Friday, April 22, 2011

Jesus: Dead or Alive

Slip out of time with me and consider:
Jesus is dead.

Crucifixion will do that.

But it was just his body that died.

Just?

I don’t know too many people who aren’t doing everything they can to protect their bodies from death. Most of us try to avoid it at all cost, sometimes at great cost.

Jesus did not. He gave his body.

But all things are possible, right? Isn’t that what the angel told Jesus' mother 33 years earlier? She proved it to be true when she believed the message, conceived the word, and bore a child.

Imagine how thrilled she must have been when her boy made water jars pour out wine, and blind men see the light, and crippled children dance. She must have thought Yes! when he rode into town through cheering crowds. All things are indeed possible!

Yet what did she think at Golgotha where a cross bore her babe and his hands poured out blood and the demons danced? O God, this can’t be possible!

Was his death the finale of her faith?

What of the promise?

What of the miracles?

What of that great, cheering crowd?

Yet, don’t we respond the same way during our darkest days of entombment?

“Everything was going so well.”

“I was so close to victory!”

“What happened?”

“Did I miss God?”

And then the third day dawned. Morning and men found the tomb empty. Jesus’ body was gone - walking gone. Instilled anew with life.

Indeed, all things are possible.

And we, like his mother and others across the ages, cry, “Jesus is alive!”

Saturday, April 9, 2011

TMI!

Too much information. The clamor is killing me!

I want to run screaming from my computer and all the visual noise of earthquakes, floods, budgets, celebrity divorces and over-paid athletes. Will it never end?

As a matter of fact, it will. As soon as I turn off the Internet, the television and the radio, and put down the newspaper.

So this morning I picked up my Bible and began reading Psalm 46.

“God is our refuge and strength ...” Ah, yes, this is what I need. But soon the turmoil came: the earth gave way, mountains fell into the sea, the waters roared and foamed, mountains quaked with the surging.

Oh my gosh, Japan! And every other place that has ever been racked by earthquakes.

I kept reading, and for a brief interlude saw a peaceful river flowing through the City of God before things churned up again. Destruction brought images of Libya, Sudan, Egypt and Afghanistan, but God stepped in to break the bow and shatter the spear, and burn the shields with fire.

And there was the answer: “Be still, and know that I am God.”

Could this be what I need, to simply still my heart and the noise in my life? Could these old, old words apply even to my modern life?

Regardless of what nature sends, regardless of how men and nations boast and threaten and stage themselves, God is still God.

He is still there.

Still waiting for me.

Still.

And when I still myself, I hear him.