Bishop Brian Cole invites the people of the Episcopal Church in East Tennessee to view resurrection as a movement as we enter the Easter season. We are in a time of deep pain in Tennessee. The resurrection calls us to a time of movement.
Hi, I’m Bishop Brian. On Easter Sunday morning, as I mentioned in my Easter message to you, I was at Church of the Resurrection in Loudon. This Easter Sunday morning past, we had several options on what we might read for lessons that day. And at Resurrection, Loudon, we heard the reading from the Acts of the Apostles, where Peter is able to give witness about his encounter with Cornelius and the understanding that God shows no partiality. That witness of Peter is an awareness that his understanding of God had grown and God’s story had gotten bigger in his life. If you remember, Peter was an early follower of Jesus, very much an insider, but he’s an insider who’s saying, “my mind has changed, my heart is larger, my understanding of God is bigger.”
So, at Resurrection, Loudon, on Sunday, I mentioned to them the idea that resurrection is not simply a place, it’s also a movement. And it’s a movement where so often we’re catching up with where it’s going as opposed to that we’re leading where it’s going. Too often I think we think we’re in charge of where God can and can’t show up. And the story of Cornelius and Peter is an example that that’s not the case, even in Scripture. This one on whom Jesus plans to build the church, is saying, “my mind has changed, my heart is larger, my understanding of God’s story is bigger.” And that happened and Peter had to catch up with that.
So, in this Easter season that you and I are now entering for these 50 days, continue to be open to where God is showing up, maybe going ahead of you and that you have to catch up. We have to catch up together about where God already is present so that our hearts are larger, our vision of God is larger, and we’re open to where God is surprising us and continuing to say to us, I show no partiality. God is and God was and God will continue to be surprising us, growing larger and growing larger in us.
That resurrection is a movement. So in this season of resurrection, in the season of Easter, consider where we need God to move, where we desire for resurrection to show up. We are living in a time of deep hurt, deep harm, continued epidemic of gun violence in our land. There are many places where we need resurrection to move and for God to show up.
We know God is there in the suffering and in the pain. Of that we do not doubt. But we also want God to be with us in the possibility of restoration, of renewal, and of joy that abounds. So pray that into your heart, into our heart together. Let us be that kind of people in this diocese and in this land.
Resurrection is a place, but it’s also a movement. And let’s move with God as God moves in this world. Amen.
Copyright Notice
Music I Use: https://www.bensound.com/free-music-for-videos
License code: ZO42KRAJST3GU5ZX