How Important is the Resurrection?

1 Corinthians 15: 12-23, CEB - So if the message that is preached says that Christ has been raised from the dead, then how can some of you say, “There’s no resurrection of the dead”? If there’s no resurrection of the dead, then Christ hasn’t been raised either. If Christ hasn’t been raised, then our preaching is useless and your faith is useless. We are found to be false witnesses about God, because we testified against God that he raised Christ, when he didn’t raise him if it’s the case that the dead aren’t raised. If the dead aren’t raised, then Christ hasn’t been raised either. If Christ hasn’t been raised, then your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins, and what’s more, those who have died in Christ are gone forever. If we have a hope in Christ only in this life, then we deserve to be pitied more than anyone else.

But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead. He’s the first crop of the harvest^[a] of those who have died. Since death came through a human being, the resurrection of the dead came through one too. In the same way that everyone dies in Adam, so also everyone will be given life in Christ. Each event will happen in the right order: Christ, the first crop of the harvest, then those who belong to Christ at his coming,

 

                The last of the five issues Paul wants to address in 1 Corinthians is some troubling ideas he has heard are being advocated in the community regarding the resurrection of Jesus.  There were those within the Corinthian church who were saying that the resurrection of Jesus is not necessary for one to be a follower of Christ.  The idea was that following Jesus’s teachings alone could achieve the desired relationship with God.  Paul vehemently rejects this idea and even labels it as dangerous. 

                I encourage you to read all of chapter 15 in order to see Paul’s full argument here, but I will simply sum it up here.  To reduce Jesus to simply a human teacher that teaches us how to achieve a proper relationship with God is to rob the Christian faith of its divine power.  Foundational to the Christian faith is the assertion that simply knowing how God wants us to live is not enough, because having that knowledge quickly illumines the fact that human beings are not capable of living out those teachings on their own.  It is an impossible undertaking to save ourselves.  We are physically and spiritually dead without God’s power.  We need the power of God – the power of God displayed in the resurrection of Jesus.  It is this power that works in us just as it did in Jesus to spiritually bring us back to life and assure us of physical life that extends into eternity. 

                It’s sometimes tempting to believe that we don’t need help of God and others.  But to the extent that one believes that is the extent to which that belief is not Christian belief.  At the core of the Christian faith is the conviction that we are utterly dependent on the grace, love, and power of God.  And the quintessential expression of that power is the resurrection of Jesus.  The same power shall raise us as well.

 

Question:  What are the core essential beliefs of your Christian faith?

 

Prayer:  God of all that is, thank you for sending Your son to reveal to us your character of love, grace, and power.  Show us our own need for that power to be at work in us.  Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Spend some time today praying for family members that you haven’t prayed for in a while.

 

Song:  Living Hope – Phil Wickham

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9f2FXxDVO6w

About Those Who Have Died. . .

1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 - Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope.  For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him.  According to the Lord’s word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep.  For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.  After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever.  Therefore encourage one another with these words.

 

The people of Thessalonica who had become followers of Jesus had concerns about those who had died in their community.  To understand this concern, we have to remind ourselves that the first generations of Christians sincerely believed that Jesus was coming back any day.  I know Christians today say they believe that still, but honestly it does not compare.  The early Christians did not make future plans because their future plans were to welcome Christ when he came back.  There is believing that something is possible or even probable and then there is knowing that something is going to happen.  The fact that it didn’t happen as soon as they hoped was a big concern as we will see in Paul’s later letters.

 

So in that climate of great expectation, people wondered what was to become of those who died in the in-between time, the time between when Christ ascended and when he came back.   So Paul’s words here are meant to be pastoral.  He reminds us that people who follow Jesus grieve differently than those who don’t.  We grieve WITH HOPE.  Paul comforts the Thessalonians further that those who have died will join the rest of them when Jesus returns.  They will share eternity together.

                We’ve had a crash course in death over the last few years.  The coronavirus pandemic killed millions most of those deaths occurring in the space of one year.  Natural disasters are claiming more lives than ever before.  I will confess that the grief feels especially personal to me as my family has experienced several deaths in the last few years, more than in any previous season of my life.  I recall their lives and I shed tears for them now as I write this. I look toward the day that I will see them again.  Paul does not say that those who follow Christ do not grieve – quite the opposite.  He says that we do grieve, but we grieve WITH HOPE.  Those who we have lost will rise as Christ has risen and we will rise with them.  Thanks be to God..

                One of the things I chose to do in my grief is attend a 13-week experience called GriefShare. I am so glad that I did.  Even as a pastor with three decades of experience dealing with people in grief and loss, I have to confess that I learned a lot.  More importantly, I found sojourners who are experiencing grief as well and we found that the journey is much more bearable and even productive when you are not traveling alone.  What was amazing to me was how all of my fellow sojourners’ experiences with grief are different, yet we found so much common ground that gave us strength together.  This class is offered in most areas multiple times a year.  If you have experienced a loss sometime in the past, I highly recommend this resource.  Here is a link where you can find a GriefShare group near you. 

https://www.griefshare.org/s?center=&date_range=&day=&distance=&location_type=&query=&sort_by=&type=

 

Reflection:  Instead of a question today, take a few moments to remember those we have lost most recently.  Take comfort in the HOPE that we will be with them again.

 

Prayer:  God thank you for those we love and have died.  We hold them dear in our hearts and we hold on to the hope that they and we share – the hope of resurrection in Christ Jesus. Lord, come quickly. Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Pray for the families you know who are experiencing loss right now.

 

Song: Josh Groban – To Where You Are

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8CWGq8e3Bo

More Endings to Mark

Mark 16:9-14, CEB - After Jesus rose up early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, from whom he had cast out seven demons.  She went and reported to the ones who had been with him, who were mourning and weeping.  But even after they heard the news, they didn’t believe that Jesus was alive and that Mary had seen him.

After that he appeared in a different form to two of them who were walking along in the countryside.  When they returned, they reported it to the others, but they didn’t believe them.  Finally he appeared to the eleven while they were eating. Jesus criticized their unbelief and stubbornness because they didn’t believe those who saw him after he was raised up.

 

                These additions to Mark read like summaries of other works, which is why most scholars believe that they are indeed summaries from other gospel accounts and the book of Acts.  Today’s selection above likely is a combination summary from multiple other sources.  The editor was faithful to themes found earlier in Mark, most notably the highlight of the disciples tendency toward disbelief.  In the Gospel of John, Thomas is the resident skeptic, but here all of the disciples are confronted, eventually by Jesus Himself.  To the extent that we identify with the faltering disciples, we hear the intended message of this editor of Mark.  It is also seems likely that Mark would approve. 

                There have many times in my life where it seemed easy to believe.  In the wake of a miraculous healing, which I have witnessed multiple times, it even seems silly NOT to believe in the power and plan of God.  When everything is going my way, I feel sure that God surely is actively blessing me.  When evil is defeated in dramatic fashion, faith is a natural posture.  Mountain-moving faith is such times seems way more attainable.

                Unfortunately, such times do not represent the whole of our experience.  Relationships fail and it seems God is nowhere to be found.  It’s quite difficult to see the activity of God in earthquakes where tens of thousands of lives are lost and many more have their entire lives torn apart for the foreseeable future.  When the disappointments keep coming one after another. . .when children precede their parents in death. . . when the unthinkable personal tragedy strikes. . . in all these times, even a mustard seed’s amount of faith seems like a tall order. The disciples were having one of those moments.

                Even when they are given the news that what Jesus promised has indeed happened, they are stuck in their fugue state of disbelief.  I have to confess that I can relate.  Part of what happens here is human tendency to want to confirm and justify our current feelings.  Psychologists call this confirmation bias and it can be very powerful.   We want to confirm that we are right to feel the way do, even when we are confronted with evidence to the contrary.  This phenomenon is the reason why conspiracy theorists don’t let go of their false beliefs even when clear facts should convince them to do so.  This has happened to me more times than I can count.  None of us are exempt.

                The disciples are forced out of their disbelieving bias by the resurrected Jesus in the flesh.  It would awesome if Jesus would do the same thing for us, but at least for me, it hasn’t happened yet.  So how do we snap our of it when we find ourselves stuck in unbelief.  One of the practical suggestions from psychology to combat confirmation bias is to develop the habit of questioning your assumptions when you are assuming you are right.  The spiritual term for this is humility.  Further, as followers of Jesus, we should have a strong bias towards hope.  This is why Jesus scolds the disciples for their faithlessness.  They of all people should have had at least a healthy active bias towards belief because Jesus had never let them down before and He promised them that He would be raised. 

                While it may not seem like it sometimes, we have no less reason to have a hopeful bias.  We, the Christian church, stand in a line of two thousand years of God’s faithfulness and kept promises.  Through the severest of persecutions, through long periods of decline and darkness, and through impossible challenges, God keeps delivering the church and its people to new life and vitality.  Empires, dynasties, and seemingly unstoppable tyrants have come and gone, but the church keeps finding itself sustained and renewed.  God is always faithful, so our bias should be hope in all circumstances.  More on this next time.

 

Question:  Have you ever been the victim of confirmation bias?  How does it interplay with your faith?

 

Prayer:  Holy Spirit, install a bias of hope within our souls that persists in all circumstances.  Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Pray for people who do jobs we could never see ourselves doing. 

 

Song:  The Blessing – Angelica Bias

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wUlFCe-55A

The Resurrection In Mark

 

Mark 16:1-8, CEB - When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they could go and anoint Jesus’ dead body.  Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they came to the tomb.  They were saying to each other, “Who’s going to roll the stone away from the entrance for us?”  When they looked up, they saw that the stone had been rolled away. (And it was a very large stone!)  Going into the tomb, they saw a young man in a white robe seated on the right side; and they were startled.  But he said to them, “Don’t be alarmed! You are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified.   He has been raised. He isn’t here. Look, here’s the place where they laid him.  Go, tell his disciples, especially Peter, that he is going ahead of you into Galilee. You will see him there, just as he told you.”  Overcome with terror and dread, they fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid.

 

                Today, after a long and painful journey through the extensive suffering, death, and burial of Jesus, we finally get to celebrate the resurrection.  Just as He said multiple times, the news has finally been shared with the same women who witnessed Jesus crucifixion and death.  Notice, however, that even though they have been told over sand over Jesus will be raised, their expectation that morning was that they would be anointing a dead body with prepared spices.  They expect that this will be their last service and kindness to Jesus.  The message that Jesus’s predictions have come true, and He has indeed been raised apparently completely undoes them.     

“Overcome with terror and dread, they fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid.”

The original Gospel of Mark ends with the above sentence.  Mark 16:9-20 were all added later out probably because this ending was so unsatisfactory.  The women flee out of terror and dread and tell no one what they have seen and heard.  The original gospel ends with fear, not celebration. 

                The other obvious difference between Mark and other three gospels in the New Testament is that there is no appearance of the resurrected Christ.  There is only the news that He has raised given by a divine messenger.  This too was unsatisfactory to later readers of Mark, so the added ending in vs. 16:9-20 also list multiple encounters with the risen Christ.  Because these endings are found in the current version of the gospel, we will work through them in coming reflections.  But for now, let’s continue to dwell on the unsettling original ending.

                What I like about Mark ending his account here is that it matches up with most people’s original encounter with the resurrection.  It is perhaps the hardest part of the gospel to embrace.  Resurrection is an outlier of our experience.  Certainly, we have many modern-day examples of people being brought back from the dead through heroic medical interventions and/or rare environmental conditions.  However, these events usually occur minutes or, at the most hours after the heart stops beating and almost never involve the kind of incredible trauma that  cause Jesus’s death.  Jesus is raised after at least two full 24-hour periods of being dead with no medical intervention.  He is lying in a tomb.  Just like the women, embracing that kind of reality requires us to overcome some fear and dread that we are latching on to false hope.  It would be also be understandable that in this time of uncertainty, we would say nothing to no one. 

                If indeed Mark intended to end his account here, it seems we are left, like the women in the resurrection account, to wrestle with how we can embrace the good news of the resurrection.  It also leaves open the possibility that we could have our own “encounter” with the risen Christ. 

 

Question:  Do you have any memory of your first reaction to the news that Jesus was raised from the dead?

 

Prayer:  Risen Christ, help us experience for ourselves the reality of Your victory over death.  Overcome our fears and doubts, so that we may become witnesses to the resurrection.  Amen.

 

Prayer Focus: Pray for people you know who do not have a relationship with Jesus.

 

Songs:  Resurrection Medley – Willow Creek Community Church

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05LVkdMX7Kw    

You Won’t Understand Until This Happens

Mark 9:9-13, NLT - As they went back down the mountain, he told them not to tell anyone what they had seen until the Son of Man had risen from the dead.  So they kept it to themselves, but they often asked each other what he meant by “rising from the dead.”

Then they asked him, “Why do the teachers of religious law insist that Elijah must return before the Messiah comes?”

Jesus responded, “Elijah is indeed coming first to get everything ready. Yet why do the Scriptures say that the Son of Man must suffer greatly and be treated with utter contempt?  But I tell you, Elijah has already come, and they chose to abuse him, just as the Scriptures predicted.”

 

                The inner circle of disciples (Peter, James, and John) just had perhaps the most profound spiritual experience of their lives, witnessing the transfiguration of Jesus upon a mountain top. They have witnessed the return of Moses and Elijah to earth to confer with the transfigured Jesus. Now, Jesus has told them to keep quiet about what they have seen.  While this seems unusual, Jesus does allow for them to share about it after Jesus has been raised from the dead.  This condition for sharing holds the key to understanding why Jesus forbids them to share. 

                The disciples were fully convinced that Jesus was the Messiah for which Israel had waited for dozens of generations.  While they were convinced of that truth, they only thought they understood it.  Jesus knew that, in order for them to understand the nature of His messiahship, they would have to be on the other side of the resurrection.  Jesus’s messiahship can only be understood to any degree through his life, his death, and his resurrection.  Though Jesus has told them multiple times about his suffering, death, and resurrection to come, they still do not believe it will happen.  That’s why they are still baffled by his talk of “rising from the dead.”  They quickly change the subject to Elijah. 

                Jesus knows they won’t accept the coming events until after they have happened, but it will help them to understand when they remember what Jesus told them (multiple times) before all the terrible events began.  So Jesus allows them the grace to change the subject to Elijah.  The answer they ask for is simple.  The return of Elijah is for the preparation for the Messiah.  John the Baptist was that Elijah, though Jesus doesn’t say that plainly.  It is implied in His answer.  What Jesus does make plain is that way John was treated is a foreshadowing of how Jesus Himself will be treated.  John was rejected and killed; Jesus will be rejected and killed.  After that is all over, they will be more able to grasp the true nature of God’s plan for the Messiah.  Jesus’s suffering, death, and resurrection will somehow usher in God’s kingdom for the entire world – a plan that is still unfolding to this very day.  The same is true of life’s greatest truths.  They only become accessible through the lens of suffering.  The life, death, and resurrection of Jesus provide this ultimately clarifying lens.  We shall know the Truth (His name is Jesus) and the truth shall set us free.   

 

Question:  Take some time today to reflect on what you have learned and been able to perceive only because you first had to suffer. 

 

Prayer:  Jesus, we seek You as our messiah, but we too often misunderstand Your ways.  Help us embrace the suffering we inevitably encounter in life as the very key that can unlock deeper understanding, perception, and faith.  Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Think of people whose names trigger anger in you.  Pray for God to bless them today. 

 

Song:  In the Bleak Midwinter – Susan Boyle

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_dO91hQhkU  

A More Than Inconvenient Truth

 

When the Truth is More Than Inconvenient

 

Matthew 28:11-15, NIV - While the women were on their way, some of the guards went into the city and reported to the chief priests everything that had happened.  When the chief priests had met with the elders and devised a plan, they gave the soldiers a large sum of money, telling them, “You are to say, ‘His disciples came during the night and stole him away while we were asleep.’  If this report gets to the governor, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble.”  So the soldiers took the money and did as they were instructed. And this story has been widely circulated among the Jews to this very day.

 

The guards who had been “scared stiff” by the angel now go to report the empty tomb to the chief priests.  This detail is a bit curious, for Roman guards don’t report to chief priests. They report to Pilate, the governor.  However, reporting that Jesus is no longer in the tomb may not be something these soldiers want to report to their boss.  After all their job was to make sure that very thing did not happen.  Reporting this to Pilate might mean their jobs or worse.  But NOT reporting it is probably just as dangerous, because the governor almost certainly is going to find out at some point.  Furthermore, would the governor even believe such an incredible story.  The guards are in a tough spot. They had been incapacitated by . . . an angel?  This truth is more than inconvenient.  So perhaps, they thought the chief priests could help them out.

If that is what the soldiers thought, then they were right.  For the chief priests, this “truth” can not be allowed to see the light of day.   They convene a meeting.  Don’t miss this.  The religious leaders convene a meeting to discuss how they might cover up the resurrection of a popular religious teacher who predicted it would happen just as it now has.  This truth is more than inconvenient.  It could be their undoing, which is something else Jesus predicted.  To hold on to their power and position, the priests must stop this.  They are only too willing to help out the soldiers.  So they formulate what they know to be a big lie.  Even two thousand years ago, unscrupulous leaders knew that if you tell a big lie enough times, it begins to throw a cloud over the truth.  This is their plan.  Decades later, Matthew, writing his account of all this, acknowledges that their plan worked, at least partially; “this story has been widely circulated among the Jews to this very day.”

Once again, we can gain more from this story to the extent that we are willing to put ourselves in the place of those who acted less than nobly in the story.  Is it possible that we, when confronted by a truth that more than just inconvenient to us personally, might find ourselves galvanized against that very truth?  Could it be possible that a truth is so personally threatening to our position and standing that we literally are unable to hear it, much less embrace it?  The gospel that we have worked our way through over these past months is such a truth, whether we realize it or not.

To embrace that Jesus really did raise from death as He said He would means we must take seriously not just whether His resurrection is true, but whether or not everything He ever did and said is true.  It all is a package deal.  We embrace ALL or it or none of it.  If we embrace all of it, this truth is more than inconvenient.  It could mean that our life, as we know it, could be undone.  The gospel makes an enormous claim on those who embrace it.  Yes, it is fantastic news for all of us that are sinners.  It is death defeated.  It is indeed all the wonderful things that Matthew and his fellow gospel authors say it is.  However, it is not without cost to us personally. 

This truth makes a claim on our life that might require us to spend our time in ways we would not have chosen before we embraced it (“take up your cross”).  It will certainly make a claim on our resources (“you can not serve God and money”).  Jesus taught that embracing this truth is literally like “losing your life to find it.”  Embracing the resurrection is also embracing loving your enemies, forgiving those who have hurt you, turning the other cheek, and a whole lot longer list of inconvenient truths.  The Truth will indeed set you free, but first, it will rock the very foundations of your life.  The guards understood this and chose a different path.  The chief priests understood better than most and reset themselves against the truth of Jesus. 

As Matthew moves to conclude his gospel, he confronts us with the same dilemma.  There is no less at stake for us than those soldiers who were scared stiff and those chief priests who looked at their potential undoing and said “Hell, no!”

 

Question:  Will we embrace the truth of the resurrection AND all the more than inconvenient truth that comes with it?

 

Prayer:  Lord, forgive us for we tend to be “pick and choose” disciples.  We want salvation, but we resist that salvation making a claim on everything we know.  We want forgiveness, but we don’t like paying it forward.  We are overjoyed at blessings, but we are misers when it comes to sharing them.  We revel in being loved by You so lavishly, but we like to forget that You love everyone that way, even people we think you shouldn’t.  We hate it even more that you want us to love them too.  Help us embrace not just the parts of the truth that we like, but all the parts that are more than inconvenient.  Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Spend time praying about how you will embrace more of God’s truth than you have up until this point

 

Song:  I Surrender - Hillsong Worship

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7jXASBWwwI

The Resurrection

 

The Resurrection

 

Matthew 28:1-10, NIV - After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb.

There was a violent earthquake, for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and, going to the tomb, rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothes were white as snow. The guards were so afraid of him that they shook and became like dead men.

The angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples: ‘He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him.’ Now I have told you.”

So the women hurried away from the tomb, afraid yet filled with joy, and ran to tell his disciples.  Suddenly Jesus met them. “Greetings,” he said. They came to him, clasped his feet and worshiped him.

Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.”

The two Mary’s go to the tomb to grieve.  Matthew has been sure to let us know that it is the women who stayed with Jesus to the very end.  They were there for the crucifixion and they were there with Joseph of Arimathea when Jesus’s body was laid to rest.  They were there to see the tomb sealed by the Roman guards and now, on Sunday morning, they return to the tomb.  They will be the first witnesses of the resurrection.

I can’t help but think that they came that morning with hope in their hearts.  Throughout our journey through Matthew, we heard Jesus tell His followers SO many times that he would die, but three days later, he would be raised.  These women would have also known that Jesus raised others who had died.   They come this early morning to grieve, but I feel sure there is some vestige of faith in Jesus’s promise, if only a mustard seed’s worth.

If that is true, then their faith was confirmed in a spectacularly dramatic way.  An earthquake shakes the ground beneath them.  An angel so impressive that two Roman soldiers are literally scared stiff shows up.  The angel rolls back the stone (a feat that would normally take several very strong people) and then takes a seat atop the stone.  The angel says, “do not be afraid,” but that was pointless.  They are afraid nonetheless.  I’m not sure any human who has ever lived would not be afraid. 

I highlight their fear, because I want to highlight the fact that, unlike the “macho” Roman guards, the women are not paralyzed by their fear.  They follow the angel into to the tomb and see that Jesus is not there.  They hear, believe, and follow the angel’s instructions even though they never cease to be afraid.  Matthew notes that as they run to tell the disciples the most incredible news ever given, they were “afraid yet filled with joy.” 

Their faithful action in the midst of fear is rewarded for, in following the angel’s instruction, they literally run into the Risen Christ!  He, like the angels begins with, “do not be afraid” as the women throw themselves at His feet.  I’m sure their was more details to this actual encounter, but Matthew doesn’t give us anymore than Jesus’s instructions about where the disciples can meet Him.  They follow Jesus’s instruction as well, but I’m not sure their fear is completely gone. 

Faith is not the absence of fear.  Joy is not the absence of fear.  The presence of fear does not mean we have to be consumed by it or paralyzed by it.  We can hear God’s revelation in the midst of fear.  We can follow God’s instructions in the midst of fear.  We can even experience joy while simultaneously still experiencing fear.  These remarkable women show us this wonderful possibility. 

 

Question:  Have you ever been, or are you now, paralyzed by fear? 

 

Prayer:  Lord, even in our fear, allow us to hear and follow your voice.  Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Pray for people who are being overwhelmed by fear today.

 

Song:  I Just Seen Jesus - Larnelle Harris, Sandi Patty

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yLgtd_kkxw