Easter Unifying
Monday task list
I believe Jesus’ John 17 prayer for unity was high on the priority list for the 12 (now eleven? ten?) disciples right out of the gate. One (Judas) had betrayed Jesus and didn’t hang around long enough to experience the forgiveness Jesus made possible. One (Thomas) succumbed to grief and doubt and chose to withdraw from the community - he was nowhere to be found that Easter Sunday evening. Another (Peter) had brashly thrown his friends under the bus just a few nights earlier, bragging to Jesus that He might not be able to count on his weaker counterparts, but the Rock was totally dependable. How’d that work out?
Sound familiar?
Have you ever seen someone blow it from within your community, and choose to run rather than reconcile? It may or may not have been suicide, but guilt and shame can only be matched and overcome by the undying love of Jesus.
Have you watched someone choose to grieve alone rather than with friends - maybe for far too long? Hope can accompany grief, just like joy can run current with sadness, but only in Jesus.
Have you endured the elephant in the room conversation that you know is going to have to surface eventually? I’m not sure when exactly the other ten and Peter worked through their broken relationships, but I can pin it down to a fifty day period.
Practical tool #1: unconditional invitations
On the second Sunday of Easter (in case you’re not from a liturgical church that uses that language, that would be the Sunday after Easter), Thomas returned. Sometime between Resurrection Sunday and a week later, Thomas’ friends reached out to him. Apparently they didn’t judge him for missing a rather important meeting. Apparently they didn’t guilt him for his doubts - probably because the adjective on the front end of “doubting Thomas” applied to all of them, and they knew it. (Matthew 28:17 lets us know that doubt can still be a thing even after Easter, even for eyewitnesses.)
I’m guessing that it took more than one invitation. I’m guessing that several loving friends had to listen patiently to Thomas’s guilt and disbelief. And I’m guessing that “Come and see” was an open-ended invitation that happened a few times that week, with more than just Thomas.
Practical tool #2: the power of prayer
The liturgical calendar I mentioned has a season of preparation for Christmas called Advent, and a season of preparation for Easter called Lent, but none for Pentecost. Ironically, that’s the time of preparation that actually is mentioned in the Bible! I believe Acts 1:14 describes a ten day season of preparation for Pentecost that we would do well to repeat. “They all joined together constantly in prayer.” In the ten days between Jesus’ ascension and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, their time together was marked by prayer. I imagine conversation flowed freely between confession, forgiveness, reconciliation, and prayer. So much so that the entire time was described as “prayer.” Which is also why if you’re in Tucson, you might consider prioritizing the two days of prayer described below - one for pastors and one for everyone.
Whatever unifying and reconciling work is needed where you live, patient invitations marked by unconditional love and listening, along with extended periods of prayer… both work miracles today just like they did 1992 years ago.
