The Resurrection. Did it really happen? Is it a metaphor? What actually took place back then?

You would think we would hear more about the Resurrection. Really, compare the Christmas build up to Easter. If there’s no Resurrection, there’s no Christmas, right? But ask the world how they best know Christians and what’s the likely answer? Christmas? Culture wars? Easter? The Resurrection?

Then, when we finally, as the world, pay attention to the Resurrection, it’s through questions like the ones above. Was it real? Can we prove it? Is it true?

Asking about the truth of the Resurrection and looking back in history, is, in my mind, all wrong. The question, to me, isn’t whether it was true back then. The question is: ‘Is the Resurrection true now, today, in my life and in yours?’ If it isn’t true in our lives today, does what happened millennia ago really matter?

I hear your protest, “Of course it matters – what happened back then! If we don’t believe in Jesus, we’re not getting our sins forgiven; we’re not going to Heaven one day.”

I submit that that kind of thinking is part of the problem. “Back then” and “one day” seem to be our main points of reference in Christianity. But, I don’t believe that’s where Jesus wants us to focus – not back then or on some day. I believe that Jesus tells us that the time is now, the time, like the Kingdom of Heaven Jesus proclaims, is “at hand” – that means: right here – right now!

Think about Jesus’ conversation with the thief in Luke 23:42-43. There’s no “back then” or “one day.” The thief thinks there may be. “Remember me when you come into your Kingdom” (one day). Jesus clears up the confusion, replying, “Today you will be with me in Paradise. Not, “one day” but TODAY.

Resurrection means that Today, we can be with Jesus in paradise. Today we can live with Jesus in the Kingdom, not one day, not after we die, but today. If Resurrection is true, if the Kingdom is at hand, if sin, death and the Devil are overcome – if these are true, they must be true in us today. That is where and when we live Resurrection. That is where truth resides for each of us. That is the indwelling Spirit.

We pray: God, we ask you to open our eyes, our hearts, our minds, our lives, our now – to your Resurrection. Help us to stop clinging to the Fall, to the old Adam. Help us embrace, if only for a second, what your Resurrection is in our lives this second. And then Lord, turn seconds into minutes, minutes into hours, and hours into days throughout time in your eternal NOW – as we live in the Kingdom with you.

Read Colossians 3:1-11 with this prayer and the fruits of the prayer in mind. Change the time frame. Don’t “put to death” or seek “to get rid of” these “things” – see them for what they already are – dead, gone, echoes of time before Resurrection. Don’t cower in fear of God’s wrath, welcome the freedoms of Resurrection – the freedom to be in the Kingdom, having left death behind – the freedom to be with Jesus in paradise, now. Where is death for those whom God loves unconditionally? Praise be to God.  

Mike
Today’s reading: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Colossians+3%3A1-11&version=NRSV