Our world today is rife with suffering and death. Our discipleship to Jesus leads us to places of immense, deep suffering in our world - children being taken to be soldiers in Africa; victims of war in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria; families grieving their lost sons and daughter, husbands and wives, mothers and fathers, because of terrorist bombings; young men and women of color gunned down in the street or in detention camps at the border; the impoverished going without food or medical care or employment. It is difficult to believe sometimes that this pain is not all there is. We live much of the time in those moments that the first discipleship community lived through between the crushing despair of Jesus's death and the stunning revelation that he is risen. Suffering and death still beg for an explanation; the darkness of the tomb and the emptiness of our hearts still hold sway.

    Our Scripture passages today read like a litany calling us back to hope. They are our ancestral stories, reminding us of who we are and who God is...