Easter according to the Syrian Doctor
On this particular Easter, in a year when you’ve been hearing from the Good News from the Gospel of Luke, here’s a way you might might help bring good news.
Luke, as Maren Tirabissi reminds us, was a Syrian doctor. Earlier this year, she wrote:
Go ahead and say it out loud,
all this lectionary year, every time:
“I am reading from the gospel of
Luke who was a Syrian.”
Luke from Syria,
this Syria, the one we read about in the papers.
Not just some Luke who floated in
from somewhere, maybe a physician,
with exquisite Greek.
Not just Luke who wrote to
some Lover-of-God, Theophilus
both the gospel and Acts …
remembering Jesus prayer-life,
tracing his genealogy back to Adam,
child of God,
alternating healings and parables
about men and women,
naming his radical preference for the poor,
insisting on forgiveness –
the kind from God,
and the kind when someone throws
a party for a runaway child.
This particular Luke
whose rendition of the beatitudes
is about the poor (not so much in spirit)
the hungry for … yes, food,
and so on, like this one –
Blessed are you who mourn, O Syria,
for you will be comforted.
This morning, I heard a Syrian-American doctor speak about what’s happening in Syria. There are not enough doctors, not just for the war-wounded, but for basic things.
And I’d humbly suggest, if you want to commemorate the resurrection that Dr. Luke tells us about, a resurrection of a body meant to save us, body and soul, perhaps a donation to these Syrian Americans who are working for wholeness in their homeland, and Luke’s.
Hi Erica. I just wanted to let you know that we plan to use your prayer stations from the Reformed Worship magazine this Advent. Thank you!! (I’ve been reading your blog for a long time, so I was delighted that I “knew” the creator of the piece.)
14 November 2013 at 7:24 pm