At Easter we celebrate the empty tomb, the risen Lord, the resurrection life and I wonder…
I wonder what this means for us here, in this place, in the 21st centurty. Somehow it seems to me that what we choose to think about Christ’s resurrection power will fundamentally alter every aspect of our lives.
Thursday I attended a funeral for a man who was full of love and grace. I never knew him when he was a preacher but as I sat there listening to the CV of his life I found myself wanting to hear instead the story of how he became full of the love and grace of the living Lord. I wanted to hear the stories of the lives that were changed through this man’s relationship with Jesus.
Is this transformation power a one-off event relevant only 2,000 years ago? is it a momentary event, a one-off for each one of us or is it a filling up again and again, brought on by a relationship that takes us from here to God’s eternal throne?
This is about relationships. This is about encounter. Do you have a story to tell? Does Jesus live today?
Recently I was working with someone and I was finding it very hard going. I had my heart and mind fully focused on what I thought was best for the organisation but somehow this one individual was, after a year of effort, standing in the way of what had been agreed between fellow members of the committee. Whatever I said was taken the wrong way, whatever help was offered was ignored, there was nothing that was working here. It came to a head one day when I met her unexpectedly and was given a line of complete innocence on her part but the poison was heavy in the air. After all the hard work and trying and failed attempts at getting things to happen here, I just really couldn’t formulate an adequate response to this encounter but the poison just swirled around and would not leave. This was a Friday. By Sunday, I felt heavy and weighed down. I led the prayers in the service that morning and nothing was better. No amount of prayer had alleviated this horrible viral poison expanding at an ever greater rate. I asked Mark at the end of the service to pray with me. I told him my story. Together we laid this burden before God. We asked God to nail it to the cross.
Immediately the transformation was miraculous. The poison was lifted. I walked out of the church and felt like I was walking on air, literally dancing in the clouds. God wasn’t prompting me to do anything. There was nothing I had done or could have done to have fixed this. This was entirely God. The poison never returned. The work that needed doing miraculously changed. Everything came together. The relationship has been healed and now this individual and I have lots of hugs. It is a total miracle.
Is Jesus alive today? You bet! How do I know it? He lives in me.