This is what life in God feels like: opening your eyes and seeing you’re not alone but are in fact surrounded by a loving family.

Don’t spend your time looking up there for Jesus, imagining he’s off somewhere else, the angel says to the stunned disciples and to us. The ascension means that he is, in fact, present and active in you, and in the people around you.

We’re learning a new way to live, because that’s what Jesus showed us--because that’s what friendship looks like.

Even in the difficult time ahead, Jesus says to his friends, you are branches on the vine. You are connected to me and to one another; my life is flowing to you; you are never alone.

The shepherd leads the sheep throughout this psalm, not only beside the still waters at the beginning, but also into that darkest valley. Sometimes it’s exactly where the paths of righteousness run.

This is how we keep living out our resurrection faith and how we keep encountering Jesus: in real, flesh and blood relationships, in the embrace of real, wounded human bodies. The un-ghostly Jesus of Luke’s story reminds us of that fact.

A sermon by Rev. Sarah Stephens on John 20:19-31, preached on the Second Sunday of Easter.

That’s what Jesus’s incognito appearances in the gospels mean to do: set us on our toes, wake up our senses, set our eyes and ears on the alert, because Jesus is risen. He’s here—he could be anywhere.

Readings, music, and prayers for the Easter Vigil--3 April 2021

Readings, music, and prayers for the Easter Vigil--3 April 2021