Seeing God In Our Lives

Anyone here watch Spiderman movies?

As a child I was never really interested in Spiderman,

however my son Zackary has convinced me to watch the Spiderman movies with him and I quite enjoy them..

One of the story lines of these movies is the potential romance between a young skinny whimpy man called Peter Parker,

who is also Spiderman and a beautiful lady.

Peter Parker looks nothing like a super hero.

He’s a skinny, wimpy looking guy.

And for most of the movies the young lady has no idea that Peter is Spiderman,

and no idea that Spiderman is this young wimpy Peter Parker.

Now if you were this young lady and you were walking down a

dark street who would you prefer to be with.

Peter Parker or Spiderman.

Initially she never recognized that she was with Spiderman.

But later learns that Peter Parker and Spiderman are the same person.

What about you and God?

Have there ever been times when you did not recognise God was present in your life,

only to find out later he was there all a long?

When the Tsunami hit on that boxing day some years ago, many people asked;

Where was God?

What is God up to?

Was God still enjoying Christmas?

This was the reaction of some people.

However almost immediately after these events people saw God in action.

God came amongst people, when groups like Australian Lutheran World Service and many other agencies came helping those in need.

Came helping people who had lost everything and were without food and clothing.

So amongst their disappointment God pops up, to help.

That is often how God works.

And the characters in today’s Gospel reading were despondent.

A lot had happened; it was still the day of the resurrection.

However they had seen Jesus.

They were probably miserable, confused, worried, uncertain.

Just imagine the scene.

These two characters had placed their faith in Jesus as the one to fix up Israel’s problems.

To redeem Israel.

And now it doesn’t look like this will happen.

Ever felt like that with God.

That you put your faith and trust in God

and things don’t seem to be working out.

Well these two characters were on their way home.

Probably dragging their feet.

Heads bowed.

Worried, confused, disappointed.

Because they hadn’t seen Jesus.

But others claimed they had.

Listen again to what they said,

about those women seeing Jesus.

In addition, some of our women amazed us. They went to the tomb early this morning but didn’t find his body.

They came and told us that they had seen a vision of angels, who said he was alive. Then some of our companions went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but him they did not see.”

From their discussion with the stranger they had met on the road,

It was apparent they weren’t fully convinced that Jesus had risen.

Because he hadn’t appeared to them.

They hadn’t seen.

There was no body.

A missing body causes problems.

For the two characters in today’s reading it results in them being unsure if he is alive or not.

And If he is a alive, they are wondering where is he.

Why hadn’t he appeared to everyone.

We often think if we were God we would make sure everyone knew we were around.

Often we are like a little 4 year old girl I read about who was asked,

Who was asked, what was the first things Jesus said when he came out of the tomb…

Without hesitation she replied:

TADA I am alive.

But he didn’t do that.

And if he is not alive where is the body.

At least with a body there was somewhere to go and remember this remarkable man.

Remember in the earlier reading, they stated Jesus was a great prophet.

Now it is important for us to have places to go to remember those people who were special to us.

On mother’s day cemeteries are full of flowers,

with people remembering their mums and all the good thing their mum had done.

So a missing body is a problem.

Either way it will lead to disappointment.

If Jesus is alive, why haven’t we seen him.

If he is dead, where is the body so we can pay tribute to him.

In today’s Gospel reading we see how Jesus addresses this disappointment, confusion and worry.

The first thing he does is he walks with them.

He spends time with them.

Did you notice he doesn’t come along and go TADA?

Instead he walks along with them.

Listening to them and talking to them and ultimately eats with them..

He does what the reading from 1 Peter tells each of us to do as disciples,

Jesus shows sincere love for them.