Reflecting on Lk. 24: 35-48

The Lebanese-American writer Kahlil Gibran had it right, I think, when he spoke of grief. He described death as an incense bead which doesn’t break open until a loved one’s death. Then its perfume fills the room. “Death is the revealer of life,” he said. It’s only at death that the fullness of someone’s life breaks open.

All of a sudden we see them more clearly, and with so much more love (and longing) than we even did in life.

I suspect that happened for the disciples of Jesus. After his horrible death, the fullness of his life, and the meaning of his death, broke open. Now they had the rest of their lives to regret not loving him better, not staying and praying with him in the Garden, not fleeing from the Cross but, instead, staying and dying with him.

Maybe that’s what they were all saying, through their heartbreak and tears, that Easter evening. They may have been remembering, over and over, the precious moments they shared with him in his life, and accusing themselves of the grossest ignorance in not understanding who he was, and to what he had called them.

And then. Two disciples from Emmaus came running into that Upper Room with the most astonishing news. He’s alive! And we recognized him in the Breaking of the Bread! And no sooner had they announced this glorious news than Jesus Himself stood among them. And suddenly, nothing was ever the same again.

Are you longing for a deceased loved one? Imagine them just entering into your room right now. Oh, what endless joy! They are alive.

Trust this vision. Trust Jesus. They are alive.

How do you experience the presence of your deceased loved ones?

Kathy McGovern © 2021

Reflecting on John 20: 19-31

Thirty years ago my cousin Patty, the purest soul I’ve ever known, was on her way to Marianne Williamson’s class A Course in Miracles in the Bay Area. Stepping off the bus, she was approached by an armed assailant. Doing as she’d been trained to do while living in a dangerous city in dangerous times, she dropped her purse and ran for her life. He shot her in the back anyway. Risen One, where was your MERCY then?

Three weeks ago another young man suffering from mental illness, armed to the teeth with combat weapons he bought legally, murdered ten beautiful humans in a grocery store. Risen One, where was your MERCY then?

Here in Colorado, of course, we’ve lost the Triple Crown. We can’t go to high school, the movies, or the grocery store. Young men suffering from mental illness, but clear-headed enough to plant bombs and hide assault weapons, have stripped us of the slightest veneer of safety we may feel for ourselves or for those we love. O Risen One, where is your MERCY now?

Well, the MERCY is here with us, holding out his pierced wrists and exposing his punctured side. Here, he says to us, touch my wounds. Feel my agony. Now hold out your hands and let me touch yours.

Okay. I’ll take that invitation.  Here, Jesus. Feel my wounds. I can’t look at those darling young faces, those dear older faces, and please, please don’t make me hear one single thing about the people who love them.

He touches my wounds, and holds my bleeding hands, and my broken heart. And we both weep. That’s where the MERCY is now.

Where do you most need to feel God’s MERCY now?

Kathy McGovern ©2021

Reflecting on Acts 10: 34a, 37-43

Why didn’t everyone living in Jerusalem see the Risen One?  Acts says: God…granted that he be visible, not to all the people, but to us…(10: 40-41). I know that if I had seen Him hanging on the cross that awe-full Friday, I would have felt cheated that he didn’t appear to me, RAISED and RADIANT, that glorious Sunday.

Even Peter and the Beloved Disciple, after racing to the tomb, left without actually SEEING Jesus. It was only Mary Magdalene, whose story follows today’s gospel in John 10: 11-18, who actually saw him, and at first even she mis-took him for the gardener.

Balaam, the famous “seer,” couldn’t see God’s huge angel right there in the road (Nm. 22). And Elisha’s servant couldn’t see God until Elisha prayed that God would open his eyes to see the hills full of angelic chariots all around (2 Kgs. 6:17).

Most telling of all, Jesus’ own disciples spent Easter Sunday on the road with him and didn’t recognize him until the Breaking of the Bread (Lk. 24: 13-35). Jesus eventually appeared to over five hundred believers, according to St. Paul, who admits he got the story from Peter (I Cor. 15: 5-8). We have seen the Lord! they cried with joy. Lucky them.

But maybe he HAS appeared, to everyone who longed for him that day, and the billions who have longed for him since. Maybe we have felt his Presence, and sensed his nearness, countless times in our lives.

So let me ask you: who was that with you, in the Delivery Room, on your First Communion Day, at the graveside of a loved one? Ah. Of course. Lucky you. You have seen the Lord.

Where do you look for the Risen Lord these days?

Kathy McGovern ©2021

Reflecting on Mark 14: 1-15:47

Suffering. The experience of it often supersedes the relief we feel when it is over. Somehow we participate in the stern forty days of Lent, with its ashes and palms, with more fervor than in the glorious fifty days of Easter, suffused as they are with baptismal gowns, First Communion clothes, and Confirmation robes.

We’re not alone. The Passion Narrative was, most probably, the earliest part of each of the four gospels to be written. Was it closer to the hearts of the evangelists than even the Resurrection Accounts? Tradition believes that St. Peter was the eyewitness behind Mark’s gospel (I Peter 5:13). It’s touching to think that Peter wanted to make sure Mark wrote down how Peter denied Jesus. He didn’t want later historians to give him a pass.

I do know this for sure: Mark the Evangelist knows how the story ends while he’s writing his Passion. You bet he does. Only Mark has a young man follow Jesus after the arrest, and when they seize his cloak, he runs away naked (14:51).

I loved it when early commentaries suggested that it was Mark, writing himself in as a terrified, hidden disciple. But I love this theory even more: we see that young man again, and this time he isn’t terrified at all. He’s powerful, and robed in white, and sitting on the rolled-away stone of the Empty Tomb. “Go tell Peter what you saw,” he says (Mk. 16:7).

That’s the Good News, shouted through the ages, and, in Mark, announced by one who was, just days ago, running for his life. He’s running in a different direction now, that angel. He’s running towards you, towards me.

Run, boy. Run.

Are you sure you know how the Story ends?

Kathy McGovern ©2021

Reflecting on Psalm 51

Create in me a clean heart, and renew Your Spirit within me. Imagine waking up on the Fifth Sunday of Lent with the open, wide-eyed wonder of your childhood self. With just a bit of guidance, you could see God’s work everywhere, and the rivers of joy coming from God’s Spirit would animate your life once again.

I think of young King David, shockingly breaking the ninth commandment by coveting the wife of poor Uriah the Hittite. He wanted the beautiful Bathsheba—whose father, grandfather and husband he knew—and what the King wants the King gets.

Just like some modern-day kings in the Middle East, he summoned her to his bed and she was obliged to go. She soon turned up pregnant, of course, and hence the bungled cover-up commenced. Nobody needs to know, thought David. He tried all kinds of ways to keep his sin undiscovered, but in the end the only thing that worked was an obvious ruse to get Uriah killed on the front lines.

Bathsheba was then free to marry King David, but, to their despair, their child did not live. And it’s smack in the middle of that despair—and the strong rebuke by his prophet Nathan— that, tradition says, King David composed Psalm 51, the Miserere,  that we sing today: Create in me a clean heart, oh God. Renew Your Spirit within me.

It’s the job description of sin to find endless ways to bring misery, and it did. The sword never left the House of David (2 Samuel 12:10) from that day until the day the Prince of Peace was born in the City of David.

That’s the backstory on today’s psalm.

How is God creating a clean heart in you this Lent?

Kathy McGovern ©2021

Reflecting on John 3:14-21

Do you remember the exhilaration of getting your first pair of Keds, say, when you were five? I could absolutely jump higher and run faster than ANYBODY, just watch me! watch me! watch me! My parents, ever indulgent, oohed and aahed at the ecstasies of all of their kids. And, in those early years, I thought their love and admiration for me was directly tied to how blindingly fast I was, and how shockingly high I could jump.

It wasn’t until my baby brother aged into the new Keds experience, and they clapped and praised his athletic genius too, that it hit me. Oh. Our parents don’t love us for what we accomplish. They egg us on into believing we are super-human in all our endeavors because they know that makes us happy. They love us because they love us, not because we are great at anything we do, because, well, we really aren’t.

What a grace it is to read John 3:17: For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that through Him the world might be saved. What a get-out-of-jail passage that is. God didn’t love us unto death because of anything, anything, that we did. The word “grace” means “undeserved kindness.” It’s like when the judge orders a stay of execution for the (guilty) guy on death row. We are saved because of the undeserved kindness of God.

Now we are free to run as fast as we can to the finish line, life on high in Christ Jesus (Phil. 3:14). And, in our joy, we jump as high as we can to feed, and clothe, and bring justice to God’s earth.

What good works that you perform make you the most conscious of the undeserved kindness of God?

Kathy McGovern ©2021

Reflecting on Exodus 20:1-17

I hope that you had the great grace of being made to memorize the Ten Commandments as a child. But in case your brain has had to delete them to make room for the thousands of other things you’ve needed to stuff in there through the years, take the list out of today’s first reading and see how long it takes to commit each one to memory again.

It was easier when we were kids. Our brains were more supple, of course, but, more than that, it was easy to confidently recite commandments we were certainly never going to break. I think of those commandments a lot these days, during tax time. It turns out that a lot of us are willing to break the seventh commandment because, well, we can.

Thou shalt not steal seems like such an obvious command. No society can prosper when there is no deterrence from stealing from each other. Certainly we can all point to government waste, and entitlements we deem immoral. Funding those in our taxes is a bitter pill. In other cases, though, hiding assets is meant to benefit the wealthier member of a divorcing couple, to the detriment of the children of that union.

These past two tax seasons have been particularly appalling as poor, single mothers realize that their “smart, savvy” ex has stolen their stimulus check from them. During the pandemic, the most obvious sin against the seventh commandment has been the number of fraudulent unemployment claims filed—sevenfold the number of authentic claims! Do we not realize that this is theft?

We need a “come to Jesus” moment. Thou shalt not steal is not a suggestion. It’s an honest-to-God commandment.

Which commandment am I struggling with this Lent?

Kathy McGovern ©2021

Reflecting on Genesis 22:1-2,9a,10-13,15-18

If ever there were an example of why NOT to take some parts of scripture literally, it’s that first reading today. The story of the Sacrifice of Abraham (or the Binding of Isaac) has been out there for 2600 years, listened to around the campfire and proclaimed in synagogues and churches. I can’t find a single case of a mentally competent father ever murdering his beloved first-born son because he wanted to show God how obedient he was.

There is in us a certain filter that activates when we read a story like this. We say, “This is horrible, “ or “How can this be in scripture?” or even “Who wants a father like that?” But there is something in us that gets, right away, that this is a story told to instruct, not to be imitated.

There are other scripture texts that bring the filter down immediately too. I’ve known thousands of devout Christians in my life, people whose entire worlds are about bringing the Good News to the poor, and not one of them has, to my knowledge, ever cut out their eye or hand or foot because it offended them (Mt. 18:9).

I have heard of some Pentecostal churches that have encouraged believers to pick up snakes or drink deadly poisons in order to show the power of God’s word to save them (Mk. 16:18), but as people around the world become better educated in scripture those stories have begun to die out.

So, what IS the point of that terrifying Genesis story we read today? Maybe it’s that our relationship with God is the treasure we want to protect above everything else.

What would your life be like without the intimacy of Christ?

Kathy McGovern ©2021

Reflecting on Genesis 9: 8-15

Many years ago I was hospitalized several times over the course of five months. Probably the most visceral memory I have of that terrible time is of a recurring dream. The Greeks had it right when they named “Morpheus” (morphine) the god of dreams. If you’ve ever spent a length of time on morphine I’ll bet you’ve had some awful dreams too.

In this dream I was on an escalator, going down, down. There was no escape, no hope. I remember thinking how odd it was that everyone was on the escalator, everyone was doomed to an eternity of going down without any glimpse of sky or light, and yet we all kept pretending that we didn’t realize this.

Through the grace of God and the strength of the prayers of hundreds of people, I recovered. And over time the dream lost its power, so much so that, nearly fourteen years later, I have to work to remember it at all.

But when I think of the Great Flood, the terrible waters covering the earth and all that dwelt upon it, I remember that feeling of going down, down. A catastrophic flood is related in several ancient texts. There seems to be, lodged in our universal collective unconscious, a sense that we are traveling down, down, without hope of rescue.

But, stronger than death, Rescue did arrive, and even the torments of Satan couldn’t keep him from us. Such is the fierce love of Jesus. The early Christians imaged the Church as a boat on high seas, keeping us up, up. Jesus commands that boat, of course. Grab on to that boat. Grab on to Jesus. He will raise you up.

How will you cling to Jesus this Lent as you exercise a new discipline?

Kathy McGovern ©2021

Reflecting on Mark 1: 40-45

Sometimes a different translation of a text comes closer to the way we think of Jesus. For example, according to the NAB (New American Bible), when the leper professes his faith that, if Jesus wills it, he could cure him of leprosy, Jesus is “moved with pity” and says, “I do will it.”

That’s nice. But I LOVE the NIV (New International Version) translation of the same scene. This time, after the leper professes his faith that if Jesus wills it he could be cured, Mark 1: 41 says, “Jesus was indignant.” Don’t you like that Jesus so much better?

Imagine if your child, miserable with an earache, said, “Mom, if you wanted to you could make me feel better!” You’d be moved with pity, sure, but I’ll bet you’d also be indignant, wondering how your child could possibly think you wouldn’t want him to feel better immediately.

Heck, the CEB (Common English Bible) even says Jesus was incensed at the question! I like that the best of all. I love the image of Jesus as the One whose love for us is so deep—and his presence in our lives so intimate and near—that he is incensed that we would wonder whether he wants to heal us.

In still another translations Jesus says, “Of course I will it.” The God of heaven chose earth so that he could be one with us in our illnesses, our sufferings, and our deaths. He wants to heal us so desperately that, like the Hound of Heaven, he seeks us in out-of-the-way roads, and busy urban thoroughfares, just so we can find him. Why aren’t all healed? We don’t know. But it’s not because Jesus doesn’t will it.

What healing do you need? How can the Body of Christ help you?

Kathy McGovern ©2021