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Morning Devotion for the Season of Easter
May 5, 2023
Martyrs of the Reformation Era
Invitatory
On this day the Lord has acted; we will rejoice and be glad in it.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son: and to the Holy Ghost;
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be: world without end. Amen.
Reading: II Corinthians 4:7-12
But we have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us. We are afflicted in every way but not crushed, perplexed but not driven to despair, persecuted but not forsaken, struck down but not destroyed, always carrying around in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies. For we who are living are always being handed over to death for Jesus’s sake, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our mortal flesh. So death is at work in us but life in you.
Meditation – Peter Vanderveen
I try very strongly to resist all the typical visions of heaven that get bandied about. At best, they provide a banal distraction; more seriously, they help us to avoid the depth, profundity, and centrality of the dual mysteries of life and death. We make light of both as a way not to pay attention. This makes everything easier. It also empties our time of meaning and beauty, which is a costly proposition.
Nonetheless, the great theologian Karl Barth once mused – making use of one of the more common (and distorting) pictures we retain – that when he arrived at the gates of heaven he’d have no interest in stopping to be interrogated by Saint Peter. He was far more interested in tracking down Mozart and Saint Paul. He wanted to meet up with two persons who, somehow, miraculously, produced work of seemingly limitless inspiration. He said of Mozart’s music that “there is no light which does not also know dark, no joy which does not also have within it sorrow; but the converse is also true: no fear, no rage, no plaint which does not have, far or near, peace at its side.” And Paul, in giving full rhetorical force to the work of Jesus, in a scant few letters, established the church. In comparison, Peter was a rather dumb workhorse.
By objective measure, there’s not much that we know about Paul’s life that would make him noteworthy. He certainly couldn’t claim the wild success of a minister like Joel Osteen, with a vast store of wealth to show for it. He was faced with having to manage a few fledgling communities of faith that continually proved unable to get out of their own way. He had to weigh-in on petty disputes, like wearing hats, and deal with embedded cultural differences, like circumcision. All for a handful of people, while being imprisoned as a troublemaker. We read his letters now, giving them divine authority; but in so doing we forget just how unimpressive his own personal history was. Taylor Swift is a star. Paul couldn’t even have gotten the attention of a lackey at Ticketmaster.
The verses above from II Corinthians are autobiographical. Paul was certainly aware that he couldn’t claim to be an influencer. No trends followed in his wake. And yet, his words and his passion have dramatically outlasted his life. He has given life to millions, and not just a show. He was an indefatigable archaeologist of the mysteries of life and death and of God and redemption. He gave witness to the infinite grace of God even while everything about him was painfully reflective of our finite limitations. But it’s exactly this that gives us all hope.
Prayer
You come to us, O Christ.
You are the Alpha and the Omega
The beginning and the end. All times
And seasons are yours, and in you
All things hold together and are brought to completion.
Draw us by your Spirit into communion
With you and one another and make us and all things
Whole and free in the full force
Of your deathless love.
The Most Rev. Frank T. Griswold
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