Here are the reflections for Easter Sunday. We explore the Lectionary Readings for this Sunday and reflect on other bits and pieces of interesting information the net has brought to our attention.
Just as a seine net pulls up all sorts of things, some unexpected, so I think of this Seine Net Reflection post, as it grabs bits of information off the net.
If you would like to see a page with the previous reflections, you can follow this link.
The Lectionary Readings for today
Scripture Lessons for this Week: Easter Sunday:
Acts 10:34-43; Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24; 1 Corinthians 15:1-11; John 20:1-18 or Mark 16:1-8
Reflections on the Scripture
Leader: Christ is Risen!
People: Christ is Risen Indeed!
As I have mentioned, two of the books I highly recommend reading during the B Lectionary cycle are Ched Meyers. Binding the Strong Man and Wes Howard-Brooks Becoming Children of God. Both books are well worth checking out and reading closely. Meyers closely examines Mark while Howard-Brooks takes a close look at John.
Both of these books take a deeper look at the Resurrection accounts, too.
What I wanted to focus upon this week (for Resurrection Sunday) is the images and metaphors we use regarding Resurrection. To do this, I am referring to Sara Crossan and John Dominic Crossan’s Resurrecting Easter: How the West Lost adn the East Kept the Original Easter Vision.
Resurrection Summed Up in Images
The Crossans look at a lots of images of the Resurrection and discover that the West has tended to focus upon the image of Jesus rising alone (individualistic). This has not always been the case. There are images in the West that are closer to those from the East. However, it is apparent that the images of a lone Jesus arising from the grave predominate in the West.
In the East the images that dominate are those of a communal nature (universal). Jesus is shown coming out of the grave holding the hands of Adam and Eve, often surrounded by “the company of saints” and/or angles.
Here are two examples from an internet search for Easter Resurrection Images. When you do a search what comes up for you?
What Might These Differences Represent?
How does an image of a loan Jesus rising represent for you?
What does an image of Christ rising amidst a community represent?
How do these images impact your understanding of the Resurrection?
What are the theological implications for yourself and your community?
I encourage you to check the book out. The art is fantastic. And their reflections upon both their travels and journey of faith is delightful.
Resurrection is not Resuscitation.
To often I hear sermons on Easter in which it appears that Jesus has been resuscitated. You know, just brought back to life. It is as if God used a divine AED or some other miraculous EMT type of training.
That is not what happened.
Resurrection is vastly different.
For one thing, resuscitated people cannot walk through walls, just show-up “out of the blue,” or are unrecognizable at first.
And notice that Christ still bears the wounds.
What does it mean to serve a resurrected, wound bearing Christ?
A Reflection on Boat Building
Earlier this week, I ran across this video of a cat boat being built. It is a beautiful piece of time lapse videography. I thought it would be a fun piece to include this week as we are celebrating. Enjoy.
Building a 21′ South Bay Catboat
A Spiritual Practice
Ian Morgan Cron is a leading expert in the Enneagram as a tool for spiritual and personal/interpersonal growth. He also happens to be an Episcopal priest, psychotherapist, best selling author and Dove award winning song writer. Here is a link to his website where you can sign-up for his email newsletter and listen to his podcast (Typology).
If you are unfamiliar with the Enneagram, you can find more information here (under Biography is a summery of the Enneagram). The Enneagram Institute has a more in depth description here.
What I wanted to talk about this week for the spiritual practice comes from an email newsletter I received from him on March 22. I’ll quote it below.
Centering Prayer for each Enneagram Type
It is the spiritual practice of mindfulness meditation or contemplation.
Practicing mindfulness meditation will come much easier to some than others.
When I was first starting, simply focusing on my breath presented a seemingly impossible challenge to my wildly active mind.
I needed something more concrete to focus my attention on.
I know I’m not alone in this, so I’d like to introduce you to a method of meditation brought to us by the founder of the modern centering prayer movement, Fr. Thomas Keating.
Similar to how a mantra or phrase is used in other religious traditions, centering prayer focuses on a single sacred word that’s used to invite and give God consent to work in us.
It works like this:
- Choose a word as the symbol of your intention.
- Sitting comfortably and with eyes closed, quiet your mind and silently focus on your word.
- When distracted by your thoughts, return ever-so-gently to your word.
- At the end of the meditation session, silently remain in the presence of God with eyes closed for a couple of minutes.
Fr. Keating recommends practicing centering prayer for a minimum of 20 minutes, but like I said last week, just start with 5 minutes and see what happens. You can always lengthen the time of your meditation later.
Even with just 5 minutes a day, this practice will begin to deepen your awareness and relationship with yourself and with God.
As we focus on the word, we might discover that God is doing for us what we could never do for ourselves, namely, cultivate these qualities in our person.
Here’s a word for each Enneagram Type you can start with:
Type 1 – Acceptance
Type 2 – Humility
Type 3 – Authenticity
Type 4 – Balance
Type 5 – Abundance
Type 6 – Courage
Type 7 – Contentment
Type 8 – Wonder
Type 9 – DiligencePeace to all,
Ian
Blessed be
Currently I’ve been reading Roger Barnes The Dinghy Cruising Companion
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Ched Myers. Binding the Strong Man: A Political Reading of Mark’s Story of Jesus.