Archive | April, 2013

The Serenity Prayer is Not Cheesy

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

I have memories of a small plaque with those words hanging on a bedroom wall in my home growing up. During my high school and college years, my burgeoning love for the Bible and growing burden for doing ministry right was coupled with naïve enthusiasm, with the result that I wrote off the Serenity Prayer (along with a number of old school approaches to ministry) as cheesy, sentimental leftovers from a Christian culture satisfied with just getting through the basics. I wanted to do more for God than simply endure. I wanted to overcome and make a difference for Christ. The Serenity Prayer sounded like something for those who had fallen off the mission band wagon, allowing themselves to be disillusioned by ministry instead of grabbing it by the horns and wrestling struggles to the ground.

How naïve I was.

The Serenity Prayer is just one thing in a long list of things that I thought were cheesy in my youth and disregarded during my twenties, but which now seem great wisdom each year older I get. Who in their youth wants to believe they are going to counter the exact same kinds of problems that the last generation faced in their homes and ministries? It was easier to think that they talked so much about enduring because they had compromised at some point so that they were only just getting by in ministry. We, of course, would not make those same kinds of mistakes, because we, as new Bible college graduates, had greater insight into their mistakes than they ever had. To quote a college professor of mine, I speak as a fool. 

This lesson isn’t particular to the Serenity Prayer. It is a basic Bible principle that transcends time.

I Peter 5:5 Likewise, you who are younger, be subject to the elders. Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” 

Ecclesiastes 1:9 What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun.

I used to think of showing deference to my elders as simply an issue of respect. Like God just wants us to be polite and make old people feel valued. But over the last decade, I’ve become profoundly aware of how this instruction is really for the younger person’s good. Other places in Scripture link a child’s obedience to parents with long life. Is that because God is threatening to kill those who don’t respect their parents? I don’t think so. I think He’s saying that you are more likely to make the kind of wise decisions that extend your life if you value what those who’ve gone before you tell you. They’ve experienced the ebb and flow of life for many more years than you or I. And there is nothing new under the sun – each generation’s conflicts and struggles are just a variation of the previous generation’s, and it is in our best interest to hear what they learned the hard way.

One thing that resonated with the previous generation is the Serenity Prayer. God grant me the wisdom to know what I can change (usually about myself) and what I can not change (often about others). What I can change (about myself) takes courage. Facing what I can’t change (about others) take serenity and peace. Any enduring peace we find will ultimately have it’s source in God Himself (Phil. 4:7). That’s not cheesy. That is hard won wisdom that each of us should hear and pray for ourselves.

When we are on mission for God, there are things that we can and should address with courage. There are also things we can not change that will frustrate us and potentially derail our ministry if we do not trust our Sovereign Father in heaven with the things only He can change. Honestly, both take courage and both take serenity. Ultimately, both rely on the Holy Spirit in us directing us on where we can affect change and where God calls us to wait in confidence in Him. No, the Serenity Prayer is not cheesy at all.

When the Mountains Crash into the Ocean

I wrote last year on when our fears become our reality. That article and last week’s Fruitful in the Land of My Affliction seemed to resonate with readers. I am still meditating on both suffering itself and the fear of suffering. Sometimes, the worst DOES happen. We fear the mountain falling into the ocean, and then, sure enough, it DOES fall into the ocean.

The problem of suffering is the number one issue, in my opinion, that challenges faith. Friends I know who are wrestling with trusting God mention this issue over and over again. The innocent father killed by a stray bullet in front of his kids (which happened near my neighborhood last year). The family mowed down by a drunk driver resulting in the death of two grandparents and serious brain injuries for the mother and newborn infant (which also happened near my neighborhood last month). Even closer to home is the pain of watching someone you love struggle with chronic health issues. Or watching someone you love – a child, a spouse, a parent – struggle with faith. “Where is God?!” we cry out. The silence that greets us is deafening.

Yet in the middle of our darkest wrestling, someone who has gone before us speaks into the silence. It is those moments that remind me of the profound value of the community of Christ. Oh, the Church gets on my nerves at times. There are aspects of the Church, God’s people, that bother me terribly. Yet, I need the community of Christ desperately. And there is no time that pronounces that need as clearly as times of suffering.

I Cor. 12  21 The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you!” … 26 If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it. 27 Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.

I need those who have gone before me in suffering to speak of the God who emerges sovereign over the mountain that falls into the ocean. I can try to pretend that my life will be exempt from suffering. I can stick my head in the sand about its reality. Or I can become paralyzed by the fear and dread of that suffering that hang like an anvil over my head ready to crush me. But none of those options work long term. I have to get my head out of the sand (because suffering for all of us is going to be a reality at some point in this life) and face my fears head on by way of the Word. If you too are ready to do that, here are a few resources that have personally blessed me.

1) This short sermon by a former pastor of mine whose wife died of cancer really blessed and encouraged me.

2) After her husband died of cancer, Dee Brestin wrote The God of All Comfort which has been, along with Hearing Jesus Speak into Your Sorrow by Nancy Guthrie, one of the most important books I’ve ever read.

Psalm 46
1 God is our refuge and strength,
    an ever-present help in trouble.
2 Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way
    and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,
3 though its waters roar and foam
    and the mountains quake with their surging.
4 There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,
    the holy place where the Most High dwells.
5 God is within her, she will not fall;
    God will help her at break of day.
6 Nations are in uproar, kingdoms fall;
    he lifts his voice, the earth melts.
7 The Lord Almighty is with us;
    the God of Jacob is our fortress.
8 Come and see what the Lord has done,
    the desolations he has brought on the earth.
9 He makes wars cease
    to the ends of the earth.
He breaks the bow and shatters the spear;
    he burns the shields with fire.
10 He says, “Be still, and know that I am God;
    I will be exalted among the nations,
    I will be exalted in the earth.”
11 The Lord Almighty is with us;
    the God of Jacob is our fortress.





A New Wave of Complementarianism

There’s a new wave of complementarianism stirring. It’s not made up of true egalitarians, though those in this new movement respect many egalitarian concerns. Too often in the past, egalitarians and feminists were made out to be the bad guys with a complete disregard for the very real issues that concern those who hold feminist and/or egalitarian views. This new wave is also not the same as old school complementarianism, which rose up in the 1970’s in reaction to 2nd wave feminism. That type of complementarian view was founded upon Susan Foh’s interpretation of Genesis 3:16 as a desire among women after the fall to control their husbands. It is often linked with patriarchy.

I know of this new third way because women have been emailing me, messaging me, and calling me since I first started writing on things I noticed that undermined the traditional complementarian position back in 2010. Then almost exactly one year ago, I wrote my somewhat scholarly analysis of Genesis 3:16. Boy did that generate feedback. The vast majority of that feedback was positive from complementarian men and women. I also posted on the Gospel Coalition website, and again, woman after woman (including some who write for the Council of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, The Gospel Coalition, and other respected blogs) wrote me privately to encourage me. This topic resonated! Like me, there are many women who love the Word and love the Church who have felt dissonance with the older version of complementarianism, especially when it came to the interpretation and implications of Genesis 3:16. The view that a woman’s root problem is that she desires to control the men in her life is painful to hear, in part because it is confusing from our real-life experience. I know of no better word to describe it than dissonance – the simple inconsistency between this belief we’ve been taught and the reality of our experience and the experience of those around us leaves us uncomfortable, feeling that something isn’t sitting right and is unresolved. The result is a growing 3rd way of interpreting and viewing gender issues in the Church that is neither egalitarian or hard core complementarianism/patriarchy.

Based on my observations and knowledge of the women who are writing on this new wave of complementarianism, I offer what I think are its tenets. 

1) Belief in the trustworthiness of Scripture. These women (and a few men I know as well who’ve talked about this subject), love the Word and study it hard. They read, they study, and they listen. And they do it all from the foundation that the Bible is God’s written Word, handed down through the Holy Spirit and preserved by God for the instruction of His children.

2) Belief that the Bible interprets itself. The Bible is the best commentary on itself and gives us a great deal of information that, when coupled with common sense interpretive principles (like the fact that story is different from instruction), leads to much more clarity on issues of gender in the Church than some claim.

3) Respect for Church history and the Creeds. Which leads to number 4.

4) Strong disagreement with Foh’s interpretation of Genesis 3:16 that the woman’s desire for her husband will be a desire to control him. This new wave of complementarian believers notes that Foh’s interpretation of Genesis 3:16 has no history in the Church. Before 1970, no Church father/theologian had suggested her interpretation of Genesis 3:16. Instead, this new wave embraces Genesis 3:16 as reflecting an inordinate longing by the woman for the man, an idolatrous longing that is often the root of very bad choices on the woman’s part.  The answer to which is greater dependence on God, not the man, which then frees the woman to help the man as God originally intended.

5) Identifying with aspects of feminism. This new wave of complementarians does not see feminism as the root of all evil on gender issues. I personally think feminism rose up to address legitimate concerns, but a movement is not going to solve such root issues of the heart. Only Christ can do that. Feminism is simply a coping mechanism – helpful on some things, harmful on others.

6) Valuing complementary views of gender. This new wave still values distinctions in gender. God obviously created complementary genders. If men and women didn’t bring separate yet equally valuable things to the gender debate, we would not even exist to have this debate! In the older form of complementarianism, women were created with complementary gifts to aid the man in the areas in which he is lacking. Women were created to complement the man. But this new wave views this complementary nature not so much from the perspective of Genesis 2:18 (I will make a helper suitable for him) but more from Genesis 1:27, where God made man and woman in His image. It takes two distinct though obviously overlapping genders to reflect the fullness of the image of God (and even then we still are lacking in our reflection of Him). Complementing genders are about two genders reflecting God, and the female gender brings some things to this reflection that men don’t as well, and vice versa.

7) Not setting up marriage and family as the end all for women. For too long, conservatives have mixed up good things with ultimate things. Some set up marriage and family as the goal for every believer. I understand how that happened. Feminism seemed to undermine what women did of value in the home, and Christians felt they needed to strongly emphasize the value and need for women in the home. But few are good at emphasizing something positively and still distinguishing it from something that is ultimate. What I do for my husband and children is powerful and important. It is personally my first physical priority by my conviction. But I do not hold the view that my single female friends or married friends without children have any less powerful and important role to fulfill in the Body of Christ.

8) Not threatened by the terms submit or respect or the concept of male-only elders. Why? It goes back to point number 1. Those I know in this new movement trust Scripture, and that goes a long way when it comes to embracing/understanding a controversial word. Many also feel strongly that churches should allow women deacons. Why? Again back to point number 1. And point number 3. Female deacons are both biblical and historical.

I won’t name the other women with whom I’ve been talking, but chances are you know them and read their writing online. Chances are, you ARE one of them. I’m encouraged by all of this because, first and foremost, this new wave of complementarianism is founded on a strong love of the Word (not a desire to control men – an accusation I’m braced to hear against myself at some point). And perhaps after talking about this for a bit, we can all back off from conversations about gender and just go BE our genders, reflecting the character of our Creator as we are redeemed and restored to be like Him once more.

Fruitful in the Land of My Affliction

 

Fruitful in the land of my affliction. I’ve written about this phrase before. It comes from Genesis 41:52, where Joseph names his second son after years of bondage in Egypt which led to his becoming the second in command to Pharaoh.
The name of the second he called Ephraim, “For God has made me fruitful in the land of my affliction.”
Joseph intrigues me, yet I resist his story at times as well. I have heard a number of sermons over the years from his life. He often becomes a moral lesson – be like Joseph when you are sexually tempted and unjustly accused, and God will exalt you as He did Joseph. I strongly resist that view of the life of Joseph. God’s not conforming me to the image of Joseph. He’s conforming me to the image of Christ (Romans 8:29). Joseph’s story is powerful because it reveals God, not because it reveals Joseph. My circumstances will be distinctly different than Joseph’s, but my God is the same.
Yet there is much to learn from Joseph’s story, particularly of our God. The naming of Joseph’s son is one such place. Many thoughts hit me as I meditate on why Joseph named his son Ephraim (which sounds like the Hebrew word for fruitful). First, it’s counterintuitive. Joseph was fruitful in the very place that should have sucked the life out of him. That paradox intrigues me. But, second, I resist the name, because I don’t want to be fruitful in the land of my affliction. I want God to END my affliction, and then I want to be fruitful in the beautiful land I imagined would be God’s best for His children. However, like Joseph, I am powerless to end whatever troubles plague me, and I get impatient waiting for God to move. It is in those moments that I wrestle with God, “How can I do what You have called me to do in THESE circumstances?!”
Once I calm down and take an objective look at Scripture, it finally hits me that no one in Scripture seems to be very fruitful EXCEPT in the land of their affliction. In fact, you can argue from Scripture that suffering, affliction, and death to self are essential to God’s plan for fruitfulness in His children.
John 12:24 Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.
I have situations in my life that plague me, that I would desperately love to see changed. God tells me to pray for His will to be done, for His name to be hallowed, and for His kingdom to come. I long for those things to come about in my home, in my neighborhood, in my church, and in the larger Body of Christ. But in the midst of waiting for the affliction to end and God’s kingdom to come, I am blessed by God’s story in the life of Joseph, and I meditate on what it looks like to be fruitful in the very places from which I would most like to be delivered.  Joseph’s story reminds me that affliction doesn’t end the possibility of fruitfulness but may instead be the very thing that prepares the ground for “fruit that remains.”
John 15:16 NAS “You did not choose Me but I chose you, and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit, and that your fruit would remain … “

I hope you will believe with me today that God has a plan to bear fruit in our lives not just despite the affliction and struggles we wish would leave our lives but through those very struggles, using them as the actual conduit for this fruitfulness. God uses the hardest parts of the story of believer after believer in Scripture to bear beautiful fruit for His name.  This is His calling card.  It is the God of Joseph’s story that causes me to hope in the midst of struggle.

Prayer Changes Things

Philippians 4:6-7 Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Prayer changes things. But what things does it change? Most of us have noted that while, occasionally, the circumstances about which we are praying may change, many times they do not. We may pray for a better job, better health, or better relationships, but no job comes along, we’re still mostly sick and tired, and we experience new struggles in relationships we already had. But does a lack of circumstantial change mean prayer is ineffective? Not. At. All.

I had a moment of pure panic going into my first c-section, laying flat on my back having lost complete control of the circumstances around me. “I can’t do this,” I quietly said to the anesthesiologist who had previously poked me with an epidural in my back. I felt like I was either going to throw up or pass out (or some combination of the two). But in just a few minutes, I could do it. I don’t know the name of the happy juice he put in my IV, but I asked for it up front when time came for my 2nd c-section. In those few moments between calling for help and feeling the calm come over me, my circumstances hadn’t changed one bit, but what previously seemed insurmountable suddenly became doable. I did survive both c-sections without either throwing up or passing out in the middle of them and also sort of enjoyed the delivery of both my boys.

In my mind, this is a bit like prayer. Prayer is a lifeline to God’s happy juice. More accurately, it is our lifeline to God Himself. And He promises something supernatural through this lifeline – peace. This peace He promises is beyond our ability to comprehend. Like the happy juice in the hospital, I didn’t see it enter my blood stream nor could I track its path, but it was real. Of course, the Bible doesn’t use the word happy when it talks about this phenomenon. It uses the word peace. The idea is that we settle down in a calm state. Sometimes I think of peace as a raging storm that quiets down to calm waters. But the more accurate picture of this peace may be Jesus sleeping on the boat during the raging storm. The storm may rage on, but Jesus experienced supernatural peace in the midst of it. Because He was connected to the Father. Similarly, the storm around us may rage on, but our lifeline to God gifts us with a supernatural peace in the midst of it, one beyond our ability to fully comprehend or explain.

This peace, like so much of God’s blessing, seems to be dolled out like manna.  There’s no value in attempting to store up a surplus, because this peace is based on a daily relationship with God.  Instead of being disconcerted that the peace I felt yesterday didn’t last into today, I remember that, like manna, it is the nature of relationships to communicate daily with God about this need.

I have felt on many, many days like I did in that hospital that “I can’t do this.” I cry out to God and also solicit prayers from trusted friends. And though I don’t know when or how it happens, I wake up the next morning and realize that I did indeed make it through something that seemed overwhelming. God provides us with something in those moments of crying out to Him that’s impossible to quantify, but it is real.

James 5:16 Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.

More Thoughts on Literal Biblical Womanhood

Earlier this week, I wrote that, during this Easter season, I am meditating on the clarity the disciples gained concerning the law and prophets during the 40 days between Jesus’ resurrection and ascension. They were coming to understand all things biblical through the new lens of the death and resurrection of Jesus. The title of my book, The Gospel-Centered Woman: Understanding Biblical Womanhood through the Lens of the Gospel, alludes to this. The disciples were coming to understand biblical everything through the lens of the gospel during those 40 days.

I wrote last year on how to read the Bible when it comes to the concept of “Biblical Womanhood.” At that point, I hadn’t read Rachel Held Evans’ A Year of Biblical Womanhood. I’m finally getting around to reading it now, and a few things have dawned on me right off the bat.

IT’S ALL IN HOW YOU DEFINE BIBLICAL!

Last year, I had a strong gut reaction to hearing that Evan’s was calling her husband “master” and sleeping in a tent during her cycle. I thought, “That’s not what the Bible teaches!” But, in truth, she was using the word “biblical” in a more accurate way than I. She used “biblical” as it is traditionally defined.

biblical—of, relating to, or contained in the Bible. www.dictionary.com

In contrast, I think of biblical womanhood as centered around what the Bible INSTRUCTS women to be and do, not things it merely mentions. The fact that the Bible mentions something about a woman in a Bible story then, by my definition of biblical, becomes irrelevant to determining what is truly biblical. But technically, the way I use the word “biblical” is not consistent with its actual definition.

When you examine biblical womanhood by its traditional definition, i. e. everything the Bible says about women, and then filter it through the lens of the gospel, you get a much better picture of what God does and does not instruct women today to be and do. In particular, understanding Jesus’ fulfillment of the Old Testament law and sacrificial system sheds great light on which parts of what the Bible mentions about women are relevant in how we choose to live today.

The technical term used in theological circles is hermeneutics, which simply means how we interpret Scripture. A lot of how we interpret Scripture seems intuitive to me. No one has to tell me that the fact that the Bible mentions a woman who did something in a story (like bargaining to sleep with her husband using her son’s mandrakes in Genesis 30) in any way suggests that I need to emulate that. That’s absurd. It’s a story. It’s a description of what happened, not a prescription for what I need to do.

But to be fair to Rachel Held Evan’s use of the word biblical in her book, even reformed conservatives at times treat the Bible as she does — without regard to the Bible’s own instructions for interpreting itself. My personal experience of late centered around the book of Nehemiah.

Nehemiah is not about you or me. That’s not to say that there aren’t things in Nehemiah on which to meditate and emulate, but we know what things those are based on how other Scripture speaks of those concepts. Nehemiah is about God, not us. It reveals His character and His work for His people. It is not about what you and I need to be or do. It is the story of God drawing the remnant of His people to Himself for His purposes. The fact that Nehemiah rebuilt the temple doesn’t mean that we need to rebuild the temple. Most of us have the common sense to understand at least that. But I have heard prominent reformed pastors tell their congregation that the fact that Nehemiah pulled out the hair of male leaders among the Jews is reason for us to do similarly. That method of interpretation is obviously faulty, yet it happens nonetheless. The primary way we know that the DESCRIPTION of Nehemiah’s violence against Jewish fathers is not to be emulated is that the Bible also gives a PRESCRIPTON for what to do in similar situations that is the exact opposite (2 Tim. 2:24-26). When the Bible DESCRIBES one thing in story but PRESCRIBES another, it is a faulty method of interpretation to use what it describes as your model for yourself.

As I think through this difference in ways we use the phrase biblical, I think more highly of what Rachel’s book brings to the table. It highlights the absurdity of lifting up biblical (of or pertaining to the bible) womanhood as a model for Christian women today. It would have been helpful, in my opinion, if she had offered insight on a correct hermeneutic for understanding what the Bible really does say to women today – that the Old Testament law was fulfilled in Christ and that there is a profound difference in what the Bible describes happening in its stories and what it actually instructs us to emulate. The Bible is surprisingly clear on what does and does not apply to women today IF you use the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus (and His instructions on how they apply) to interpret the rest of Scripture on the issue of womanhood.

Easter Season Has Just Begun

According to the church calendar, Easter Sunday ushered in 50 days of Easter Season, which includes Ascension Thursday 40 days after Easter Sunday (remembering Jesus’ ascension into heaven 40 days after He rose from the dead). Easter Season officially ends on Pentecost, which remembers the giving of the Holy Spirit.

I think it is quite valuable for believers to take some time to meditate on what those 40 days were like for Jesus’ disciples. They had gone through faith shaking darkness, the brutal massacre of their trusted leader.  Though Jesus taught them clearly exactly what was going to happen, it’s obvious from the Gospel accounts that the disciples had not understood and were still painfully ignorant of much Jesus had been teaching them.

Luke 18:31-34 And taking the twelve, he said to them, “See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written about the Son of Man by the prophets will be accomplished. For he will be delivered over to the Gentiles and will be mocked and shamefully treated and spit upon. And after flogging him, they will kill him, and on the third day he will rise.” But they understood none of these things. This saying was hidden from them, and they did not grasp what was said.

Luke 18 is not the first time Jesus told them clearly of His death and resurrection. An earlier version of a similar conversation is recorded in Matthew 16. There Peter rebukes Jesus for even suggesting such a thing.

Matthew 16:21-23 From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, “Far be it from you, Lord! This shall never happen to you.” But he turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.”

Even though Jesus had told the disciples in clear words multiple times that the crucifixion and resurrection was coming, they still seemed completely unprepared for it, scattering when the soldiers came, cutting off the ear of the soldier arresting Jesus, and denying Jesus as He was tried and killed.

After His death, it is the women who first discover that Jesus’ body is missing.

Luke 24:1-10 But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they went to the tomb, taking the spices they had prepared. And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were perplexed about this, behold, two men stood by them in dazzling apparel. And as they were frightened and bowed their faces to the ground, the men said to them, “Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and on the third day rise.” And they remembered his words, and returning from the tomb they told all these things to the eleven and to all the rest. Now it was Mary Magdalene and Joanna and Mary the mother of James and the other women with them who told these things to the apostles,

These women are the first, I think, to finally fully understand (though it seems in John 12 that Mary had some understanding the week before Jesus’ death).

Once Jesus rises from the dead, suddenly – CLICK – it all makes sense to them. I’ve watched that look go on in students’ eyes when it comes to understanding a difficult math concept. They take in information with their eyes glazed over.  It’s obvious from their eyes that it makes no sense to them. Then something happens, perhaps a well placed illustration or an activity demonstrating a concept with manipulatives, and – CLICK – the lightbulb goes on. Their eyes light up as things that were previously confusing and disconcerting suddenly make sense.

On Sunday, we celebrated the moment of that CLICK of understanding for the disciples. But that season of growing understanding of all Jesus had been teaching them went on for 40 more days. On the road to Emmaus scales fell from their eyes as they came to understand the Law and the Prophets through the lens of Jesus’ death and resurrection. Peter comes to understand Jesus’ heart for the church sitting at a fire pit beside the sea. And who knows what other conversations happened that were not recorded for us?!

Chocolate bunnies may be on clearance and our Easter finest in the laundry to wash, but Easter Season isn’t over.  There is much on which to meditate during the next five and a half weeks until Ascension Thursday. What concepts were the disciples coming to see clearly? What were they newly understanding of the Old Testament? What vision were they gaining for God’s kingdom? What all was on the long list of things misunderstood by them previously that suddenly became clear? That little band of Jesus denying, fearfully scattering misfits went on to change the world. I think those 40 days were profound.