Emphasis Preaching Journal

Thomas needed to see evidence of Jesus' crucifixion in order to believe that Jesus had risen from the dead. But what about us? You and I can't see the wounds in Christ's hands and side in order to see and believe in the risen Christ. So what are we to do? Luther taught that we are to be like Christ to each other. We can't show the marks of the crucifixion, but we can talk about the pain in our lives in an effort to show how our risen Lord and Savior walks beside us. As I was struggling to write those words that you just read, the telephone rang. It was my mother. My mother has Alzheimer's disease. Sometimes you can carry on a meaningful conversation with her, but most times you can't. My mother has always had a deep faith and a sense that the risen Christ is walking beside her. And because I was having such a hard time figuring out what I wanted to say, I asked, "Mom, can you listen to this and tell me if it makes sense?" Mom told me that she wasn't good at things like that anymore. Then I told her that I loved her just the way she is. After that, Mom agreed to listen. And so I read her what I had written. "I see where you're going," she said. "I've often seen the risen Lord in the most painful times of my life. Like when Douglas and Kathleen died." (Douglas was my two-year-old brother who died of meningitis, possibly caught from my father who was discharged from the army with TB. Kathleen died before she was two weeks old because of birth defects.) "When they died," Mom went on, "I finally knew the meaning of what I'd been taught in church and Sunday school. I couldn't have made it through without the risen Lord walking by my side." "Mom, may I tell others about Douglas and Kathleen?" I asked. "If you think it will help someone else to see that Christ crucified himself so that he can walk beside us and help us through our pain," she said, "then go ahead." When Mom said that Christ crucified himself, I thought I'd lost her. But there was one more surprise in store for me. "Christ did crucify himself," she added. "He was God, and he was man, and he did it for us. That's why we can see the risen Christ when we share our pain."
-- Conroy