The story of Christianity, the very heart and essence of the religion, is a tale of transformation from all the obstacles, impediments, and barriers which confine or cripple. The person and work of Jesus accomplished this. In his earthly ministry, Christ continually called people to transformative change into the reality of God’s gracious and benevolent realm.
“I have come to give the good life, a life that overflows with beauty and harmony.”
Jesus (John 10:10, First Nations Version)
Christ’s resurrection made possible our own transformative new life. This is both exciting and scary. Resurrection is frightening because it’s a call to live a life without any of the walls which have defined us and/or imprisoned us.
The massive stone covering the tomb of Jesus Christ was rolled away. He walked out of the grave by the power of resurrection. The cave of death was changed into the place of liberation.
That place is a powerful image of moving aside any and all obstacles to our own faith and freedom. The prison doors have been opened. Our self-contrived inner prisons, as well as the unjust shackles placed upon us, have dropped away.
As a result, those who have been exiled, excommunicated, and treated as expendable are visited by the luminous healing presence of God’s great liberating force: resurrection.
I want to fully know the Chosen One [Jesus] and the power that raised him from the dead. I want to know what it means to participate in his sufferings and to become like him in his death, living in the hope that, like the Chosen One, I will also rise from death to life. (Philippians 3:10-11, First Nations Version)
All of these words may either seem strange and/or compelling. If this is the case, it is a sad situation. Because it’s quite necessary that we become familiar with such language. Unfortunately, the gap between the world we are presently living in, and the world our hearts yearn to know, is quickly coming to an unsustainable place of high stress.
There is now a profound disconnect between the love deep inside us, and the way in which we are living our day-to-day lives on this earth. The issue has become so great as to warrant the need for resurrection.
And I am not simply addressing Christians. In his earthly ministry, Jesus was not only talking to his own Jewish people; he came for the whole world. Jesus is for everyone – whether we acknowledge him according to Christian dogma and doctrine, or not.
The evil gaslighting sort of person wants you to believe that you are alone, bereft of any help – that somehow you need to assert yourself aggressively into the dog-eat-dog world. Wickedness always looks to chaos and war as the path to gaining the life one wants.
But Jesus is the bridge to another kind of thinking, another sort of life. He is the guide to the greatest power which exists in the world: Love. And Love is why resurrection is a reality.
Although we suffer from systemic evil and all kinds of structural “ism’s” in this world, our shackles and chains have been largely forged by ourselves, through spiritual ignorance and misunderstandings of who we are and why we are here.
Resurrection opens us to new life. It provides identity, purpose, and passion to live the good life. Even though we live in this world below, our answers to living in the here-and-now are found in the world above.
Since you have been raised up to a new life with the Chosen One [Jesus] then keep looking upward toward him into the spirit-world above, where he sits in the place of greatest honor at Creator’s right hand. Keep your thoughts and desires centered on the spirit-world above, not on the things from the earth below. (Colossians 3:1-2, First Nations Version)
All of us have experienced walking a dark path in life. But now it is high time to walk away from uncontrolled emotions and evil ways. There are plenty of lying spirits who intend on deceiving you and I for their own selfish purposes. Instead, we can refuse and resist such evil.
We can live in ways that represent the good, the right, and the just. We can experience living a resurrected life. Let us choose the pure path of the new person in Christ, the person you and I were created to be.
The telltale signs of the person living into resurrection are a deep feeling for the pain of others, kindness, humility of heart, a gentle spirit, and long-suffering patience with others. Such persons wear forgiveness like a well-worn pair of jeans.
This is the path of resurrection, the way of unity, peace, and harmony. And these qualities will always guide us and inform us in helpful and sacred ways.
Our current global decline comes from an accumulation of greed and sheer lovelessness. But the possibility of rebirth, of resurrection, rises from our deep universal yearning for the good and the true. It comes from our radical willingness to change and live a different counter-cultural life.
Resurrection does not occur because of lofty thoughts; it comes from a humble, and contrite heart which yearns for a better and more sacred existence.
Only until we find our present life on this world as intolerable with its injustice and persistent carelessness, will we see that we must put love where love is not.
The great lesson of resurrection is that Love makes all things right.
Dear friends, let’s love each other, because love is from God, and everyone who loves is born from God and knows God. The person who doesn’t love does not know God, because God is love. This is how the love of God is revealed to us: God has sent his only Son into the world so that we can live through him. (1 John 4:7-9, Common English Bible)
May resurrection move from being merely a theological concept, to a powerful reality that permeates and fills your life with meaning, power, and love. Amen.
Rev. Tim Ehrhardt 