Living the resurrection
When you think about it, the resurrection of Jesus is a pretty unbelievable story. A lot of my friends told me about their Easter services and about what their preachers preached. One I liked was about doubting your doubts. This is pretty true when it comes to the resurrection. It doesn’t appear that anyone believed Jesus was alive on that early morning. The report was that Jesus body was gone and no one knew where it was taken.
After the initial shock, Jesus appears to Mary. She runs to tell the others about it. Mark 16.12 says that they didn’t believe her. The Bible says that even when the disciples finally see him, some doubted (Matthew 28.17). Even seeing Jesus was not enough to make them change their minds. This is an unbelievable story. It was unbelievable then, it is unbelievable now. But it happened.
We spend a lot to time trying to convince people about the reality of the resurrection. We try to use logic, the Bible, and other historical witnesses to get people to believe that the resurrection happened. I don’t know that this really works.
This is a lot like the story of “Horton Hears a Who!” Horton is an elephant that hears some voices coming from a speck of dust. He actually hears their voices. The problem is that he is the only one that can hear it. Everyone else thinks Horton is crazy. And yet, Horton hears them and knows that he knows that he knows they are real. Horton tells the Whos that they are in danger and they need to make themselves known to the animals in Horton’s world. Every Who starts yelling, “We’re here! We’re here! We’re here!” Every voice is important to make the animals in Horton’s world hear the Whos.
All around us God is trying to make himself known. The Godhead is announcing “We’re here! We’re here! We’re here!” We catch a whisper of it when we serve others. We hear a whisper when we feed the hungry and clothe the naked. We can hear it faintly when we see a sunset or hear a baby laughing. We hear it when we see people in love. But they are only whispers. It’s not loud enough for the world to hear.
What we need to make the resurrection real to people is to live like people who believe it is real. Every voice is important. Every voice is needed. What would happen if we all decided to put our petty differences aside and actually serve the people around us? What would happen if the world around us saw all of our churches serving our communities out of love, with no expectations of getting anything back? What would happen? They would hear heaven shouting, “You are loved! You are loved! You are loved!”
I think the people would begin to hear the truth of the resurrection. They would begin to hear, “He’s alive! He’s alive! He’s alive!” We, all of us, the Baptists, Methodists, Catholics, Lutherans, Nazarenes, Brethren, Presbyterians, Assemblies of God, Episcopalians, and everyone else need to work together to announce the reality of the resurrection. If we would do that, amazing things would happen.
All of the sudden, out of nowhere, the world would hear in our loving actions that Jesus is indeed alive. He is risen! He is alive! He is here! Will you join me in announcing the unbelievable? Will you help me make the resurrection real by loving everyone and everything like Jesus loves? None of us can do it alone. It will take all of us to make the voice of heaven heard. I can’t wait to hear it, can you?