EASTER PEOPLE

Every time holy week comes around I find myself in full weakness to adequately express what is in my heart.  How does one communicate the passion, the death, and the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead?  I certainly don’t have the communication skills.

Still, the impact on my life has been so great that I must try.  That God would empty “Himself of all but love and [bleed] for Adam’s helpless race,” still stuns me and leaves me standing in awe.  That God would include me in His loving embrace, when He could have written me off and no one would have held it against Him, still leaves me mystified, even at this late date in my life.    

           

To live within God’s loving embrace in a world so broken, and to live there forgiven, restored, re-energized with abundant life available only from the One who created me, still catches me off guard and leaves me amazed by grace.  

           

To be enabled to live in the abundant and resurrection life of God in Christ and, because of Him, to be on a journey to wholeness that will culminate in my own resurrection at some date still to be named, leaves me speechless. 

But there’s more. I love the words of N.T. Wright in his book, Surprised by Hope. He writes, “Jesus's resurrection is the beginning of God's new project not to snatch people away from earth to heaven but to colonize earth with the life of heaven…”

That’s it, isn’t it?  God is doing something right now, today, right here.  We don’t have to wait for heaven for the party to begin.  It’s already underway.

Pope John Paul II said, “Do not abandon yourselves to despair. We are the Easter people and hallelujah is our song.”   I say, YES.  Join the festivities.

Remember, Good Friday does not have the final word.  Easter is on the way.  We may live in a broken world but the River of God is flowing in and through that brokenness.  The last words are not brokenness and death. The final words are, “HE IS RISEN.”

STAND AMAZED

We live in an age when there is a religious philosophy on every corner.  The true and false mingle together sometimes, and the journey gets very foggy.  This is the age of spirituality.  Religious ideologies abound.  Palm readers and Fortunetellers have set up shop in about every city. The religion of Self-help abounds and the religion of materialism, which calls people to more and more possessions and greater and greater success, permeates the horizon. 

When Jesus comes along and says that he is “the Way and the Truth and the Life” (John 14:6), He pushes the envelop a little too far for some.  That's why people will take Jesus to a certain point, and no further.  When He starts talking about sin and brokenness and about Him dying and being raised from the dead that, pretty much, ends the conversation for a lot of folks.

We human types don't want to talk about sin and brokenness.  We don't want to talk about the pain we carry and the emptiness, which haunts us so much, that we live out our lives medicated with some "pain-killer" of choice. We drive our cars and talk on our cell phones and watch our TV's and embrace our entertainment and sip our drink of choice, caught up in a world of busyness and activity and distraction, knowing that things are not working in our lives but ignoring the reality of it.

Then, Jesus shows up, and by His simply being here, we see the truth about ourselves, we see the dead ends, and we see the possibilities of new beginnings.  Suddenly, something new is on the horizon, and we know, we know, love is covering our lives, and that the future can be different than the past.  Amazing Grace fills us up and we stand amazed at how good God is. 

LOOK AND LIVE

While strolling through Athens, Greece, Paul came across an altar with an inscription on it that read,  "TO AN UNKNOWN GOD" (Acts 17:23).  He was already “distressed to see that the city was full of idols” (vs. 16), and this inscription added to the distress but also gave him an opportunity to share Jesus with the philosophers who had gathered. 

           

They called on him to share the faith that he had been claiming, something that was new to them.  They asked, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? You are bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we would like to know what they mean” (vs. 19-20). 

           

Paul used the inscription “To an unknown God,” as his point of entry to share with them the good news of Jesus.  He shared that the “unknown God” of the altar was in fact known, that He was present in the person of Jesus, and that Jesus’ credential were established when He was raised from the dead.  He told them that in Jesus God was inviting people to “seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him” (vs. 27).   Then Paul said this very powerful thing about God.  He said that God “is not far from any one of us” (vs. 27).

           

Paul takes us from an unknown God to the God who is not far from any one of us.  We believe God is here, that our lives are being encountered by His amazing grace.  God is not absent.  He is present.   God is not unknown.  If you want to know what God looks like, take a long, long, look at Jesus. Tear down any altars or idols that distracts from Jesus, and come into His resurrection. 

Look and live.

DON'T WASTE THE GRACE

The disciples felt the day of their death had come and that there on the sea, in the midst of a violent storm, they were going to perish.  In an act of panic they turned to Jesus to save them.  He did, but not before asking them “Why are you afraid, you men of little faith?” (Matt. 8:26).

           

Odd question, don’t you think?  Everything in your training says it’s over.  The storm is ragging, the wind is blowing, everything is getting soaking wet, and there is no help in sight.  What do you mean, “Why are you afraid?” 

           

When life is coming apart we can turn to fear and panic or Jesus and peace.  Panic probably comes easier than peace, but panic is a wrong decision for one who trusts in the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

After Jesus had calmed the storm at sea and in the hearts of the disciples they asked, “What kind of a man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey Him?” (vs. 27).  What kind of man is He? The God-Man, in fact.  God with us.  Immanuel.  God’s loving response to the deepest needs of the human heart.

Jesus, Lord of lords and King of kings, is present today still stunning us with His power and His love.  Come what may, Jesus is who He says He is. In Him our lives are covered by grace, and mercy is the very air we breathe. As the seventeenth century hymns says, "Be Still, My Soul; the Lord is on thy side."[1]  Don’t waste the grace.           

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[1] “Be Still, My Soul,” Catharina von Schlegel, 1697-? Translated by Jane Borthwick, 1813-1897

HOW AWESOME IS THIS PLACE

Augustine said that the “signs of the Trinity” were all throughout the world.  If he is right, and I think he is, it occurs to me that I ought to seek to be a bit more attentive to the presence of God in my world.

           

Too often I meander through my days, caught up in whatever it is that has caught me up, and I live unaware of the ever-present and astonishing reality of God.  I have discovered that the routine can become the normal and that the normal can lull me to sleep so that I missed the awe and wonder of God.

           

Do you remember the story of Jacob and the dream he had one night in which there was a ladder rising up to heaven and on the ladder, coming and going, were angels?  When he awoke he said, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it…. How awesome is this place!  This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven” (Genesis 28:16-17).

           

What a confession! “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it.” Too often, this has been my story.  Life and stuff and schedules and people and the clock and, did I mention stuff, distract me from the greatest of all realities, that God is here, in this place, right now, here, really. 

           

Yet, this is too big to miss.  If I miss this, I have missed too much.  God is here, really; and, He is at work in amazing grace and marvelous love and awesome forgiveness.  Wherever I am “is none other than the house of God, the gate of heaven.” 

HOW AWESOME IS THIS PLACE.