Easter Sunday

At daybreak on the first day of the week
the women who had come from Galilee with Jesus
took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb.
They found the stone rolled away from the tomb;
but when they entered,
they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.
While they were puzzling over this, behold,
two men in dazzling garments appeared to them.
They were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground.
They said to them,
"Why do you seek the living one among the dead?
He is not here, but he has been raised.
Remember what he said to you while he was still in Galilee,
that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners
and be crucified, and rise on the third day."
And they remembered his words.
Then they returned from the tomb
and announced all these things to the eleven
and to all the others.
The women were Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Mary the mother of James;
the others who accompanied them also told this to the apostles,
but their story seemed like nonsense
and they did not believe them.
But Peter got up and ran to the tomb,
bent down, and saw the burial cloths alone;
then he went home amazed at what had happened.
-Luke 24:1-12

Easter Sunday. Sunshine casts a warm glow upon the trees outside my window. Hildegard von Bingen plays in the background as I type.

I can understand how the other's felt the story was nonsense. I can understand Peter's amazement. I struggle with the idea that the son of God died for my sins. That God would send his only Son to pave the way for our salvation.

In the Lectio Divina I have been studying throughout this Lenten period, I have struggled to accept the Word as the word -- a true accounting of what transpired over two thousand years ago in a land far away when video cameras were not around to record and news reporters were not on scene to report, play by play the what, where, when, who of what was happening.

I am a doubter.

A doubting Thomas. A sceptical mind that struggles to take the leap of faith to accept, all is well with my soul when I believe that Jesus died for my sins and on the third day was resurrected.

I struggle.

I believe a man named Jesus walked the earth. I believe the events transpired as the Bible states. I struggle to believe it was for my sins he died. Who would do such a thing? For me? An embryo yet to be conceived. A sinner yet to be born.

I breathe.

In the Lenten course, moderator, Christine Valters Paintner at Abbey of the Arts invites us to enter into the story of Jesus' death and imagine what it was like to roll away the stone and find life resurrected instead of death.

I close my eyes and imagine. Fear. Confusion. Hope.

Could it be true? Could Jesus' words truly have been the Word of God?

I breathe into hope.

It is Easter Sunday and I am a child of God, the Divine expression of His amazing grace. He sent his son to die for me on the cross so that I could be forgiven my sins.

I breathe and leap onto an act of Faith. Why wouldn't I want to be forgiven? Why wouldn't I want to know God's magnificent Love everlasting?