Luke 24:36-49

                 This world can present a great deal of fear.  What will happen if I get sick?  What will happen if I lose my job?  What will happen now that I am sick?  How are we going to make it, now that I have lost my job?  How am I going to get everything done?  What is traffic going to be like today?  What sort of danger is this storm going to bring?  Will my loved ones be okay?  Daily life fills our minds with questions and doubts.  And we wonder where we might get the answers.

                 Psychics, horoscopes, books on dreams.  There are many of the ways that the world tries to pull at us.  It first tries to make us afraid, and then offers a solution to our fear.  The world plays on our insecurities.  And then offers to make us secure.  But these are not the only ways.  The business page, the weather forecast, the news headlines financial experts all offer something very similar… if we allow it to replace our trust in our loving Father, in our Savior.  When we starve the God-given faith in our hearts… when we listen to so many other voices… then we find ourselves no longer listening to the voice of the Spirit.

                 Our only security comes in the promises of our Savior.  And he is no magician.  He is not a fortune-teller.  He is not some really powerful psychic.  He is God.  And he is a real life, flesh and blood human being.  He’s so real, that even after his resurrection, he ate with his disciples.  They touched him.  And they touched him for a very important reason: to prove that he was alive.

                 He taught them not to fear the mumbo-jumbo of this world.  “You want something real, here I am.”  You want real hope… not just a series of rituals and motions that might or might not help?  Jesus is the answer.  And he comes to us today still.  Pick up that Bible, open to a Psalm or a Gospel… our Savior is saying.  “You want something real, here I am.”

 Dear Jesus, calm the fears of our hearts, and give us good courage.  Keep us secure in the knowledge of the destination You have in store: paradise with all of God’s people… a resurrection with our Savior.  Amen.