Forward Movement is an official, non-profit agency of the Episcopal Church whose mission is to create compelling content for Christian living. Since 1935 we have published the quarterly devotional Forward Day by Day, as well as pamphlets, booklets, and books that encourage and nourish people in their lives of prayer and faith.
SUNDAY, April 24 Easter Day
John 20:1-18. “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but did not know that it was Jesus.…Jesus said to her, “Mary!”
A sermon on the afterlife in Jesus’ time would have been different from one today. Our understanding of the afterlife has changed a lot in two thousand years. I don’t mean to take away from the poignancy of this moment in John’s Gospel, but perhaps the main reason they were frantic to find Jesus’ body related to the purity laws of the time.
No matter the reasoning, it still stops my heart when I hear Jesus say “Mary!” It is then that I remember that he is as near as my memory of him.
The theology that has evolved in the wake of Jesus’ death and resurrection fails to move me as much as the social and religious revolution that was his life. If you don’t think it’s revolutionary to talk about the last being first in a world where the richest 1 percent possess more wealth than the combined wealth of the bottom 90 percent, then you better think again.
As we celebrate his resurrection, let’s not forget his life.
A hymn of glory let us sing; New songs throughout the world shall ring. Christ, by a road before untrod, Ascendeth to the throne of God. Alleluia.
Ps 118:1-2, 14-24; Acts 10:34-43 or Jeremiah 31:1-6; Colossians 3:1-4 or Acts 10:34-43; John 20:1-18 or Matthew 28:1-10
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A Meditation for Pentecost
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