Journeying to Grace

The joy of the Holy Spirit was palpable at the Easter service I attended. I witnessed it in other attendees’ expressions and felt it in our collective prayers and songs. The time we celebrated together strengthened me so much I continued to feel that renewed inspiration of faith and hope into the next day. Still enveloped in the glorious sights and sounds of our celebration the evening before, I drove to pick up a friend for a planned outing. Yet the farther I drove, the more my heart fell, until the joy I had left with turned to disappointment.

In a short distance, and in three different instances, the aggressive and selfish driving behavior of other cars caused unnecessary aggravation on what had been a quiet, uncrowded street. Though I observe similar actions often enough, they seemed especially ‘wrong’ that day. In my own frustration, I remember asking out loud, ‘Where’s the holy?! Where’s the grace?!’ I wondered why the saving peace of the Resurrected Lord that I had been experiencing wasn’t active in some of the drivers on the road in front of me. My questions continued: ‘Don’t they know? Don’t they know what a happy and joyful time this is? Don’t they know our time of being parched in the desert is over, and we have been saved?’ An answer came to me very quickly and very simply. ‘Tell them.’

Especially in this season of Easter, that’s our mission – our task of love, faith, and truth, our witness to those we encounter. We don’t keep the saving grace of Easter to ourselves. We don’t just celebrate the redemption of the Resurrection, we do our best to live it, and most importantly, we share it. Jesus instructed the disciples, ‘As the Father has sent me, so I send you.’ (John 20:21) As members of the Body of Christ, we are also sent and called to share the life-saving love of the Lord. Easter is our invitation to be messengers of this immense love and joy. Renewed in courage and hope through the healing grace of Jesus’s wounds, may we as disciples in faith, joyfully accept our mission to ‘tell them.’