Wednesday, April 12, 2006

"Now, With God's Help, I Shall Become Myself" ~ Soren Kierkegaard

Many people breathing, but not many people living. Crowds laughing, but not many happy. Stadiums cheering, but few champions. Car after car flying down the highway but few inhabitants within consciously aware of any significant destination other than geographic.

The promise of authentic Christianity is the reversal of this night of the living dead. Christ shouts through the centuries, "I have come that they might have life, and that more abundantly!". His guarantee for that Life, however, became the most counterintuitive act of all history; the crucifixion.

"Butcher Me! Ravage My body with your most efficient rakes of hate and after you do your bloody best, stake Me to a tree and hang Me out to dry. With your most important governmental prowess, seal My carcass in a dank death chamber. I will allow you 3 days to enjoy your arrogance......and then, I swear to you out of My Father's integrity, I will reject your offer to stay dead and explode up out of the dirt! A new kind of Life will be the harvest of your deed."

Jesus told His befuddled huddle of 12 that He would be butchered but live again. He told them straight out, that because He would Live again, they, and we too, would Live. Can you see their deaf and dumb faces nodding an oblivious affirmation? That Gomer Pyle, mouth hanging open, drool dripping "Yes sir, Sergeant" look? More importantly, do you see our very same obtuse response? We too, are a befuddled huddle.

That is, until somebody, anybody jumps out of the crowds and stadiums and parades to nowhere and screams, "Now, with God's help, I shall LIVE and become myself!" Christ awaits a people in every generation whose honest hunger outweighs the sedatives of their culture. His Resurrection, for them is far more than a line in their doctrinal pledge of allegiance. His resurrection is the power to finally, by the grace of God, become my truest, real self.

Hallelujah, Christ is Risen! And, hallelujah, SO AM I!