Into the Galilee
You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified.
He has risen. He is not here. ...He is going ahead of you into Galilee.
There you will see him, just as he told you.
Mark 16:6
The Galilee, the place where they saw him heal the sick, feed the hungry, bring sight to the blind, make the lame walk. The place where he led them to the heart of God through his gentle touch. That is where they will see him. Where we see him still.
I come to write this reflection while packing to return to Guatemala, the first trip in more than a year. By the time you receive it, I will be in Antigua awakening to pre-dawn church bells, the melody to a birdsong symphony that greets each day. Music, anchored by the bass note of rumbling truck wheels striking cobblestone. I am quietly preparing to return ‘home.’ Home, where I will welcome our first team back to Guatemala in more than a year.
I am finding that there is a sacredness to these moments. Sacred as I honor the waiting time, as I mourn what has been lost, and as I kneel in gratitude for what is to come. As I do, I am recognizing what I had forgotten before COVID-19. I am remembering that this day, each day, he is inviting me to step into his Eastertide to meet him in the Galilee and recognize him, to recognize myself through his eyes in a new way.
Recognizing Him. Recognizing Ourselves. In the quiet, as I reread the Eastertide stories, I see the space between endings and beginnings. The disciples, in a stunned state, cannot recognize Jesus or believe their eyes or begin to absorb what this Resurrection means for them. Time and time again, they simply cannot recognize or comprehend.
Of course, they cannot. It will take them the rest of their lives to understand his Resurrection, what it means for them intimately, personally, honestly. They will have to live into it, with all the tears, sacrifice, openness of heart, and wonder of it all, for them to glimpse what it means. They will have to taste it, touch it, hear it, see it lived out before them and through them in order to catch a glimmer of it. In the Galilee. In the moments when he will call them to join him in his work of healing and they heed his call. In the moments when they will recognize themselves through his eyes in a new way as they live into his Resurrection. By his side. For the rest of their lives.
Returning Home. Why does this time of return to Guatemala feel like a homecoming? A sacred homecoming filled with wonder? For me, it is because I am remembering, now, what I had forgotten. Or maybe not forgotten, but had become so accustomed to, or lost sight of, in the busyness. I had failed to see his Resurrection right there before me. His presence which I had once so longed to sense when in Guatemala. I had stopped seeing myself through his eyes there. But now, he is leading me once again to his Galilee. The place, every place, where he brings sight to the blind, makes the lame walk, feeds the hungry. The place where, if I follow him there, gives me sight, steadies my step, and nourishes me with his life-giving love. Welcoming me home.
Home. We each are being given this gift of his Resurrection yet again as we begin to emerge from this pandemic. An opportunity to live into his Resurrection, to taste it, touch it, hear it, in a new way, as he calls us to follow him into the Galilee. For that is where, surely, we shall see him, where we will discover, live into, what his Resurrection means for each one of us. Where we shall meet him and see ourselves through his eyes.
For each one of us, this Galilee is a different place. A place he has chosen for each of us. For you, uniquely, for you. A place you will recognize, as you feel him beckoning you there. That is my prayer for each of you in this space between endings and beginnings. That you hear his voice anew, not in spite of the pandemic, but because of it. And in this space, my hope is that you see a chance to encounter his Resurrection during this Eastertide anew. With wonder. With love. For I know that if you listen for his voice, if you follow him to the Galilee, to bring sight to the blind, to make the lame walk, to feed the hungry, I have no doubt that there you shall see his face, find your step steadied, and that you shall be nourished by his life-giving love as together we embark upon this journey to live into his Resurrection anew. This journey that shall lead us home to the heart of God.
Rev. Linda L. McCarty
Please hold all of us, our volunteers, staff, and patients in prayer in these wondrous days that are unfolding before us. As we follow him to the Galilee with renewed hope and humility.