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together… Jesus came and stood among them and said, ”Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you. Receive the Holy Spirit”. (John 20:15,21-22)

Easter is a wonderful time of celebration for the Church because we benefit from the greater picture. However, it must have been a terrifying time for the first disciples. Confused and in mourning for their friend Jesus and scared that the authorities would turn on them next, it makes sense they would have come together and enclosed themselves in a place where they might have felt relatively safe. Inside each would also have been a sense of guilt that they had deserted Jesus in his hour of need. So when Jesus appears to them, despite a locked door, they must have felt they were seeing his ghost coming to haunt them. But Jesus greets them in incredible love, offering them peace. 

Let us pause for a moment and consider how that would have felt. There is a stark contradiction between their fears or expectations and Jesus’ loving words. How often have our fears or expectations of how God should deal with us been completely different from how God actually interacts with us? We know from reading the full passage that Jesus puts pay to being an imposter by showing them his wounds. Does this increase their sense of guilt? And yet, he wishes them peace. 

You may want to stay with this scene for a while. Consider the mix of emotions, the confusion, the relief and the need in each disciple. As you consider Jesus’ wounds yourself. How do you feel? What does Jesus say to you?

Jesus does not only speak peace into their hearts. He offers them a partnership in his mission and gives them the necessary tools. It is one thing to forgive someone for letting you down. It is truly loving and gracious to then wish that person well. To go on to offer the person a partnership in the mission that cost you dearly is grace beyond measure.  That is what Jesus offered his first disciples and what Jesus offers you now. 

You may want to pause again and consider that Jesus gave himself completely so that you may know peace and love.  He further offers you the opportunity to enter into mission with him. What would you like to say to Jesus about this? 

Our faith is not based on some vague idea. Our faith has a concrete context. It is based on what Jesus has done. Our faith, if truly lived, leads to a new way of life.

Reflection by Cherie-Lynn van der Merwe

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