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!”