In the face of very real dangers in our world, the Church can not afford an anemic teleology or a pitiable theology of destruction and decline. In fact, on this side of the Cross and Resurrection of Christ a demand from Heaven has been put upon the people of God to be laudably and heroically optimistic out of the detonation of the Resurrection!
Jesus’ resurrection is either an anecdotal historical event for my personal future pleasure, insuring my escape from this blue planet roasted to ashes by God’s fury….OR…
The Resurrection of Jesus Christ is an ongoing event with an invitation for the faith full person to hungrily reach for its intrinsic calamitous force of life to be practically applied to every day living with every ordinary footstep! The revelation that Jesus staged a jail break from the prison of the pessimistic cycle of the walking dead reverses all need for doom to dominate our voices! “He is risen, indeed!” yearns for expression to resonate through every word we put into the atmosphere.
“Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruit” (Proverbs 18:21) sets an astonishing banquet for a spiritual feast at the appearance of Jesus to His disciples after His resurrection in John 20:21-23. In that account, Jesus passes through a locked door, invites the disciples to inspect His physical wounds, speaks “Peace”, breathes the Holy Spirit on them all and says, “If you forgive the sins of any, their sins have been forgiven them: if you retain the sins of any, they have been retained.”
In other words, take a long hard look at the butchery of what is a most unforgiveable deed—the crucifixion of Jesus. Soak it in and then get this revelation in your heart: Resurrection trumped injustice! NOW, get blasted with the Holy Spirit and move out through society with the power to forgive. And not just in the metaphoric sense of spreading good feelings, but in the transcending force of the immaterial world pounding into oblivion the treachery of sin. SET THE WORLD FREE!
Don’t waste your energy on storing food for calamity. Spend your faith in an exhaustive feeding of the world with amazing grace! Don’t give your mind to the zombie virus of “The End is Near”. The outbreak of radiant healing is ours for the release of captive brains and broken hearts! Don’t fall prey to the oldest rip-off of religious prediction societies when they chortle over disasters and human misery. Our new found life vigor must now be lavishly spent in proclaiming, “release to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are downtrodden, to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord.” (Luke 4:18,19).
The narrative of Luke 9:51-56 always makes me smile. The disciples are strutting a bit of power obsession when they ask Jesus if He would like for them to call fire down to consume some bad people. The mix of this exchange is both silly and sobering. It is so close to home for us. Jesus simply replies (my interpretation), “What? Are you in any way aware of the spirit you are dipped in when you talk smack like that? I’m not here to roast people…I’m here to restore people!”
I wonder if we know what spirit we are dipped in when it is easier to believe for judgment and collapse? On the other hand, it is a far greater challenge to believe for a Holy Spirit baptism with true grit faith for restoration and resuscitation. One nuance of the Greek meaning for resurrection is, “to stand up again”. Jesus stood up for all humankind. He beckons us to join Him in standing up with Him for our world.
It is time to be THE LIVING for the sake of our time and for the Glory of God!
