Faith Works 4-27-19

Faith Works 4-27-19

Jeff Gill

 

Resurrection isn't over

___

 

In the wake of Easter, it has to be said.

 

It's not all about resurrection. Not really.

 

And I'm not talking about the "who knows?" said by some progressive critics of Easter faith about what happens when you die, but about Jesus, and his resurrection.

 

Keep in mind, he'd already raised up Lazarus from death, right? John, chapter 11? And then you get Peter raising Dorcas from her deathbed; Paul runs out in the street to raise up a young fellow who had the nerve to fall asleep on him named Eutychus, having fallen three floors out of a windowsill during a sermon in Acts 20.

 

Further back in the Bible, Elijah raises up the widow's son in I Kings 17; in II Kings 4, Elisha raises up the Shunammite's son. I'm just saying, resurrection is not an event unique to the end of the Gospels.

 

What made the resurrection of Jesus unique was not simply coming back from death, it was that THIS person, who died under THOSE circumstances, would be among those who rose again from the dead. Resurrection was not considered out of the bounds of possibility for the Roman pantheon, the Greek gods of Olympus or their adherents, or even in Judaism of Jesus' day. But for a shameful death, an execution of a criminal on a cross, to result in the glory of live restored at God's own command, THAT is what was amazing, and hard for many to accept.

 

Even today, we find many who have had their hearts stop, their breathing paused, but who come back to us from medical procedures or emergency events. We can say "well, they weren't really dead." Maybe so. I've been under anesthetic almost a dozen times, and I have no recollection of what it was like to be "gone." But I was. I could have gone on, but I didn't. Others have been . . . well, they make movies about it these days, I'm told.

 

What put Jesus in a different category was that he was tried, condemned, executed, mocked and shamed in his dying, placed between two thieves, not two candles, and unceremoniously put in a borrowed tomb. Of all those God in power and authority had chosen to bring back from death, Jesus was not on the list as we understood the criteria. If this Jesus was the Christos, the Messiah, the Anointed of the Lord, he might die and come back, but in battle, in combat, in struggle, perhaps in peace and prayer, but . . . on a cross? A gibbet? An execution platform? A gallows? From a lynching tree? Upon a mark of shame and guilt?

 

Warriors came back, Hercules came back, Orpheus returned, some said Augustus Caesar or Nero might be lifted up from death into life eternal, but law breakers and rebels and temple desecrators . . . no. Not such as that. Valhalla or Olympus or Dephi might see life restored to a human hero, but a garden tomb next to a trash dump adjoining an execution ground? No.

 

The resurrection of Jesus Christ was remarkable, and the good news of his restoration to life resisted, because of the circumstance, not the possibility itself. The Bible is full of strange stories, yet no stranger than most of our evening local news; what makes "Christ is risen" an epoch changing proclamation is how he died, not that he died.

 

And if a shameful death could be transformed by God into new life, then what, exactly, might be redeemed? Almost anything, you might think. There have to be limits to God's love, right? It's not like anyone could be forgiven. You wouldn't want to say the Lord would forgive any sin, would you?

 

Unless the cross means exactly what it appears to mean. That the love of God and the grace and peace of our Lord are intended for anyone at all. And that the power of resurrection is still at work, even now.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; tell him about where you've seen new life breaking forth at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.