Saints and Seasons
We’re always worried about the next step. What now? Where do we go from here? And even if we know where we are going, and how we’ll get there, then we worry about how are going to manage when we do get there.
It’s no wonder, then, that the stories Jesus tells – and the stories told about Jesus – remind us that we are not left on our own to figure things out. The point is that God is here with us, walking beside us. In the very act of receiving his Body and Blood week by week, of becoming his Body in the world, Jesus whispers to us, “ Rest easy; you are ‘kept in eternal life’” We are not alone. We walk with Christ himself, and with our sisters and brothers. All that we need to do is to remember - which actually seems a full time job in itself!
Think back to that first Easter morning. It was their first opportunity, following the Sabbath rest, for Mary Magdalene and the other women, to set out to the tomb. Unlike most of the apostles who had run in fear of their own lives, they had seen where Jesus was laid to rest, so they can at least go and anoint his body which had meant so much to them.
It must have been with heavy hearts and hesitant footsteps that they set off early that morning, even before the sun was up. And as they walk, the women wonder and talk among themselves; how will we manage to move that heavy stone from the opening? What if there are soldiers there guarding the tomb? What if, what if… Not knowing the next step, not having an answer, with only questions and uncertainty, they go anyway. And we are told that when they get there, the stone is already rolled away.
How many times have we wondered how in the world we are going to do what we need to do now, whatever that is? What now, that I‘m out of college and need a job? What now that the kids have gone? What now that my husband has died? What now that our son is in trouble? What now that our parishes are so small? What now that I am aging? What now that my father is dying? What now, what now, what now? Who will roll away the stone for us? What will we do and how will we do it?
The answer is that, like our sister Mary Magdalene, we set out day after day. Sunday after Sunday, having broken bread together and recognizing the Risen Christ among us, and now within us, we set out, “to do the work that God has given us to do, that is, to love and serve him as faithful witnesses of Christ our Lord.” And to let God do the rest.
When things look their bleakest, sometimes all we can do is next ritual act, take the next indicated step. I saw a headline in a news story shortly after my husband Gordon had died which said ”Life is the answer.” I framed it and there it sits on my desk to this day. Life itself is the answer. To believe and to receive, to go and do, to decide and to set out.
The stories that we read day by day are not stories about other people, people who lived long ago and whose lives have no intersection with ours. The stories are about us and our life with Jesus, right here and right now, a life to be lived for others, life with the triune God, eternal life which has already begun and which goes on forever. For us the answer to the question “What now? What next?’” is that, with the psalmist, we continue to walk in the presence of the Lord in the land of the living. Hallelujah.
Louise Buck
September 2016
