Daily Devotional: March 2

Week 6, Day 3, The Gospel According to Matthew, Chapter 28

If your best friend had just been murdered by the state and every leader you are supposed to respect, if the one teacher you had ever felt taught like He knew something worth knowing had just been tortured to death, if the person who brought you life like never before had just been brutally killed—would you risk going to his grave? In today’s passage, we see two brave women risk being persecuted in order to respect their dead friend.

Jesus, the giver and bringer of Life couldn’t stay dead. Because love does nothing but create life, the Christ would have to come back from the dead. God is a singularity of self-giving and creating love at the center of all things. Christ is this essence of God working in the world. Jesus, being the manifestation of this essence, was the “first-born from among the dead,” as St. Paul would later say.

I am with you. Always.

Love is the central fact of the universe. It is the energy that keeps atoms arranged and planets spinning. The universe is expanding into an existence less infinite than the love on which it floats. Any war or hatred or persecution or bullying or prejudice that exists is the last-ditch effort of a world-view that has lost so completely it couldn't even keep one man dead. Love will always win, because love is in control.

When Jesus meets His disciples, some are immediately overcome with joy and worship Him. The interesting thing in Matthew is the inclusion of the phrase “but some doubted.” What would it take for those people to believe?

I am with you. Always.

Sometimes we doubt. Sometimes, even though I have had experiences with the love at the center of the universe, I still doubt it. I can be covered in love, wrapped in it, and feeling nothing but God’s presence, and then ten minutes later forget the whole experience. That is part of faith. We are all insecure because the world around us tells us we have to do or be or buy differently in order to be better than we are. Some religious leaders will try to tell us that we have to do or give or pray more in order to feel God’s presence.

I am with you. Always.

In the silence, He is there. In grief, He is there. In doubt, He is there. In pain, He is there. In the times we win, He is there. He is there because He is holding the universe together and also deeply in love with me.