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On Holy Saturday, United Methodist churches in our area distributed hams, some 185 of them, along with rice and corn, green beans and fruit, cranberries, cake mix and icing—bags of Easter joy for needy families in our area. But as I helped with the planning for this event these last few weeks, I got to thinking: why ham? Why is ham is the traditional dinner-meat of Easter?

Not turkey, which is our default setting for holidays, nor beef or even fish—though fish would make sense, really, since the first symbol of and for the church was not the cross but a fish—but ham.

Turns out there is in fact a reason for it—a theological reason for it: Resurrection! Jesus raised from the dead!

Resurrection is the explosion of God’s light into human darkness, the beachhead of God’s relentless onslaught against the dug-in principalities, the heavily armed and fortified powers of our death-loving, death-dealing culture: so fallen, so fascinated by, so saturated with death.

But Resurrection is the grave-emptying eruption of God’s life, God’s unmerited grace, rolling over all the Enemy’s tiger teeth, all the tombstones of law and futility.

Resurrection is the cataclysmic detonation of God’s unrestricted benevolence! By the resurrection of Jesus we have been unbound, set free, liberated.

And a part of what we have been liberated from is the old dietary codes: in other words, by grace alone we can eat pork!

Christ is risen! Pass the bacon and sausage!

The Lord is risen indeed! Eat some Easter ham!

I don’t know, though. Ham does not have quite the same cachet as turkey, nor Easter the same build-up (or let-down!) as Christmas—which leads Will Willimon to ask why Easter is not as big a deal, celebration-wise, as Christmas. He goes on to answer his question: we have all of us experienced, know how to celebrate—even comidify—birth. But Resurrection is harder, way harder. Only one, as of yet, has experienced resurrection. And there is no way to sell it. Besides, if birth is blessing, Resurrection too is blessing, but only after it is also judgment. Easter is God’s YES! to be sure, but it is also God’s NO! to the ways we typically think, act, bow to empire, impose our wills, live day to day, and do business. It thus calls us to see, to act, to trust in something outside our narrow experiences.

A lot of Christians don’t sing with much gusto on Resurrection Sunday—as if maybe they don’t much believe it, or at least not in a way to change much day-to-day, not really. We may be glad the church preaches the Resurrection, if it does, but most of us think more in terms of rebirth, Spring, the circle of life, or something. Resurrection does not square with the way we understand or live our lives, the ways we understand or die our deaths.

Shocking as it is, though, its very weirdness is commendation. As Dorothy Sayers said:

It is the dogma (that is, our preaching) that is the drama—not beautiful phrases, not comforting sentiments, nor vague aspirations to loving-kindness and moral uplift, nor the promise of something nice after death—but the terrifying assertion that the same God who made the world lived in the world and passed through the grave and gate of death. Show that to the heathen, and they may not believe it; but they may realize that here is something that one might be glad to believe.

Author Tom Steagald is working on a new book about prayer for Upper Room Books. Each Wednesday he shares some of his thoughts as the book takes shape. He welcomes your comments.

Read John 5:1-9

Are you sitting on the edge, waiting for something to happen?

Maundy Thursday is an edge moment. We are on the brink of celebrating Good Friday, the pivotal moment that speaks of God’s act of salvation.

The miracle of the “man on the edge” in John 5:1-9 speaks to me of more than this man’s circumstances. I think it can be read as a parable as well. For years this man had been trying to find healing. It demanded that he get himself into a position in which he could receive this gift. He had to get himself to the pool every day. Furthermore, he had to get into the pool at the right moment, either by his own strength or with the assistance of someone else. This man did not succeed in those efforts but found healing only through what Jesus did for him.

Do you see the link between this event and the story of salvation? How appropriate for us to read this passage today. Symbolically, we are at this edge moment. It represents our failure to save ourselves. It doesn’t matter what we do, try or devote our life to, it simply cannot address the problem of our own fallenness. Good Friday up to Easter Sunday speak of renewal, of God saying, “You can’t do it in your own strength, in your own way.” We need Jesus.

See yourself at the pool. What is stripping you from experiencing wholeness? How have you tried to fix it? Now Jesus comes to you. He does not scold you for not succeeding. He does not condemn or degrade you. He asks, “Do you want to be made well?” Yes, you may say, like this man, that you had already done everything in your power. Embrace this Holy Week and allow Jesus to do it in his power.

Wessel Bentley is author of THE MIRACLES OF JESUS: MEDITATIONS AND PRAYERS FOR LENT. During the Lenten season, he has been expanding on the themes in the book’s daily readings on this blog. Wessel invites your comments and questions.

This morning I was praying over the oh so familiar scripture about Jesus feeding the five thousand men. I was not praying alone: others were there, a room full of pastors, and in front of us a leader who was walking us through the steps of lectio divina, that ancient practice of scripture reading: slowly, meditatively, pausing here and there, being silent at the end—to hear ourselves breathe, our hearts beat, or the still small voice of God.

How many times have I read this story in one or the other of its forms? It is the only miracle recorded by all four gospels, and so we come and sit before it regularly, but most often we grab a quick morsel, just preach it again. So many times I have preached this text, and from one predictable aspect or another: we are the befuddled disciples, who do not know what to do in the face of the many but do as we are told with what we have and somehow everyone gets fed. Or we are the little boy, just giving what we have been given, what we have been saving for ourselves, and somehow everyone gets fed. Or we are Jesus—kind of, sort of—with compassion for the crowds, maybe, or not so much compassion, but we tell everyone to sit and we pray over what we have been given and somehow everyone gets fed.

Yeah, you know, whatever.

But today, sitting once again before the text, I was given something different. I heard a different voice. Not a loud voice, just still and small—but incessant too, demanding to be heard. And what I heard is something I had never thought before.What if I am the bread? And others like me likewise? And not much of me, but whatever I am, just a plain barley loaf or a dried fish, but given to Jesus either by my parents’ prayers or my own volition, so that he can pray over me and distribute me to the crowds? So that other hungry souls can be fed I can see that. Feel that.

But what if, on the other side of that, I am the “leftovers”: one of the scraps cast aside when the crowd is sated? A piece of what I used to be, just a crust? The best part of me, after all these years, just eaten up by the crowds; there is nothing much left to be done with me but to be cast aside, on the ground, away?

Only Jesus says, “Gather up all the pieces, so that nothing is lost.”

And so the disciples gathered up all the pieces, the scraps and crusts, and put them in twelve baskets. Anyone who knows anything about scripture knows that “twelve” always refers, one way or the other, to the people of God, the children of Abraham, the disciples—Jesus says that what is left at the end of the meal, even the little pieces, they too are to be saved.

The pieces of my life, maybe, or what’s left of my ministry—its crust. “But the crust is where all the nutrients are,” says a friend. “Yes, but the crust is what most people cut off, or throw away.”

But Jesus does not, and will not. He commands that even the pieces be gathered into his baskets, so that nothing of us is lost.

Author Tom Steagald is working on a new book about prayer for Upper Room Books. Each Wednesday he shares some of his thoughts as the book takes shape. He welcomes your comments.

Holy Week is always special to me. I get lost in the story of the Passion of Christ. This is where the story of God’s self-giving and the extent of God’s grace ceases to be a theory and becomes tangible, real. It is filled with conflict yet saturated with love and peace. The journey of this last week speaks powerfully about real life. I fail to understand the expectation that being a Christian is supposed to be easy. It breaks my heart to hear TV preachers refer to God as some kind of genie in a bottle, a Father Christmas of sorts, who makes life easy and comfortable. “Believe in Jesus and your bank balance will increase!” “Believe in Jesus and you will be healthy, prosper and every dream you have will come true!” Have they read the Bible? Have they read the stories of a nation that wandered through the desert for forty years, or of a Savior who walked the road to Calvary?

Truth is, being a Christian does not mean that life becomes easy. It is a life of sacrifice, a life of humility, a life that requires forgiveness, compassion, patience, peace, and hope. All of this is asked of a Christ-follower in a world filled with the opposite. It is a difficult life, but we have the knowledge that God is present, loving, and involved. God knows this life, for it is clearly reflected in the story of Holy Week.

Have you ever asked yourself, “What is good enough for Jesus is good enough for me.”? Think about this during this Holy Week. Think of this question in the light of your life circumstances. Then also think about this. The story did not cease at the cross. It ends with life, new life, a resurrected life with Christ.

Wessel Bentley is author of THE MIRACLES OF JESUS: MEDITATIONS AND PRAYERS FOR LENT. Join him here on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays during Lent 2013. Here he expands on the themes in the book’s daily readings and invites your comments and questions.