Since the beginning of the year, I have conducted an unusual number of funerals. Each family represented various stages of grief, shock and pain. As pastor, my chief role is to bring hope and comfort. Jesus’ words, “let not your heart be troubled…neither let it be afraid,” are words from Heaven itself. However, Jesus predicated the “comfort and peace” of the heart with “belief.” He said, “You believe in God, believe also in Me”…
For some, those words were as I hoped they would be, comforting. For others they were words of bewilderment at least, or fear at worst. At each of the “gravesides,” I admonished all to believe their beliefs and if unsure of their beliefs, to search for, and examine them.
I have thought a lot about those moments as time has distanced me from the actual event. What I find alarming is a prevailing attitude in the culture I would call indifference. Defined: a lack of compulsion to or toward one thing or another.
We are closing in on Resurrection Sunday, and I would like to challenge us to examine what we believe. Someone once told C.S. Lewis, they “liked” Jesus. He responded, “That is impossible.” You either love Him, or hate Him, but you don’t like Him. The context of that conversation was in Lewis’s famous “Liar, Lunatic, or Lord Commentary after he read the gospels.
This Sunday we celebrate Jesus’ resurrection, of which Paul says, “If Christ not be raised our faith is in vain.” It is unlike anything before or since, or ever will be. But it is so much more…
It is the story of God Himself, the “uncreated creator” not only stepping into His creation but dying to rescue and restore it. Jesus is the One who said he preexisted, “before Abraham was I AM,” and “I will come again and judge the living and the dead.” He didn’t say those statements as a mere man heading up a “new movement” to reform the ancient political world.
Case in point. Easter is not just a religious story celebrated or not. Indifference is a slow seduction with hopeless consequences. Know your beliefs, before you need them!
Let me invite you to our Good Friday Service at 6:30 p.m.and Easter Sunday Worship Celebration at 10:15 a.m.
Blessings to All
Pastor Greg
0 Comments