The gospel for Saturday in the octave of Easter is taken from Mark 16, 9, 15. When Jesus had risen early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had driven seven demons. She went and told his companions who were mourning and weeping, and when they heard that he was alive and had been seen by her, they did not believe. After this appearance, he appeared in another form to two of them, walking along on their way to the country. They returned and told the others, but they did not believe them either. But later, as the 11 were at table, he appeared to them and rebuked them for their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they had not believed.

Those who saw him after he had been raised, he said to them, go into the whole world and proclaim the gospel to every creature. This gospel is a perfect review of what we’ve just listened to through the scriptures of this week. Jesus first appeared to a single individual, and then he appeared to two people. And then he appeared to his disciples. And now we see in this story, when he’s with his disciples and he sees that this process of it growing from person to person is what he is so excited to invite his disciples to participate in. He makes it clear that belief is everything you need to believe in what he is teaching.

New life comes through this mystery of who God is in Christ and how we are asked to live that same life. It’s a message of great hope, and it’s going out to everything that God created. Everything will be made new. Everything will be made as God created it originally when he always said after every day he created. It is so very, very good. Closing prayer Father, we see so much in this week.

Your intention. You long for your kingdom to come. Everything you created, you’ve told us is good. So let us believe that we are participating in this marvelous work of creating a new heaven and a new earth. You guide us, you feed us, and all you ask is, we believe. We believe in who you are and what you’ve promised.

And we ask this in Jesus name, Amen.