Do you remember your baptism? Most of you who are reading this were probably baptized as an infant or young child, like I was. If that’s the case, it’s understandable that you would have little, if any, recollection of being joined to Christ in the life-giving waters of baptism.
My siblings and I had a lot of fun growing up, contrary to our expressions in the photo above, taken on Easter Sunday, 1957. From the looks of us, it had likely been a very long day and we had consumed too much sugar – a dangerous combination that my parents would have to contend with.
The Resurrection of Jesus is told in all four of the gospel narratives. While there are common elements – the empty tomb, the presence of angels, and Mary Magdalene as one of the first witnesses to the Resurrection – it’s fascinating to note how the stories diverge from one another. Here’s a sampling of those differences:
Today as I write this, I’m thinking of my dear friend, Jessica, who is living with a brain tumor. “As brain tumors go,” Jess told me after her diagnosis two years ago, “it is a ‘good’ type to have, but it’s in a ‘very bad’ place.” So when she underwent surgery at Mayo, the doctors took as much of the tumor as they could, leaving the rest because attempting to remove it altogether posed too great a risk.