Fear and Joy Together
Christopher B. Harbin
Matthew 28:1-10
What do we do with conflicting emotional responses? Can they exist side by side? When it comes to fear and joy, one cancels out the other, doesn't it? Well, except when a child is born. We can be afraid of dropping a newborn, even as we rejoice in a new birth and are still concerned for new parents. Oh, and when that child enters a dangerous sports competition. We can then be all over the map emotionally. Yes, and then there is this whole celebration of Easter, with Jesus' passion, and death on the cross. How do we work through all our competing emotional responses and still make sense of the reality before us?
Why do we call it Good Friday, when there was nothing good about Jesus being tortured and crucified? Why do we preach the cross as good news along with Paul, even as we understand that Jesus should never have been killed, that it was a gross overstepping of human angst wielded against God? Why do we adorn our sanctuary with beautiful, polished, and shining crosses, as though crosses were things of beauty, comfort, and love? Isn't it, perhaps, because we have learned to hold competing images together as two sides of one same reality which leads to life, love, and grace?
The guards at the tomb were dumbstruck with astonishment and fear. They had only one position from which to look at Jesus' passion and death. There was no hope hidden down in the recesses of their lives that related to Jesus leading them closer to life with God. They did not have any relationship with this Jesus whose body they were posted to guard. They were there on a job and nothing more. They were prepared to deal with unruly disciples, but nothing had prepared them for facing a resplendent celestial being who suddenly appeared before them with an earthquake and rolling away the stone from the entrance to the tomb. Fear and perhaps confusion were about all they had to work wit ...
Christopher B. Harbin
Matthew 28:1-10
What do we do with conflicting emotional responses? Can they exist side by side? When it comes to fear and joy, one cancels out the other, doesn't it? Well, except when a child is born. We can be afraid of dropping a newborn, even as we rejoice in a new birth and are still concerned for new parents. Oh, and when that child enters a dangerous sports competition. We can then be all over the map emotionally. Yes, and then there is this whole celebration of Easter, with Jesus' passion, and death on the cross. How do we work through all our competing emotional responses and still make sense of the reality before us?
Why do we call it Good Friday, when there was nothing good about Jesus being tortured and crucified? Why do we preach the cross as good news along with Paul, even as we understand that Jesus should never have been killed, that it was a gross overstepping of human angst wielded against God? Why do we adorn our sanctuary with beautiful, polished, and shining crosses, as though crosses were things of beauty, comfort, and love? Isn't it, perhaps, because we have learned to hold competing images together as two sides of one same reality which leads to life, love, and grace?
The guards at the tomb were dumbstruck with astonishment and fear. They had only one position from which to look at Jesus' passion and death. There was no hope hidden down in the recesses of their lives that related to Jesus leading them closer to life with God. They did not have any relationship with this Jesus whose body they were posted to guard. They were there on a job and nothing more. They were prepared to deal with unruly disciples, but nothing had prepared them for facing a resplendent celestial being who suddenly appeared before them with an earthquake and rolling away the stone from the entrance to the tomb. Fear and perhaps confusion were about all they had to work wit ...
There are 5623 characters in the full content. This excerpt only shows a 2000 character sample of the full content.
Price: $5.99 or 1 credit
