If Christ is Not Risen . . . . . .

I hear people say – “Even if Jesus did not rise from the dead, the Christian life would still be the very best way to live.”  That is not what Paul said in I Corinthians 15:19 – he said; “If Christ is not risen from the dead… we are the most miserable people in the world!”  If Christ is not risen from the dead – we Christians have nothing to live for!  If Christ is not risen from the dead, the church has nothing to offer!  If Christ is not risen from the dead, all we have hoped for is a sham!  If Christ is not risen, I am a most miserable wretch! We have hope and meaning only if Christ is risen!  Our life, our purpose, our hope, our forgiveness, our joy is to be found ONLY in Him!

Wait and Do Not Grow Weary

Mary. That is all He said. But before He speaks her name, Jesus is deliberately hiding from Her. Mary Magdalene has gone to the tomb where the crucified Savior was placed, but He is not there - where is He? She was on a quest to find Him, and yet He hid - why? This seems an unloving and strange thing that Jesus did. What was He doing? It seems at times, in our relating to Him, that Jesus is hiding - and indeed we see here, in John chapter 20, at times, He is. He could have quickly spoken - he could have alleviated her anxiety right away, but He did not.   We see upon the very pages of our Bibles that when relating to those whom He loved, Jesus often left space.

Frankly - I do not like the space, space renders me feeling full of uncertainty and ambiguity, I feel forgotten and alone, I feel overcome and desperate, full of anxiety and fear. I do not like that. And yet, there is an intentionality in Christ to leave His disciples exactly there, with no sense of His nearness. Please know that our experiences and circumstances are not always the best indicators of our reality - - we must know that Jesus is always near! Jesus was near to Mary Magdalene. He was watching, but at times He leaves us feeling that He is not.

It is in these moments of life that we truly get to Know Jesus - and ourselves - simultaneously. Here we see the veracity of our faith. Will we wait for Him? Will we long for Him? Will we trust Him? Or will we run to fill that space with some cheap substitute? Sometimes we are faithful and sometimes we are not.  We learn also about Jesus in the space - He is always faithful, and He is always training our hearts to trust and love Him, and He does in deed work everything to our good - even hard things.

Do not fear the spaces - know that Jesus uses them with great purposefulness!  Wait and do not grow weary - and from his lips we will hear the most precious and beautiful thing we will ever hear - our own names - as he beckons our eyes and our hearts to behold Him!

 May God teach our hearts to wait and to not grow weary. 

What Does it Mean to be Blessed?

What Does it Mean to be “Blessed?”  The life of Moses has an answer to this question.  Moses was raised in the Palace of Egypt surrounded by all the wealth and power and prestige of being a part of the Royal family of that great nation – but, that is not why we may say that Moses was blessed.  In fact, at 40 years old, Moses lost all of this.  A sudden calamity meant he had to leave Egypt and all the benefits of his place in the Palace.  From the Palace, Moses was forced to support himself by raising sheep!  This was of great insult to his Egyptian upbringing, Shepherds were despised and looked down upon – most were slaves.

For 40 years he experienced life at it best – but then he was humbled over the next 40 years to endure life at its hardest.  Now certainly from a “worldly” point of view, we may think this was a demotion in life for Moses, but it was not, in fact, the events of these 40 years were for Moses the re-education of his affections – to teach him to love God more than power, prestige and possessions.  As a result – for the next 40 years of his life – Moses experienced God as nobody else ever known Him.

After all of these diverse experiences, Moses became an expert at defining what it means to be blessed.  We find Moses’ conclusion of the matter in Deuteronomy 33.  Moses said the greatest blessing in life is to know God Himself, and then he asked the people that he was now leading in verse 29, “Who is like you? A People saved by The Lord?”

We are blessed when we are saved!  It is worth letting that word sink in - - - “Saved!”  In Christ, you are not left with merely a chance at being saved, but by faith in His work on the Cross – you are saved.  Romans puts your new condition in Christ like this: “There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”  That is what it means to be blessed.