Fully Alive in God

Melissa Langdell      Matt 22:2-14 (The Parable of the Wedding Feast) PEP 2008 Imagine, if you will, a wide hall, filled with many people, all having a fabulous time.  There are fine ladies twirling in colorful ball gowns and paupers in assorted rags and clowns and perhaps a gentleman or two, with a couple of hearty wenches thrown in.  As you stand at the entrance to the hall, you can smell the roast lamb and freshly baked bread gliding past you on platters and several people have fragrant goblets of wine.  There is merrymaking, and it seems like a pretty good party, with all the joyful jostle of such a crowd.   But one person is missing, the person who invited them all.  And a good chunk of the people there don't seem to mind one bit. Some folks, on the other hand, are politely enjoying the party, keeping an eye out for their host, as yet unseen, so that they can graciously thank him or her.  They don't know who it is yet—they just heard an announcement in the streets that ev

Fear, surprise, wonder.   This is the Day that the Lord has made.   Let us Rejoice and be glad in it. A dark tomb.   Anyone who has experienced being robbed has a taste of the fear and violence that underlies the beginning of this passage.   Mary Magdalene gets to Jesus’ tomb, the space Joseph of Arimathea so blessedly gave to honor him, and he is not there!   Her first thought, it appears, is that Jesus’ body has been taken, robbed.   How awful!   To have just lost your dear teacher, the incarnate Word (although perhaps your understanding of that last part is slight) and instead of going to be in silence with the body, to mourn, the space is empty.   You can only imagine the grief and fear with which Mary runs to Peter and the other disciple.   They all run together to the tomb, distraught.   I can only imagine they are bewildered, they feel accosted by this development.   And in the middle of all this fear, there appear two angels.   And then, even more surprising, a person who in th