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This Is That

Reflecting on Acts 2:14-41

Peter stood up.

The same Peter who once sank into the waves.
Who denied the Christ by a flickering fire.
Who ran when the sky turned dark and the veil tore in two.

That Peter.

He stands up now…not just in courage, but in Spirit.

Because something has shifted.
Something new has broken in.
Something ancient and future, mysterious and real.
Something that makes people stop and ask,
“What does this mean?”

You see, they were trying to make sense of the wind.
The fire.
The languages.
The presence.

So Peter gives them language for the new world being born.

“This… is that.”
That prophecy from Joel, the one about sons and daughters prophesying,
about visions and voices and a Spirit poured out on all flesh?

This is that.

This is the fulfillment not of fear, but of promise.
Not of hierarchy, but of invitation.
Not of judgment, but of awakening.

Peter preaches a sermon soaked in Scripture,
but not to prove a point…
to open their eyes.

He walks them through David, through resurrection, through Jesus…
the one they saw, the one they rejected,
and the one God raised.

And the crowd…
they get it.

They are cut to the heart.
Not in shame. Not in guilt.
But in holy recognition.
Something has broken in, and it is bigger than them.
Wider than their categories.
Fuller than their control.

So they ask the only thing left to ask:

“What shall we do?”

And Peter, once a denier, now a proclaimer, answers with the clarity of someone who’s walked through fire:

Repent.
Not just “say sorry.”
Turn around.
Change your mind.
Step out of the old narrative.
Step into this new kingdom where everyone has a voice,
where the Spirit speaks in every language,
where the curtain is torn and the invitation is wide.

Be baptized.
Sink into death so you can rise in life.

And receive the gift.
Not earn.
Not achieve.
Receive.

Because this promise?
It’s for you.
For your children.
For the ones you think are far off.

For everyone who hears the whisper:
This is for you too.

And that day…
Three thousand said yes.
Three thousand entered the new world.
Three thousand were swept up in the Spirit’s river,
flowing not from a temple,
but from people.

So maybe the question today isn’t just, “What happened then?”

Maybe the real question is:
What’s happening now?

Because the Spirit still comes in fire.
Still speaks in surprise.
Still invites the least likely to stand up and speak out.

And maybe…just maybe…this is still that.

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She Stayed: John 20:1-18

It was still dark.
Early.
Too early for clarity.
Too early for answers.
But she went anyway.

Because grief doesn’t care about sunrise.
And love doesn’t wait for convenience.

So Mary showed up.

No plan.
No strategy.
Just tears.
And questions.

She sees the stone rolled away,
Runs, tells the others.
Peter and John race back,
Peer in,
See linen,
Then leave.

But she stays.

Let that settle in.

She stays.
While the men run off to figure it out,
Mary lingers in the mystery.
In the loss.
In the not-knowing.

Sometimes it’s the staying that becomes the sacred.

She weeps.
And then…two angels.
But even they don’t wow her.
She’s not looking for angels.
She’s looking for Jesus.

And then…

A gardener?

No.
Not a gardener.
Not really.

He says her name.

Not a sermon.
Not a rebuke.
Not a theology lesson.

Just… “Mary.”

And suddenly,
Resurrection is personal.

She had seen Him die.
Heard the last breath.
Watched the burial.

And yet,
There He is.
Breathing.
Standing.
Speaking.

Alive.

And what’s the first thing He does?

He sends her.

Not Peter.
Not John.
Not the inner circle.

Mary.

The weeping woman in the garden.
The one with a past.
The one with the story no one expected.

She becomes the first preacher of the resurrection.

She is apostle to the apostles.

Because Jesus rewrites the script.

And still does.

He comes in the weeping.
In the waiting.
In the mistaken identities.
In the dark.

He comes when the grief is thick
and the tomb looks final.

He comes with your name on His lips.

So today…

Stay.
Wait.
Weep if you must.
But listen.

He’s calling your name.

And when you hear it,
Don’t hold on too tightly to how things were.
He’s doing something new.

Now go.
Tell them what you’ve seen.

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Still Breathing: John 20:20-29

They had locked the doors.
For fear.
For shame.
For wondering if the whole thing was over.

All the promises.
All the miracles.
All the momentum.
Gone.

And then…
Jesus comes through the locked door.

Not past the lock.
Not around the lock.
Through it.

Like grace always does.

And what does He say?

“Peace be with you.”

Not, “Where were you?”
Not, “Why did you run?”
Not, “I told you so.”

Just… Peace.

Because the resurrected Christ doesn’t come to rub your failure in your face.
He comes to breathe life back into your lungs.
To restore.
To recommission.
To rehumanize the weary disciple.

Then He shows them the scars.

Not to horrify them.
But to heal them.

Scars are what resurrection looks like on skin.
Proof that death did its worst…
But love had the last word.

He breathes on them.
Just like God did in Genesis.
Just like He’s doing now.
To you.
To your calling.
To your people.

You might feel like your ministry is behind locked doors.
Like your prayers are hitting ceilings.
Like resurrection is something that only happens in other churches, other pastors, other places.

But Jesus isn’t stopped by fear, or failure, or fatigue.
He still walks through walls.
He still breathes on broken leaders.
He still sends out wounded disciples.

And He still says:
“As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.”

You.

Not a perfect version of you.
Not a more spiritual, more rested, more certain version of you.

Just… you.

Your scars and all.

So, inhale deeply today.

You’re not alone.
You’re not disqualified.
You’re not done.

He’s still breathing.
And so are you.

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Christmas Stories

There are so many wonderful stories centered around the Christmas tradition. From The Little Drummer Boy to The Christmas Candle, authors have worked to capture the heart of the Christmas season. One of my favorite short stories is by the author Annie Dillard titled “God In The Doorway”  It de-scafolds so much and always places a smile on my face while I read it. So enjoy Annie’s Christmas glimpse:

God In The Doorway

One cold Christmas Eve I was up unnaturally late because we had all gone out to dinner-my parents, my baby sister, and I. We had come home to a warm living room, and Christmas Eve. Our stockings drooped from the mantle; beside them, a special table bore a bottle of ginger ale and a plate of cookies.

I had taken off my fancy winter coat and was standing on the heat register to bake my shoe soles and warm my bare legs. There was a commotion at the front door; it opened, and cold winter blew around my dress.

Everyone was calling me. “Look who’s here! Look who’s here!” I looked. It was Santa Claus. Whom I never-ever-wanted to meet. Santa Claus was looming in the doorway and looking around for me. My mother’s voice was thrilled: “Look who’s here!” I ran upstairs.

Like everyone in his right mind, I feared Santa Claus, thinking he was God. I was still thoughtless and brute, reactive. I knew right from wrong, but had barely tested the possibility of shaping my own behavior, and then only from fear, and not yet from love. Santa Claus was an old man whom you never saw, but who nevertheless saw you; he knew when you’d been bad or good. He knew when you’d been bad or good! And I had been bad.

My mother called and called, enthusiastic, pleading; I wouldn’t come down. My father encouraged me; my sister howled. I wouldn’t come down, but I could bend over the stairwell and see: Santa Claus stood in the doorway with night over his shoulder, letting in all the cold air of the sky. Santa Claus stood in the doorway monstrous and bright, powerless, ringing a loud bell and repeating Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas. I never came down. I don’t know who ate the cookies.

For so many years now I have known that this Santa Claus was actually a rigged-up Miss White, who lived across the street, that I confuse the dramatis personae in my mind, making Santa Claus, God, and Miss White an awesome, vulnerable trinity. This is really a story about Miss White.

Miss White was old; she lived alone in the big house across the street. She liked having me around; she plied me with cookies, taught me things about the world, and tried to interest me in finger painting, in which she herself took great pleasure. She would set up easels in her kitchen, tack enormous slick soaking papers to their frames, and paint undulating undersea scenes: horizontal smears of color sparked by occasional vertical streaks which were understood to be fixed kelp. I liked her. She meant no harm on earth, and yet half a year after her failed visit as Santa Claus, I ran from her again.

That day, a day of the following summer, Miss White and I knelt in her yard while she showed me a magnifying glass. It was a large, strong hand lens. She lifted my hand and, holding it very still, focused a dab of sunshine on my palm. The glowing crescent wobbled, spread, and finally contracted to a point. It burned; I was burned; I ripped my hand away and ran home crying. Miss White called after me, sorry, explaining, but I didn’t look back.

Even now I wonder: if I meet God, will he take and hold my bare hand in his, and focus his eye on my palm, and kindle that spot and let me burn?

But no. It is I who misunderstood everything and let everybody down. Miss White, God, I am sorry I ran from you. I am still running, running from that knowledge, that eye, that love from which there is no refuge. For you meant only love, and love, and I felt only fear, and pain. So once in Israel love came to us incarnate, stood in the doorway between two worlds, and we were all afraid.

*Taken from…”Teaching a Stone to Talk” by Annie Dillard