This week’s last Offering is written by Inés Velásquez-McBryde and Nicola Patton. It culminates our Lenten season and postures us towards Eastertide. Thank you for journeying with us familia!

1 We declare to you what was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life— 2 this life was revealed, and we have seen it and testify to it and declare to you the eternal life that was with the Father and was revealed to us—

4 We are writing these things so that your joy may be complete.

1 John 1:1-2, 4

As we come out of this time of Lent that culminated in Easter, we move into Eastertide, a time of considering and celebrating the joy that resurrection brings with it over a period of 50 days. But what does resurrection mean? Do we only see it on Easter? Is it only Jesus rising from the dead?

We want to think about the ways resurrection shows up in our everyday lives.
This is what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, and touched with our hands. We hope you are surprised by resurrection in unexpected places and hidden graces because this is how we are made holy and whole.

Don’t discount the small resurrections. Sometimes all it means is something is still alive. Still standing. Still fighting. Still soft.
Resurrection can be found in major ways. But it is in the simplest forms that God speaks through more often. And maybe we need to remind ourselves of our senses—sight, sound, touch, taste, smell—to bring us back to the resurrection.
It’s Jesus baking some fish and bread for his friends over a fire.

It is the small, the ordinary, the mundane of life.
A soft flower. A friend’s smile. Dusty sun rays streaming through a window.
It is the moments of play and the small pauses for rest.
Relaxed cups of coffee. A kitten amused by a small toy. A child’s new discovery.
It shows up in the slivers of joy we might find too ordinary to notice.

It is ordinary joy.