Catherine Toon—Year A Easter 1–4

Welcome to the Gospel Reverb podcast. Gospel Reverb is an audio gathering for preachers, teachers, and Bible thrill seekers. Each month our host, Anthony Mullins, will interview a new guest to gain insights and preaching nuggets mined from select passages of Scripture in that month’s Revised Common Lectionary. The podcast’s passion is to proclaim and boast in Jesus Christ, the one who reveals the heart of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And now onto the episode.

Anthony: Hello friends, and welcome to the latest episode of Gospel Reverb. Gospel Reverb is a podcast devoted to bringing you insights from Scripture found in the Revised Common Lectionary and sharing commentary from a Christ-centered and Trinitarian view.

I’m your host, Anthony Mullins, and it’s my delight to welcome our guest, Dr. Catherine Toon. Catherine is a Christian author, speaker, and coach who shows you how to experience God so that you can confidently live out your God-breathed purpose. She’s the author of the book Marked by Love and several others. And she has her own podcast called Perspectives with Catherine Toon, which you can find on YouTube, and I encourage you to do.

Catherine, thanks for being with us and welcome to the pod. And since this is your first time here, we’d like to get to know you a little bit, your story, and especially what has you experiencing delight these days.

[00:01:30] Catherine: Thank you so much. This is a joy and an honor, and I’m so happy to be here. And I love that question.

I don’t get that question. What is giving you delight these days? And I think. Probably how to answer that is just in our communion with this gorgeous God that is so wild about us and experiencing his delight over us. He is delighted in his kids. And I know early on when I wrote the book, the Lord said, “Catherine, you’re the fabric of my delight.”

And this is how he sees us. This is not just me. And this is how he feels about us. So, his delight is our delight. And he’s such good Father, such a good Son, such a — the Holy Spirit in us, through us, moving around us — is such a — the person of God is delightful. And just experiencing his delight is my delight.

And when we’re able to slow down, we’re able to see that in small things. We’re able to see that all around, every day. When we’re frantic and driven and fearful, we miss out. So, one of the things he’s been doing is slowing me down, which takes some doing by the way. And that’s been a work in progress and I’m doing pretty good, I have to say.

And he’s telling me I’m doing pretty good, so I can actually say that. But with that, I’ve been able to savor things that I’ve missed. And so that’s been a joy. That’s been something beautiful that comes to bear in the midst of life, which is life in all its variegated flavors.

[00:03:34] Anthony: Yeah, it’s so wonderful to hear you talk about God delighting in us. I grew up with unfortunately this misconstrued idea of who God was and I just felt he was constantly, at least had a low-grade disappointment in me. So, to think of a God who delights, it’s just it felt too wonderful to imagine back then and so to come into this apprehension. I don’t fully comprehend it, but this apprehension of the goodness of God revealed in Jesus Christ. It changes everything, doesn’t it, Catherine? And you find delight, like you said, in the small things.

I’m fascinated by your background, if this is correct. I read that you were a board-certified internal medicine medical doctor, and I’d love if you’re willing to share to know the backstory of how you left behind that vocation of internal medicine to practice another kind of internal medicine that God has prescribed to us, and that’s God’s love revealed in Jesus Christ. Would you mind sharing?

[00:04:37] Catherine: I would be delighted to.

[00:04:39] Anthony: There you go.

[00:04:41] Catherine: Yes, I practice as a board-certified in internal medicine physician, actually in the Colorado Springs area where I am now. And that was my original vocation because of difficulties, dysfunction when I was growing up, I learned the lie that you’re worth and value is what you can do.

So, in my mind, my little 7-year-old brain, I just thought what’s the hardest thing I can think of? And so that was being a physician. And so, I had been having encounters with the Lord, but I didn’t bother asking him if this was the direction he had for me.

And so, I just pursued it. I just threw myself into it and there were a lot of really good things about it. The challenge is that it fit until it didn’t, and the grace for it really lifted. And I got very burned out. I loved my patients. I loved the intellectual challenge, everything else I did not love. And so, I was very burnt out. And then I also met my husband, wanted to raise a family, and there are ways to do that, but I really wanted to be there with my kids. And God and his mercy, his goodness, his delight helped me pay off all my loans, helped me practice for a while after all of that.

And then I was able to come home. And part of that was because my husband was in the Navy. So, I asked the Lord to settle down with someone and put down roots, and he gave me a Navy man, go figure. And so, we danced around the country for a long time, and every time I’d move to another place, I’d say I really need to get my license and practice.

And I just couldn’t do it. I just did not have the desire and just really wanted to be with my kids. So that happened. And then this funny thing happened as I was diving into really getting to know this God. I was not born in a Christian home. I’d say I was born in a religious home. It was a secular humanism, religious home.

And then, so I projected a lot of that mess on God in terms of performance and that sort of thing. And that I would say more than vague disapproval, I would say flat out distance or flat out never good enough type of internalized mess. And that had to be cleaned up.

And so, God led me through that process and then he did this really weird thing. He called me into ministry. I became one of those weird people that I had thought was like, dang, who are these Christian people? And so that set me on a journey through multiple streams in the body of Christ. Things that were excellent, things that were out in that religious things mixed bag until he led me through where we’ve landed now in this Trinitarian stream, this God who embraces all that sort of thing.

And so, I’ve been camping out there, served in various capacities, helped plant a church, all these different things. And then he finally called me out on my own as I launched my first book, Marked by Love. And then called me to continue what I was already doing in terms of coaching and mentoring and then of course teaching and then called me with a podcast. And so that’s been a really encapsulated historical overview.

[00:08:32] Anthony: Yeah. And I’m going to make this personal, if I may, as someone who is still recovering from performance-based religion and someone who is sometimes identified, I don’t know if you’ve done any work with the Enneagram, but I’m a three, known as a performer, achiever. Always trying to strive for love. Like, how what was the process for you to be led by the Spirit, ah, to overcome this need for performance to achieve love. What was it for you?

[00:09:05] Catherine: That is, that’s, I would say, it’s an ongoing process.

Anthony: Sure.

Catherine: Because when I arrive, I will come find you. But it was really encounter with this God. I’m very prophetic and so I get a lot of things visually. I get a lot of things in an auditory capacity and just learning to settle down and let him love me. Like he would refuse to let me do anything.

And there were seasons in my life where he literally he had a prophet come one time and she was. Just bless her heart. She was just very strange, but I knew she was the real deal. Okay? And she sat me down and she said, “Catherine, I really feel the Lord is saying for the next two weeks, just spend 45 minutes and just sit there listening to worship music and resting.”

And I knew it was God. So, I obeyed. But it was hell because everything in me wanted to get up. Because I felt like I was born behind. Like the best I could do is strive to fall behind at a slower rate. And so, this had to be a process where the Lord led me into rest because I switched where I was overdriving from medicine, to my family, and then to ministry. And he really had to work it out me. And in some ways very gently and some ways just pulling me up short. And he had me on a kind of, on a shelf for a while because he really needed to make it about me and him.

And so, it felt like in my flesh, we’ll say, it felt like sort of rejection and being sidelined and all that. And it was. No, it was because he loves me so much and he loves all of us so much that he wants nothing to have us except him first. And then out of that place we get everything because we’re starting from him as the source.

Anthony:  Yeah.

Catherine: And so, he refuses to allow us to stay in the place that he did. Now, practically I got a lot of coaching. I did multiple ministries to help recover because there was very serious abuse in my past, and I really needed a lot of help. God will lead you into what you need, but a lot of times there have been periods where it’s been very quiet and I’ve had to find my satisfaction, my worth and value, my significance in him and his adoration and how he sees me.

And it’s amazing. I love to talk to God because he always has something good to say. It’s really amazing, even in correction, he has something good to say because he refuses to leave us alone because of how he sees us and our intrinsic worth and value in his sight.

[00:12:12] Anthony: He is so good. Yes, you did it. It’s in him. It’s resting in him and knowing there’s never a point that we get to and say, oh, God is good, but this is the cap of it. He doesn’t go any further. We never find the depths of his goodness. And to rest in that is a very freeing, liberating thing.

So, let’s be liberated by God through the Scriptures. That’s why we’re here. So, let’s turn our attention to the first pericope of the month. It’s John 20:1–18. I’ll be reading from the New Revised Standard Version, the updated edition. It is a Revised Common Lectionary passage for the Resurrection of Our Lord, Easter Sunday, April 5, and it reads:

Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. ² So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.” ³ Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went toward the tomb. ⁴ The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. ⁵ He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. ⁶ Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there, ⁷ and the cloth that had been on Jesus’s head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself. ⁸ Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed, ⁹ for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead. ¹⁰ Then the disciples returned to their homes. ¹¹ But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb, ¹² and she saw two angels in white sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. ¹³ They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” ¹⁴ When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. ¹⁵ Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” ¹⁶ Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni!” (which means Teacher). ¹⁷ Jesus said to her, “Do not touch me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” ¹⁸ Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord,” and she told them that he had said these things to her.

So, Catherine, if you were sitting having coffee or tea or whatever you enjoy drinking with a dear friend who’s unsure about God’s love for them, and you had this text open, what would you say from the text? And it’s just an opportunity to herald some good news.

[00:15:34] Catherine: Yeah. Thank you. There are multiple things in here that are going on. When you look at the “characters” in the story and marrying the story and the other disciples, they are traumatized.

And it’s interesting because Jesus had mentioned his resurrection coming multiple. I need to, I will die, I will be resurrected. We can only receive to a certain point. So, he had prepared and they were yet not fully prepared. And so, this is what they come to and she sees this tomb.

And when you think of it, you think of the places that have represented death in our own lives, right? Loss in our own lives. And I love the way there is such a tender ministry that’s going on that starts with the angel, starts with the angelic, and they have the perspective of Jesus, the Christ as he is resurrected.

And so, meeting us in our humanity, we’re weeping because all we see is loss. Everything I put my hopes, my life, everything that was good died in that tomb. And died on the cross rather, and was put in that tomb. And then to have the humiliation of that body being taken away, all of that. She is traumatized.

And so, the angelic meets her with this question, why are you weeping? And it seems so obvious, right? I’ve lost; we’ve lost Jesus. They’ve taken away my … we don’t even have his body. It’s been desecrated. And then very personally, Jesus meets her in her trauma and there’s no condemnation.

But there’s that question, why are you weeping? He’s asking her like, duh, okay. In our place of weeping, there is a limited perspective. And then he adds what the angels didn’t. Whom are you looking for? And so, she’s looking for her Lord that she thinks is dead. She’s looking for the body.

And he’s veiled to her. And in so many places, God is veiled to us in our weeping, right? He’s with us in our weeping, he weeps when we weep, right? It’s very tender. But he’s also bringing us in the place of something bigger going on that will dry all those tears.

And the thing that prompted the veil off her eyes to be lifted, is when this beautiful God who is meeting her right where she’s at, with no condemnation, says her name. And there’s something about our God saying our name to us, we are known. And that’s when she was able to recognize the one she loved, right? That was when she was able to see the teacher.

But the one that she had followed and based her whole life off of. And he reveals something so tender to her in this, do not touch me because I’ve not yet ascended to the Father. This is revelation. Wow, you’re going back to the Father. And I love this. I’m ascending to my Father and your Father.

[00:19:46] Anthony: Amen.

[00:19:46] Catherine: That he accepts you are not an orphan. I may physically be leaving, but you’re one, you’re accepted and it’s personal to my God and your God. You know the humility of that with Jesus saying Father is my God and he’s your God. We are included in the fullness of his relationship with his Father in the Holy Spirit.

And so, this did something to her soul, that she was able to be the apostle to the apostles and proclaim the risen Christ. And because her heart was, she could see it now and she didn’t need to weep. And what does that mean to us personally? Number one, he knows our name. And says our name tenderly and draws us up out of our limited perspective to see that we had everything in him as the risen Christ and that we are one with our Father, one with him, one in the Holy Spirit. We have all things and everything that maybe was destroyed, a loved one dying, or whatever was lost, is all bound up in him. He loses nothing. Every fragment of our souls that feel shattered, he’s got them and he knows how to bring it together. Because if he can be the resurrected Christ coming from where he came from, he can resurrect things in our lives that seem hopelessly broken and lost.

[00:21:40] Anthony: That’ll preach on Easter Sunday for sure. Thank you.

It strikes me that this had to be a day of extreme highs and deep lows for Mary. So, let’s spiritually imagine for a moment what this Jesus meant to her. You’ve alluded to it, but tell us more.

[00:21:59] Catherine: Yeah. Her very world hinged on him. This is why it was so traumatic, because her whole world hinged on this one that she knew as Messiah, and it is mind blowing to imagine him being taken away, but much less with crucifixion and everything that she actually witnessed.

And so, everything in her world hinged on this one, and it made no sense. She was with him to witness all of these things. And so, if Jesus is your everything and there’s a revelation of him that she didn’t know, and honestly, we don’t know. We’re all growing in wisdom and revelation that our whole being, the whole cosmos, everything that matters is connected to, is upheld by this one.

And so, you go from this complete desolation, you go from — it’s amazing the amount of trauma that these disciples did — and the ones that particularly could handle it and stayed faithful with him in this process and witnessed the whole thing, but not understanding the other side.

But this is — their everything was in context of Jesus. And so, for him to be resurrected means that everything, all things are possible. Truly all things are possible. What is impossible? That God is faithful being himself, but not violating anything in his own ministry. Because he said, “I give you a new commandment, that you love as I love.”

And so, his being willing to bow down to human rage and bow down to death, and bow down to all these things so that he could consume it in himself, on our behalf and be resurrected and resurrecting us with him. Of course, she didn’t have that revelation yet, but this was everything. She had a revelation of something that is so huge, that yes, this is the one, this is the one we’ve set all our hopes in. We put all our eggs in the Jesus basket, right in the issue with the basket. And he did not fail us.

[00:25:00] Anthony: No ma’am. Grace was lavished on us and he took us with him. Oh, it’s such a …. For me, Easter Sunday, it’s like this wonderful time to proclaim the good news, but it’s also can be a, like, how do you say it all? Like, how do you encapsulate what has transpired here? It’s so awesome. But it’s my prayer that as we come together as brothers and sisters in Christ and hear this word proclaimed, we will be once again filled with awe and wonder of this amazing God revealed in Jesus. Amen and amen.

[00:25:39] Catherine: Amen.

[00:25:44] Anthony: This transition to our next Bible passage of the month, it’s John 20:19–31. It is the Revised Common Lectionary passage for the second Sunday of Easter, April 12. Catherine, would you read it for us, please?

[00:25:57] Catherine: I would be so delighted to do that.

When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors were locked where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” ²⁰ After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. ²¹ Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” ²² When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. ²³ If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”²⁴ But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. ²⁵ So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.” ²⁶ A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” ²⁷ Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.” ²⁸ Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” ²⁹ Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” ³⁰ Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples that are not written in this book. ³¹ But these are written so that you may continue to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.

[00:28:33] Anthony: Hallelujah. I like the way you intentionally said peace be with you.

Catherine: Yeah.

Anthony: What a glorious declaration from the risen Lord Jesus to his friends. And like humanity sometimes paralyzed with fear. How might that be good news today?

[00:28:53] Catherine: Yeah. We as human beings, we suffer with so much fear and we couch it with a lot of different verbiage: anxiety, trauma. Sometimes we couch it as like concern or anxiety, but at the end of the day, it is fear. And fear says it’s not going to be okay. I’m not going to be okay. There will be loss. Ultimately, Hebrews says, it’s fear of death and Jesus overcame death. And as the risen Christ, he can speak unto us, “Peace be with you.”

And there is an empowerment. This is not something that we have to jockey up our faith to apprehend peace. It’s what we get out of our communion with the One who is the Prince of Peace. He causes us to transcend the issues, the torments, the anxieties, the pain, the confusion, the uncertainty, the feeling that we’re not in control.

And honestly, control is an illusion anyway.

Anthony: Amen.

Catherine: Right? And so how can we be peaceful when we don’t have control? Because it was never up to us. It is from our place of our oneness and our union with this God who transcended death, who transcended sin, who transcended everything in order to grab hold of humanity and pull us out of darkness and meet us in the places where subjectively we’re experiencing all of that, we have the objective truth of what was accomplished on the cross, a death, burial, and resurrection.

And then we have the subjective truth of where we meet him, where he meets us in our felt life. And so, the beautiful thing is that there’s always a place to go. And when I’m struggling with something, I have this thing that I’ll walk around and I’ll think of something like that would create anxiety and I literally say out my mouth, this is funny, but it works for me. Nobody panic. Okay, there’s no one there but me, my Father, Son, and Spirit, right? We’re all one. They’re not panicking. So clearly, it’s me, but it helps me apprehend my haywire mind and what’s going on in my emotions so that I can go inside and connect with the one who is my peace. Because one way or the other it is going to be okay.

If somehow Jesus wasn’t this masterful Savior, if somehow, he wasn’t able to redeem all things and hold all things in himself then we might have a justifiable reason to be anxious, to be fearful. And life happens. There are things that will squash you. It is a thing. But in that, he causes us to transcend as he transcended, because we are one with this One who carries peace.

And so, this is peace beyond our comprehension, beyond our ability to understand. Because I don’t know how it’s all going to work out. But one way or the other, it’s going to be okay. One way or the other, it’s going to be good because we’re journeying in this with this God who says, “My peace I give to you.” “Peace be with you.” And we can commune in this place of peace so that somehow, we’re able to navigate whatever comes before us, and then we’re able to give out of that place.

So, when people are freaking out and there is a lot of freak out, yeah, we’re able to minister that which is inside us because we’re carriers of Christ who is our peace. And that also allows us to come up with creative solutions to the problems that comes up because our mind’s not so haywire. Yeah.

[00:33:31] Anthony: Yeah, for sure. It’s when he says peace be with you. He can do that with integrity because peace is embodied. Peace has a name. His name is Jesus. And I’m with you. And I love that. I often call this upper room the panic room, and he enters as the unanxious presence in the room. And sometimes I think we think we want God to be just as fired up or as, just as …. No, I want God to be the One who holds the beginning from the end and is unanxious. And as I keep my eyes fixed on him, my anxiety begins to dissipate because he’s, as you said, he’s not freaking out. He’s the Lord. And he actually, even though I wouldn’t say God is in control, because we just have such a fallen understanding of control. He does have everything in his hand.

Catherine: Yeah.

Anthony: And he’s okay. And that’s such good news in an age of outrage. You mentioned Catherine, that there is an objective and subjective perspective. And I think that’s really helpful when reading Scripture, and maybe that will help frame this next question. What does it mean as it says in verse 22 to receive the Holy Spirit?

[00:34:50] Catherine: I love that question and you totally set me up, so this is great.

[00:34:54] Anthony: Good. Go for it.

[00:34:56] Catherine: What a generous host. So objectively, right? We’re all in Christ. Christ is in us. God is omnipresent. So that means where is God not present? Where is his Spirit not present? “If I make my bed in the midst of Sheol, you are there.” And we make a lot of beds in Sheol. Just a thing in our mind and just in our experience, not “our fault,” but just a fallen world.

And so where is this Spirit? And so, if the Spirit is in Sheol and in him, we live and move and have our being, okay? To be, is to be in Christ in the Spirit. So, it’s not like Jesus, the Spirit wasn’t there, and then suddenly, Poof! Spirit’s there. Holy Spirit is that called the modesty of God, does not point to himself, but points to Christ.

Anthony: Yes.

Catherine: But he moves and he’s in us. I remember growing up, I was not raised in a Christian home. I didn’t say those sinner’s prayer until 27. Okay? But I had massive encounters with the Lord that literally saved my sanity in areas that were very … I knew God. Now there was a lot to that story and I don’t want to go haywire with it, but I knew God and he knew me. I knew he loved me. And I loved him. And that was pretty much my theology, which is actually dang good theology right there. And that’s what I needed to survive a traumatic childhood, right?

[00:36:46] Anthony: Yeah.

[00:36:47] Catherine: And in order this thought that somehow, like I say, the magic prayer and the Spirit just pops inside now. And I didn’t know? Of course, I knew him before, but this is an awakening. Like Mary, when she couldn’t see the embodied Christ before, the incarnate Christ before her until the veil was lifted. We don’t always recognize the Spirit that dwells in us, that inhabits us, that in him, we live and move and have our being until that’s unveiled.

So, we’re talking about an objective reality and objective truth that Holy Spirit is everywhere. And in us. I remember when I was … I got through a period of God I was so angry with God because everything in my life fell apart. And I was just like, “I don’t want to hear from you.” “I don’t want to see you.”

And he was like, “Okay, Catherine, I understand,” but he wouldn’t leave me. And so even when it was giving him the flying fingers. “That’s okay, babe. When you’re ready, you’ll come around.” He’s so patient.

I have a chapter in my book called Annoying Relentless Love, because he would not leave me alone. Okay. This is the God that you can’t shake even if you want to, because we are one with him. But this is our issue as human beings, that we are veiled. We don’t experience. We experience things over time. Things are unveiled to us. And this, any sense of separation is in our minds. We’re alienated in our minds.

And this is God, healing our minds, healing our ability to see what already is, because the breath of God, the ruach of God was with us in the very beginning. When you talk about Genesis and Adam and Eve walked with him in the cool of the day. Adam walked with him in the cool of, he walked in …  the ruach is “cool of the day.”

We were walking in the Spirit. You can’t shake him, but we need to wake up to him. In Galatians 1, it talks about, Paul was talking about how he had been set apart from his mother’s womb and called by his grace, “was pleased to reveal his Son in me.”

Did the Holy Spirit suddenly hop in there? No. It was a revelation, a revealing and unveiling of the Spirit already present. And in this thing — so it wasn’t that Jesus was going to give them this theological thing — “so let me just, guys, let me just help you here. Holy Spirit’s already here.” He didn’t do that. He did something practical. I love God for so many reasons, but I love the way he moves practically.

We need sacrament, we need laying on of hands. We need Jesus to breathe on us. We need something so that we can apprehend what is already true and live in it.

[00:40:06] Anthony: No, that’s so good. The sacraments, that which physically makes manifest the unseen reality of what is true and that. That the lights would come on in our minds, and it would reach our hearts. This is, oh, we could spend days talking about this, that God has objectively made it so. May we receive what is already ours. In essence, receive what is already ours in Christ. Amen and amen.

All right, our next text is Luke 24:13–35. It is a Revised Common Lectionary passage for the third Sunday of Easter, April 19. And it reads:

Now on that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, ¹⁴ and talking with each other about all these things that had happened. ¹⁵ While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with them, ¹⁶ but their eyes were kept from recognizing him. ¹⁷ And he said to them, “What are you discussing with each other while you walk along?” They stood still, looking sad. ¹⁸ Then one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answered him, “Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have taken place there in these days?” ¹⁹ He asked them, “What things?” They replied, “The things about Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, ²⁰ and how our chief priests and leaders handed him over to be condemned to death and crucified him. ²¹ But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things took place. ²² Moreover, some women of our group astounded us. They were at the tomb early this morning, ²³ and when they did not find his body there they came back and told us that they had indeed seen a vision of angels who said that he was alive. ²⁴ Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but they did not see him.” ²⁵ Then he said to them, “Oh, how foolish you are and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared! ²⁶ Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?” ²⁷ Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures. ²⁸ As they came near the village to which they were going, he walked ahead as if he were going on. ²⁹ But they urged him strongly, saying, “Stay with us, because it is almost evening and the day is now nearly over.” So he went in to stay with them. ³⁰ When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. ³¹ Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him, and he vanished from their sight. ³² They said to each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?” ³³ That same hour they got up and returned to Jerusalem, and they found the eleven and their companions gathered together. ³⁴ They were saying, “The Lord has risen indeed, and he has appeared to Simon!” ³⁵ Then they told what had happened on the road and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.

Catherine, what would you want our audience to know about this road to Emmaus experience?

[00:43:35] Catherine: I think that we all are on our own roads to Emmaus they’re things …

[00:43:43] Anthony: Come on.

[00:43:44] Catherine: … that as we’re journeying with the Christ, that we are not seeing him, that once again, our eyes are shut. I think there’s a little bit of a theme going on. And I love his … I just think it’s so adorable that he chastises in this sweet way. “Oh, how foolish you are and slow of heart to believe all the prophets have declared ….” Who cannot find themselves in this verse?

Anthony: Sure.

Catherine: And in that place, though, he’s still delighted in us. He still adores us, but he’s diagnosing as the great physician. Yeah, we’re foolish. “The fool in his heart says there is no God.” There are these places in us that aren’t getting it yet, and sometimes our hearts are just slow. We’re dumber than rocks, and but …

[00:44:40] Anthony: Speak for yourself.

[00:44:41] Catherine: Yes, I’m speaking for myself but we’re adored. I remember one time I was so frustrated because I was trying to understand, I think it was this rest thing and I was so frustrated and I was like. “God, I just can’t get this. I’m just so clueless.”

And I heard the Lord as clear as day. He goes, “Catherine, you’re so adorable when you’re clueless.” And I really feel his compassion to meet us where we’re clueless, where we’re foolish and enlighten us, right? Walk with us on this road and start to unveil things to us.

And I love the fact that in this very relational passage, because God is always relational, he acted as if he was going on and then they had to ask, “Stay with us.” And in this place where it’s not like God goes anywhere, but there are times when we need to turn our affection to us and pull him in.

And that is what causes our hearts to be more receptive. And so, as he continued to commune with them in very practical things — they were eating a meal. And ding to ding. Wow! It was when he broke the bread and blessed it and gave it to them, that their eyes were opened. And this is me. I am the bread. I am the one, the night before in the upper room, I broke the bread with you. I drank the wine of the new covenant. This is you and me, and I’m revealing myself in this sacrament once again. And this is why he tells us, do this in remembrance, that we need to remember. We need to piece it together in our beings.

And then what I love about this, it says, were not our hearts burning as we’re engaging with God and walking with him on our Emmaus roads. He brings things in our hearts that start to burn. And as we commune with him, he opens our eyes to see more of who he is, more of who Father God, Holy Spirit are, more of who we are in him and what that means for us as we’re walking out our daily lives.

[00:47:04] Anthony: You’ve already alluded to this, but I’d love for you to say more about this affection of inviting God to stay with us. That’s what the brothers asked for. Tell us more about this.

[00:47:18] Catherine: It’s interesting. We are, as human beings — I’ll speak for myself again — easily distracted.

Anthony: What?

Catherine: Easily squirrelled. Easily pulled away. Our affections drawn to the next shiny thing, or distracted by our pain, distracted by the fear we have, distracted by the lack or something that’s in front of us, distracted by just human suffering. And in that place, we can shut off really easily and just switch into this mode where we’re trying to figure out the problems, work out our plan, come up with solutions, figure it out, what do we need to do?

And this place of communion is where we receive all things. As you remain in me and I in you. Apart from me, you can do no dang thing. That’s a capital advice, standard vision, right?

Anthony: Yes.

Catherine: There’s nothing we can do. So, why are we distracted way out here trying to find a solution as if it’s out there. When the one that we’re one with holds all things. He is our wisdom. He is our healing, deliverance, sanctification, protection, wisdom, guidance, provision, pick a card and healing, right? Pick a card.

And so, this place of pulling on him, we don’t need to convince him to be good. Good is just who he is. We’re stuck with good.

Anthony: Yes.

Catherine: But in the “stay with us,” it’s a pull on him to reveal himself in a fresh way, which requires us to turn away from all of these ways of being that are so distracted and so fragmented and maybe closed off. And in a way we’re inviting him in deeper communion.

We have to understand that God is relational and he longs for communion with us. There are times when I’ll be ministering to people all day. I’ll be connecting with God really well, and I’ll put my little head on the table and it has just been straight up flat running all day. And I’ll say, “Jesus, I just didn’t spend 15 minutes with you personally for me. I’m so sorry.” And you know what he said to me? He goes, “Catherine, I’m just so glad that you’re doing it now.” No condemnation. No, “You didn’t. Can you not spend an hour with me?” I woke up and sprung out of bed, but this is the longing of his heart, and he’s so gracious. And when we make that turning of our affection, he reveals himself more and more.

And so, part of this is are the disciplines of lingering with God, quieting ourselves down. And as you said, the sacraments help us do that, right? And so, this is where he reveals himself to us in the ways that we need it.

[00:50:27] Anthony: A previous surgeon general of the US said that one of the greatest health issues that we have in these United States is loneliness. And the solution is community, which is communion. And I just, when I think of stay with us and abiding and remaining, yes, there’s this very personal, never private, but very personal relationship that we have with the Lord. But one of the great ways that we experience that relationship is with others, and even lingering with others, reveals something about the goodness of God.

We need one another. And thanks be to God that he refuses to be God without us. He goes with us. He stays with us. Amen. And amen.

We’re into the home stretch. We’ll pivot to our final pericope of the month. It’s John 10:1–10. It is Revised Common Lectionary passage for the fourth Sunday of Easter, April 26. Catherine, do the honors for us please.

[00:51:36] Catherine: I would love to.

“Very truly, I tell you, anyone who does not enter the sheepfold by the gate but climbs in by another way is a thief and a bandit. ² The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. ³ The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. ⁴ When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. ⁵ They will not follow a stranger, but they will run from him because they do not know the voice of strangers.” ⁶ Jesus used this figure of speech with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them. ⁷ So again Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. ⁸ All who came before me are thieves and bandits, but the sheep did not listen to them. ⁹ I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved and will come in and go out and find pasture. ¹⁰ The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.

[00:53:03] Anthony: Whew. That’s some good news.

Catherine: Yes.

Anthony: He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. And I’m thinking back to our previous passage of Jesus saying, “Mary.” And leading her out of her distress and grief. Hallelujah.

[00:53:20] Catherine: Yeah.

[00:53:20] Anthony: So, I’m going to invite you to contrast the shepherd and the thief.

[00:53:25] Catherine: Yeah.

[00:53:26] Anthony: The contrast is distinctive and it’s real. But I’m curious, in what ways might we, I don’t know, unwittingly walk in step with a thief instead of the good shepherd.

[00:53:37] Catherine: Yeah. And I think this is part of our malady, right? When we operate from a place of separation — the Word says that we’re alienated in our minds — and there are places in our minds that are truly broken, right? Our minds, our wills, our emotions, and in those places we can want what is destructive and reject what is life-giving.

And so, God has this ministry that he does in us in healing this, healing our will, so we want what is good. We don’t want the thief. A thief steals, right? A thief kills. A thief destroys. A thief is after what they can get at the expense of the sheep, …

Anthony: Come on.

Catherine: … at the expense of us. And the Good Shepherd is there for our wellbeing. He’s the one who loves us in our denseness. He loves us in our brilliance. He loves us on our good hair days, our bad hair days, our good behavior days, our crappy behavior days. He is wild about us and he’s not leaving us. He’s the gate through which we experience everything that is already ours in him.

So, we have intrinsic ownership to everything restored to us in Christ. And so, we’re not having to convince God to be good, to be gracious, to meet our needs and the desires of our hearts. God is personal and God is universal. He calls us by name and attunes us to his voice. And so, this is the voice from the inside out that our hearts start to resonate with as the fog starts to lift.

As we start to be able to recognize that thing that I thought would bring me life is an idol, is a thief that will sap life from me, and I can start to listen to the voice of the one who loved me and gave him himself up for me and follow that voice personally as he leads me out in wholeness, right?

The religious voices, which were the thieves. This, the context of this is the voices of religion. The people that came, the people that were false, that were posers, that were liars, condemners, and thieves. Christ is the entry point for an objective and subjective relationship with Trinity, where all life, light, truth, and love dwell, right? Where peace dwells.

Religion is like plastic fruit at best, right? It promises something. It may look good, but it destroys. There’s death in it. It steals. It’s deadly at worst. And so, this is why God hates that spirit of religion, because it harms his sheep, right? So, as we partake of Christ in all things, we partake of everything according to life and godliness and the divine nature, which is ours by partaking of him. And we can do that in abundance because we’re following the shepherd that we can trust with everything that we are.

[00:57:12] Anthony: And I think that’s one of the reasons John the Apostle in his gospel account repeatedly talks about belief, which is translated trust. Just trust me. I am good. I am for you. I am the good shepherd.

And guess what? I came, to give you life. Matter of fact, I am your life. And in me you have abundance. So, as we close our time together, Catherine, I want to give you an opportunity to simply riff on this gospel declaration. Let’s hear some good news. Preach, preacher.

[00:57:45] Catherine: Yay. Jesus said that I have come, I came. This is past tense, that you may have life and have it abundantly. So, God is life. You are one with the Person who is life. He. Is your life. And a little dab doesn’t do. He’s abundant in all his goodness and what he brings to us. And the more we partake of him, the more we partake of his gracious nature, the happier he is.

He wanted us to eat the entire lamb. He wanted, wants us to feed off of him. He is our source. He is the vine. We’re the branches. This is where we get to suck his goodness, partake of his goodness and fullness so that everything comes to life. What looks like it was dead is deceitful. Okay. Because the God of life is there in abundance and he also, he not only promises that, but he empowers what he promises, our ability to connect with that in a subjective thing that we just, if you’re not seeing it, just go deeper. Just go deeper. Just go deeper, because that’s where this God of life is unstoppable.

He is redeeming all things. He’s a God of abundance. He said all that he has is ours. All that he has is ours as Christ in this world. Co-heirs — that means equal heirs. This is mind-blowing stuff, but this is what the God who loved us and gave himself up for us supplies in abundance so that we get to partake and grow in life. And it is an eternal thing that cannot be taken away from us.

[00:59:47] Anthony: The thief speaks scarcity. The good shepherd speaks life and life abundantly. Hallelujah. Praise God.

I want to, as we close up our episode, want to refer back to our good friend and uncle Karl Barth, who said this, “Christ accomplishes the reality of our reconciliation with God, not its possibility.”

So, in the reality of that objective truth, let’s live a reconciled life with our neighbors, our family, our friends, the church itself. It’s such a good life that God has given us. Catherine, I am so grateful that you joined us. You are a beloved daughter of the living God, precious in his sight. I know you know this, but may those words wash over you again.

Thank you for being with us, and I want to thank our team that makes this podcast possible. Michelle Hartman, Elizabeth Mullins, Reuel Enerio. What a wonderful team to work with, and this is our tradition here at Gospel Reverb, we like to close with the word of prayer. So, Catherine, would you pray for us and with us?

[01:00:48] Catherine: Yes, absolutely. Father, Jesus, Holy Spirit, I thank you that you are God, that you are Trinity that adores us as your children, and we can receive your adoration in response and respond to that and adore you back, that we can live this life of fullness, this life of abundance, this life that has life multiplied over and over. Enlighten the eyes of our understanding so that we do know the hope of your calling in you, the glories of the riches of the inheritance in us and us as your inheritance and your mighty endless power towards us, that you are the God that doesn’t just promise, but fulfills promise, and allows us to partake of all things in you. And I thank you for blessing the eyes, blessing the ears, blessing the hearts of all of those that are listening to this podcast, that we can receive you in a fresh way. We can receive your goodness and the delight you have over us, and the fullness of what was accomplished and the hope and the peace you bring, and the vibrancy of life, so that our lives are literally being transformed and we are being transfigured from glory to glory in your image. And we thank you for that and we praise you for that. In Jesus’ name, amen.

[01:02:32] Anthony: Amen.

Thank you for being a guest of Gospel Reverb. If you like what you heard, give us a high rating, and review us on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcast content. Share this episode with a friend. It really does help us get the word out as we are just getting started. Join us next month for a new show and insights from the RCL. Until then, peace be with you!

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