Luke 24:13-49 (Easter Evening)

Year A - Easter Evening or Opened Heart Evening

April 20, 2014

Luke 24:13-49

A vision of angels by any other name is a vision of life. We are not stuck.

And yet we are slow in agreeing to get unstuck. 7 miles at 20 minutes per mile is a 3 hour, 20 minute conversation. Did the women get it right? Did those who went to see miss something?

How slow our hearts are to be opened. How many Easters have come and gone since you have revisited the silence of Easter, the imagery and symbolism of Easter, and the community of Easter. So has another Easter worn off already?

We could have another long conversation about whether we are to return to Galilee or remain in Jerusalem. Here Luke sets up Pentecost by staying while other witnesses have folks by the seashore. Where was the fish eaten?

We are slow enough to get hung up on the details and miss the meaning of the forest.

The only question this Easter Evening is whether our hearts are any more open tonight than they were in the morning. This is a daily question. A more dangerous way to ask this is whether we experience any more power to see that “repentance and forgiveness of sins” is proclaimed/lived? This is dangerous because it puts more emphasis on the judgment of repentance and less on forgiveness just because. Religious power structures have always arisen at this divide.

So back to this question: is your heart any more open tonight than it was this morning?