Before the Session
Facilitator: In advance of the session
- Review today’s scripture text and the session activities to help better facilitate the discussion.
- Have the Bible Background Video ready to view.
- Have any selected video or music clips ready to show
- Familiarize yourself with the controversy over cold fusion by reading the attached articles and wikipedia link.
- Encourage your group to listen to the Faithelement podcast ahead of the next session (Share the link via email or social media)
Context
Begin by asking questions like:
Note: Since this is an election year in the USA, beware of taking this discussion off-track or allowing it to turn into a debate.
- Before we discuss this important day in world history, what are some things that you think people most commonly believe these days, despite lacking definitive proof?
- What are some things that you think people do not believe, even though they have been proved?
- Why do you think people choose to believe or disbelieve in such things?
- What do you think is most required in order to have someone else believe you or something that you hold to be true, and why?
- Is what ways do people’s differences over what they accept as “true” affect the way they approach the world?
Content
Read Luke 24:1-12, then watch the Bible Background Video.
Ask questions like these:
- What do you think prompted the women to visit the tomb on that Easter morning, when apparently the male members of Jesus’ followers did not plan to do so?
- In what ways might their relationship with Jesus led to the differences between the male and female roles in this story?
- Given the cultural distance between us and Jesus’ original followers, how might modern characters act if they found themselves in the same situation and why?
- Nikki mentions “We’ve never done it that way before” thinking as a sort of looking for faith among the dead, rather than the living. In what ways do our approaches to the Easter event represent “looking for the living among the dead” and why?
- At what points can Easter, as seen through this narrative, help free us from such “seeking the living among the dead” in our understanding of faith and community?
Closure
Discuss the topic of Cold Fusion with the group by sharing this article from 60 Minutes and this article that is critical of that story. You may want to summarize them in the interests of time, or show this video which is fairly technical but illustrates the ongoing argument over this area of science.
Ask:
- What did you know of this subject before today and how did you come to learn it?
- Based on what you know now, how do you feel about the study of Cold Fusion and why?
- In what ways might the idea of Jesus’ death and resurrection seem as alien to some listeners as a discussion on cold fusion?
- In what ways might people receive this news in similar ways to the way they deal with other controversial subjects, and why?
Read these words from the hymn “I Serve a Risen Savior”
I serve a risen Savior,
he’s in the world today;
I know that he is living,
whatever others say;
I see his hand of mercy,
I hear his voice of cheer,
and just the time I need him
he’s always near.
He lives, he lives,
Christ Jesus lives today!
He walks with me and talks with me
along life’s narrow way.
He lives, he lives, salvation to impart!
You ask me how I know he lives?
He lives within my heart.
Continue by asking:
- What is the impact of the Resurrection on the ways we come to have faith and why?
- What can we do to move beyond mere argument over faith and toward making a positive impression on people’s lives?
- In what ways is Jesus’ resurrection good news for you personally?
Close with a word of prayer. You might also wish to sing the song you just read.
Writer: Erin Robinson Hall