Easter
"Dead Jesus or Risen Christ?" (John 20:1-18)
Martin Luther once spent three days in a black depression over something
that had gone wrong. On the third day, his wife came downstairs dressed in mourning clothes. "Who's dead?" he asked her. "God,"
she replied. Luther rebuked her saying, "What do you mean, God is dead? God cannot die." "Well," she replied, "the way you've
been acting, I was sure He had!"
Many of us have been caught in that trap; this is also what had happened
to Mary Magdalene. Sometimes when our faith seems less real than it should, sometimes when the storm clouds of life seem just
too much to bear, sometimes when it seems as though we've been deserted by God, perhaps that's an appropriate time for us
to pause and reflect on what it is that we are seeking, the body of a dead Jesus or a relationship with the risen Christ.
It is recorded in verse 18, "Mary Magdalene went and announced
to the disciples, 'I have seen the Lord' . . ."
In that message of Mary, is the essence of Christianity. Consider this:
A Christian is one who has seen the Lord. Christianity does not mean knowing about Jesus; it means truely knowing Him.
Everyone has a choice to make: A dead Jesus or a risen Christ. But the
tomb is empty; Jesus is risen from the dead.
Sometimes, in our search for God's presence in our lives, what
we think we most want, we cannot have. What we get instead is an experience of God's unique way of working in the world; what
we get instead is the resurrection power of the Holy Spirit. And when those moments come, then we, like Mary, can't help but
spread the news: "I have seen the Lord!"
Whatever else the Easter season may mean for you, may it always
include the blessed assurance that the Lord we proclaim is real. As brothers and sisters in Christ we can in unison proclaim,
"I have seen the Lord!"
Pentecost
"The Good Samaritan" (Luke 10:25-37)
"What's yours is mine, if I decide to take it." The robbers
"What's mine is mine, if I decide to keep it." The priest
and Levite
"What's mine is yours, if you have need of it." The Samaritan
Remember again how this parable occured. A lawyer had asked Jesus,
"What must I do to inherit eternal life?" The parable flows from that question. Eternal life means the limitless life
that God intends for all his children, and that life begins in the here and now.
God is not impressed by how much we have, but only by how much we give--of
our resources and ourselves. Abundant life doesn't come to the selfish and the indifferent; it comes to the Good Samaritan
and those of like spirit. Jesus Christ is the Good Samaritan par excellence; emptied of life itself as "a ransom
for many." (Matt 20:28) As his disciples, we are both the recipients of, and the ambassadors for, abundant life.
"What's mine is your, if you need it" is God's thing.
We behold an empty cross as absolute proof of God's generosity to us. Abundantly; it is the way life is meant to be
lived. And those who are living this abundant life know with absolute certainty; even when it has empty pockets, it
is more joyous than robbers and misers can ever conceive.
