Ordinary Time

It's been awhile since I posted anything.  I might blame it on the fact that I had hoped to blog about my new call at Valpo (which another candidate has now accepted) or the fact that I'm subsequently busily networking in the Lutheran world again.  Both are true statements of what I've been doing, but neither is really the reason I haven't been blogging.

I haven't been blogging because everything has been, well, so ordinary. 

I get up, take John to school, head to the gym, meet with some pastors, do some errands, pick up John, make dinner, spend some time with Jay, and go to bed.  Lather, rinse, repeat. 

This isn't to say that I'm not very much enjoying my sabbatical or that I'm not getting a lot out of it.  I love getting to spend so much time with John and Jay!  I'm going to bi-monthly art history lectures at the Art Institute of Chicago!  I have lost 21 lbs since January!  But it's just that it doesn't seem like there's all that much to write about.

And then came Holy Week.

For the first time in nine years I was on the other side of the pulpit and altar during the final days of Lent and Easter Sunday.  What usually was a marathon of services to be performed became a deep and rich opportunity to worship.  The Hines-Shahs (including John) worshipped at all the services of the great Triduum (including the Easter Vigil at LSTC and Augustana) and were part of the hordes at Grace Evanston for Easter Sunday.  And while I felt a little sad not to be leading it all, I found myself more aware on Easter 2 than I have been in recent years.

The story of Thomas and the risen Christ may be really what its all about.

Don't get me wrong, I love Easter Sunday, the women, the stone rolled away, Peter and John and angels and "gardener" just as I love lilies, big organ music, a full church, dynamic sermon and exciting hats.  But as exciting as all this is, we all know it doesn't last.

Two pastor friends posted on Facebook this week that they have lost their voices.  Several more are sick.  The organist at Grace has to get back to the mandatory training for his new day job.  The unclaimed hydrangeas and lilies are drying out on a back pew.  The risen Christ has left the building.

Or has he?

When a doubting Thomas, having missed all the festivities, demands to see a sign.  And there, before his very eyes, appears Christ raised.  But does he come with angels and lilies, crowds and preludes?  No.  Christ is there before Thomas, to an ordinary guy in an ordinary room, in an ordinary body, a body that can be touched.

But more than that, Christ comes to Thomas in a wounded body, still marked with the signs of the crucifixion.  It is only then that Thomas proclaims him, "My Lord and my God."

Isn't this really the miracle of Easter?  Not that God is so great and so powerful that not even death can hold him, we knew that already didn't we?  No, rather it is that God is so great and so powerful that death cannot hold him AND YET he comes among us to be held and to hold us in return.  In other words, the risen Christ isn't just an Easter Sunday God, he's a Sunday after Easter (and Monday and Tuesday and Friday) God too.

God is in the midst of my ordinariness and there reveals wonderful things.

I'm grateful for the lesson and the time.