Resurrection and Presence

I liked this prayer from A Prayer For Everyday: April 17, "My risen Lord, let me experience the power of the resurrection. Raise me above the turmoil of the world. Raise me up to a heavenly life so that I may be a blessing to others. Amen."

Here are my choices for lectionary words for April 19-25.

Monday Acts 4:5-12        name

Tuesday  Psalm 23:1-4     shepherd

Wednesday Psalm 23:5-6  overflows

Thursday  I John 3:16-18   children

Friday   I John 3:19-24       truth

Saturday  John 10:11-18   lay down

Sunday  Jeremiah 45         life

From the John 10 passage on Saturday verse 18 reminded me of a sermon I preached years ago. Jesus is speaking about his life, "No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again. I have received this command from my Father." The cross of Jesus, for Jesus was a choice matter. Jesus chose to lay down his life for the sin and salvation of the world. So for us any cross we bear is to be a choice matter also. This means for us that most of the time we talk about bearing a cross in our life it is not really a cross because it usually is not something we chose but rather has happened to us (think disease, sorrow, accident, loss, failure, burden, etc.). These are surely trials, tribulations, difficulties, and challenges but not really crosses. For some reason that teaching has stuck with me. Jesus teaches elsewhere that we are "to take up our cross and follow him" so there are times when we choose a cross for the well-being and good of others. Jesus' choice of the cross was not for himself but for the salvation of others, for you and for me.

The Spiritual Formation Bible in a side note says this about the John 10 passage:

"Jesus is the Good Shepherd. The shepherd cares for you. He knows your name. He will protect you and guard you from those who want to destroy you. And he knows the path that lies ahead of you. That path may be green pastures or dark valleys but Jesus is there with you."

The Resurrection

WE CAN SAY THAT the story of the Resurrection means simply that the teachings of Jesus are immortal like the plays of Shakespeare or the music of Beethoven and that their wisdom and truth will live on forever. Or we can say that the Resurrection means that the spirit of Jesus is undying, that he himself lives on among us, the way that Socrates does, for instance, in the good that he left behind him, in the lives of all who follow his great example. Or we can say that the language in which the Gospels describe the Resurrection of Jesus is the language of poetry and that, as such, it is not to be taken literally but as pointing to a truth more profound than the literal. Very often, I think, this is the way that the Bible is written, and I would point to some of the stories about the birth of Jesus, for instance, as examples; but in the case of the Resurrection, this simply does not apply because there really is no story about the Resurrection in the New Testament. Except in the most fragmentary way, it is not described at all. There is no poetry about it. Instead, it is simply proclaimed as a fact. Christ is risen! In fact, the very existence of the New Testament itself proclaims it. Unless something very real indeed took place on that strange, confused morning, there would be no New Testament, no Church, no Christianity.      Yet we try to reduce it to poetry anyway: the coming of spring with the return of life to the dead earth, the rebirth of hope in the despairing soul. We try to suggest that these are the miracles that the Resurrection is all about, but they are not. In their way they are all miracles, but they are not this miracle, this central one to which the whole Christian faith points.      Unlike the chief priests and the Pharisees, who tried with soldiers and a great stone to make themselves as secure as they could against the terrible possibility of Christ's really rising again from the dead, we are considerably more subtle. We tend in our age to say, "Of course, it was bound to happen. Nothing could stop it." But when we are pressed to say what it was that actually did happen, what we are apt to come out with is something pretty meager: this "miracle" of truth that never dies, the "miracle" of a life so beautiful that two thousand years have left the memory of it undimmed, the "miracle" of doubt turning into faith, fear into hope. If I believed that this or something like this was all that the Resurrection meant, then I would turn in my certificate of ordination and take up some other profession. Or at least I hope that I would have the courage to. Fredrick Buechner  All Is Well   ANXIETY AND FEAR are what we know best in this fantastic century of ours. Wars and rumors of wars. From civilization itself to what seemed the most unalterable values of the past, everything is threatened or already in ruins. We have heard so much tragic news that when the news is good we cannot hear it.    But the proclamation of Easter Day is that all is well. And as a Christian, I say this not with the easy optimism of one who has never known a time when all was not well but as one who has faced the Cross in all its obscenity as well as in all its glory, who has known one way or another what it is like to live separated from God. In the end, his will, not ours, is done. Love is the victor. Death is not the end. The end is life. His life and our lives through him, in him. Existence has greater depths of beauty, mystery, and benediction than the wildest visionary has ever dared to dream. Christ our Lord has risen. Fredrick Buechner