Let the Living Begin

Here they go again, those crazy Christians, proclaiming that the one they saw die on a cross on a certain Friday afternoon outside Jerusalem is, in fact, alive.  The rumors were wild and almost silly, to think that a dead man could come back from the grave, and take up where He left off a few days earlier, only take up with greater power and authority than before.

           

Those first Christians were really naïve, or something really had taken place that staggered their world view and changed them.  It is a great challenge to undermine the scope and quality of their witness and to call their integrity or sanity into question. 

           

How do you stop a movement based on a teaching that says her Lord and Leader was crucified, died, and was buried, but on the third day rose up again?  How do you stop a movement so rooted and founded on this truth that persecution and death could not stop them from sharing their story?  I don’t think you can stop that kind of movement, that kind of people.

           

Today, we are privileged to be named among “those crazy Christians.” Once our lives were broken and wounded, and held no hope. Then Jesus revealed Himself to us to be alive, and the revelation so profoundly struck a nerve in our very souls, we made a decision that, come what may, we have decided to follow Jesus and that, for us, there will be no turning back.

           

To some people the whole idea of Jesus is either a stumbling block or simply utter foolishness.  If you know someone like this, don’t be too hard on them.  It is quite a thing we ask of people.  Instead, just pray for them.  Love them.  Show them what a life based on the resurrection looks like.  People are hungry for God, for truth, for some sense of destiny.  We believe Jesus is God’s response to the deepest needs  in the human heart.  He has risen, so we say.  Now, let’s live in light of a resurrected Lord and Savior.