Dear friends,

From time to time articles come across my desk which I believe are worth making available.  The following is offered for reflection.

Now this was the very clue to all of the New Testament preaching: that God had raised Jesus from the dead and we are the evidence of the resurrection.  You know, on Easter day all of us get prettified and we get on our nice garments and we get our flowers and perfume and we talk about Jesus being raised form the dead and how he’s going to take us all to heaven one of these days…  Well, that might be nice, but that isn’t what the resurrection of Jesus is all about.  God didn’t raise Jesus from the dead to prove that he could raise a few cantankerous saints…

God raised Jesus from the dead for a different purpose.  When Jesus came in his first body, people didn’t like God around.  It was a bad place for God to be.  Sort of like having a preacher in the barbershop.  And we felt uncomfortable with him here.  And so we had to get rid of him.  And we nailed him to the cross and said, “You go back home God.  Don’t you mess around down here.  We have to watch our language too much with you around.  And we have to watch our ledger accounts too much when you’re looking over our shoulder.  And we have to be too careful on Saturday night when we’re hitting the bottle rather heavy.  Now you, God, you go back where you belong and be a good God, and we’ll see you at eleven o’clock on Sunday morning.”

By raising Jesus from the dead, God is refusing to take humanity’s “No” for an answer.  God’s saying, “You can kill my boy if you wish, but I’m going to raise him from the dead, and put him right smack dab down there on earth again!  I’m going to raise him up, plant his feet on the earth, and put him to preaching, teaching, and healing again.”

God raised Jesus, not as an invitation to us to come to heaven when we die, but as a declaration that God has now established permanent, eternal residence on earth.  The resurrection places Jesus on this side of the grave – here and now – in the midst of this life.  He is not standing on the shore of eternity beckoning us to join him there.  He is standing beside us, strengthening us in this life.  The good news of the resurrection of Jesus is not that we shall die and go home to him, but that he has risen and comes home with us, bringing all his hungry, naked, thirsty, sick, prisoner brothers and sisters with him.

And we say, “Jesus, we’d be glad to have you, but all these motley brothers and sisters of yours, you had better send them home.  You come in and we’ll have some fried chicken.  But you get your sick, naked, cold brothers and sisters out of here.  We don’t want them getting our new rug all messed up.”

The resurrection is simply God’s way of saying to humanity, “You might reject me if you will, but I’m going to have the last word.  I’m going to have the last word.  I’m going to put my son right down there in the midst of you and he’s going to dwell among you from here on out.”

On the morning of the Resurrection, God put life in the present tense, not in the future.  God gave us not a promise but a presence.  Not a hope for the future but power for the present.  Not so much the assurance that we shall live someday but that he is risen today.  Jesus’ resurrection is not to convince the incredulous nor to reassure the fearful, but to enkindle the believers.  The proof that God raised Jesus from the dead is not the empty tomb, but the full hearts of his transformed disciples.  The crowning evidence that he lives is not a vacant grave, but a spirit-filled fellowship.  Not a rolled-away stone, but a carried-away church.