Thursday of the Third Week of Easter
“Look, there is water. What is to prevent my being baptized?” (Acts 8:36) These words, spoken by the Ethiopian eunuch in the first reading, teach us a refreshing way to approach life. I love that this man had been taught about Jesus from Phillip – had learned about our savior and immediately took his words and his lessons to heart.
Before knowing who Christ was this man would have ridden by the water and simply thought it was water. But now, knowing Christ, everything has changed. He sees water and his immediate reaction is baptism. He is looking at life with eyes of faith – the ordinary has become extraordinary.
I pray that we can each think of a time when we have experienced this same transformation – something we would have seen as ordinary suddenly becomes extraordinary, because of God. Something that once was mundane becomes a way to evangelize and to spread God’s kingdom.
Christ does this for us in the Eucharist – normal bread and wine become His extraordinary body and blood and because of that our lives are changed. In today’s Gospel we hear just how life-changing the bread of life, Jesus, can be. “Whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my Flesh for the life of the world.” (John 6: 32-33) Something so simple – bread – when transformed by Christ, is now the very thing that will save us.
May our lives be a testament to this same miraculous outlook on life. No matter how simple, plain, mundane we may feel our lives are, may the power and grace bestowed upon us by Christ, help us to be extraordinary and do extraordinary things – things that will change the world!
- Amanda Grimm