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The Song of Resurrection Several years ago, a woman was cleaning her parakeet's cage when she accidentally sucked up the little guy with the vacuum cleaner. Absolutely horrified, she ripped open the machine and its bag, only to find her little Chippie stunned and shaken, but still alive. Chippie was absolutely filthy, so she rushed him to the kitchen faucet, and held him under the cold water until he was clean. Frantically, she ran to the bathroom and blasted him with the hair dryer. Needless to say, it was a very traumatic morning for Chippie the parakeet. A couple of days later, the woman's friend asked her, "How's Chippie doing now?" "Well," she answered, "Chippie doesn't sing much any more—he just sits and stares!" When you think about it, you will have to admit it is true—many people are a lot like Chippie. They have been so knocked around by the harried circumstances of life, that they don't "sing" much anymore. Our society has a way of keeping us so hectic, telling us that that is the only way to truly succeed, that we often spend a good portion of our time just trying to cope. Pressed down and stressed out, we often feel as though we have been knocked for a loop. Life is intended to be so much more than that—much more than sitting and staring and just coping. God has a song for you—a glorious song of resurrection! We must, first of all, admit it—we often feel as though the pressures of modern life have squeezed the song right out of us. This is graphically seen in the following prayer: "Dear Lord, So far today I've done all right. I haven't gossiped; I haven't lost my temper; I haven't been greedy, grumpy or nasty or selfish or overindulgent. I'm really glad about that…BUT, in a few minutes, O Lord, I'm going to get out of bed, and from then on, I'm going to need a lot more help! Thank you, Lord. Amen!" A similar dilemma is voiced in a recent "Peanuts" comic strip—Charlie Brown says to himself, "I can't believe it—our baseball season starts today, and we haven't lost yet. Of course, I haven't gotten out of bed yet, either." No matter how difficult and depressing we may think we have it, I dare to say that the first followers of Jesus had it much worse. They had been His close disciples and friends for over three years, and now He was gone. At this point, they had not understood any of His talk about resurrection, so they had every reason to be grieving and depressed. Life probably couldn't knock them around any more than this. And then it happened! Matthew 28:1 tells us, "In the end of the sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene, and the other Mary to see the sepulchre." Looking at all the accounts, you find that these women had absolutely no expectation of finding Jesus missing, let alone, risen from the dead. They came to see the tomb—grieving the death of their Lord, hoping to further anoint His body for burial. If there was any song in their beaten-up hearts, it was a funeral dirge. Then the earth shook violently and an angel descended from heaven and rolled away the huge stone from the opening of the grave, revealing it to be empty. The guards posted to stop any robbing of the tomb were terrified and fainted dead away. The angel, shining brighter than lightning, told the women, "Fear not ye; for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified. He is not here: for He is risen, as He said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay. And go quickly, and tell His disciples that He is risen from the dead; and behold, He goeth before you into Galilee; there shall ye see Him: lo, I have told you." (vss. 5,6,7) I believe that even this angel knew that "seeing" was absolutely crucial—he could tell them, and he must surely do that, but everyone would also need to see Him—really see Him for who He is! Yes, they would see the tomb empty, but before they got too far, they would also need to have a personal encounter with Jesus. "And they departed quickly from the sepulchre with fear and great joy; and did run to bring His disciples word…behold, Jesus met them, saying, All hail. And they came and held Him by the feet, and worshipped Him."(vss. 8,9) Yes, they ran with joy, but they were also filled with fear—it was terrific news, but was it too good to be true? Lately, they have had nothing but bad news—would their hopes and dreams be crushed again? I believe this is why Jesus appeared to them as soon as they left the empty tomb. Before they would even get to tell the disciples about it, they would need to be rock solid in the good news themselves—and so do we! John tells us that a little later in the morning, Jesus and Mary meet up again—"Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God."(20:17) This "touch", in the Greek, means to apply yourself and be connected to something. Now that sounds like a very good thing to do to the Lord, but it also implies a handling of an object in order to exert influence upon it. In other words, Mary was so thrilled to have Jesus back, she was trying to mold Him into what she wanted Him to be—not really seeing Him for who He really is. Today, the world is astir with books and movies about a romantic relationship between Jesus and Mary Magdalene, and the children they produced. It would be far better to believe the Bible's version—Jesus was her Lord and Savior, not her husband! And that will take a personal encounter, as well as a life-long experience of His sanctifying presence. People that concoct such "bunk", or even just believe it, evidently have neither. Recently, I read a story that illustrates the point—a man decided to take a short cut across a field. While en route, he fell into a deep pit, and even with all of his own strength, he could not get out. As he screamed for help, a pop psychologist passed by and said, "I feel your pain; it must be somebody else's fault." A religious legalist happened along and said, "Obviously, you are in sin, for bad things happen to bad people." A neurotic came along and said, "You think your pit is bad; you should see mine!" An optimist said, "Things could be worse," while the pessimist remarked, "Things will get worse." Soon, yet another man came along, and seeing the man's problem, reached down with strength and grace and pulled the man out of the pit. Later, the rescued man was asked, "Who was it who pulled you to safety?" "It was Jesus!" "Well, how do you know that?" "Oh, I know it," he said, "because of the nail-prints in His hands." God's redeeming love can be known in that it cost so much, as evidenced in the death of His only Son on the Cross, with the expressed purpose of taking away our sin and freeing us from its destructive power and bondage right now. God's redeeming love is only seen as we encounter Him through repentance, a cleansing from sin, and having a personal relationship. This is the resurrected life—right now! Every corner of society will have a different point of view, but none of them will bring true freedom to the spirit and a song to the heart. Only Jesus can do that, because only Jesus sees the problem—SIN! One day, an artist walked along the beach, pointing out to friends the things she was seeing on the horizon, in the waves, in the clouds, and in the textures and shadings of light. A little girl, playing in the sand nearby, overheard the amazing descriptions. She ran over and asked if she could invite her mother over there to hear as well. "It won't take me long," she said, "we live right over there!" "Oh, I'm sure your mother has seen this all before," responded the artist. "But not like this," said the little girl, "I want her to see it all through your eyes." Yes, wouldn't it be something if we would let Jesus show us how to see through His eyes? Missionaries Jonathan and Rosiland Goforth did just that—they saw thousands mightily saved in China, because Jesus saw them that way first. And they didn't stop there; the Goforth's also called them into a deeper walk with the Lord. Referring to this, he said, "That which weighed most heavily on the consciences of all was that we had so long been grieving the Holy Spirit by not giving Him His rightful place in our hearts and in our work. While believing in Him, we had not trusted in Him, to work in and through us." Perhaps the hardest part came when his home presbytery rejected the very same message! Paul echoes, "We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed; always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body." (2 Cor. 4:8-10) When we truly see Him for who He is, we are not reduced to sitting and staring like a beaten-up parakeet, but the song of resurrection fills our souls! Hallelujah—I know that my Redeemer lives; O the sweet joy this sentence gives!!! Copyright (c)
2006 Christ Our Rock Bible Church. |
