Walking with the Risen Christ
Cynthia Briggs Kittredge (@cbkittredge) is the 8th Dean and President of Seminary of the Southwest and professor of New Testament. Dean Kittredge holds degrees from Williams College and Harvard Divinity School.
I was ordained on the Wednesday of Easter Week in 1985. The deacon, my friend Louise, processed down the aisle of St. John’s Church in Beverly Farms, Massachusetts and read Luke 24:13-35, the story of how the risen Jesus appeared to two of his former students when they were walking and talking along the road. The man looked like a curious stranger until he began to speak about scripture. He began at the beginning, and he wove the strands together, and he displayed how what they thought was a failed mission was the way it was meant to be. I love imagining Jesus, with all the scripture in his mind and his mouth, juxtaposing the images, sketching the patterns, chanting the prayers, and giving the seminar that elucidated his words about the words on the scroll in the synagogue at Nazareth, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”
