Threads – Part 1

But there’s something more in the book that gets me. I love all that other stuff, but what really gets me is how the community goes from a rag-tag group of misfits to a group of people that change the face of Rome. In no time, the followers of Jesus go beyond preaching to fishes and start having members of the Emperors own family in their midsts – worshipping! They go from hiding in a room on Easter Morning to meeting daily in the Temple and getting arrested, jailed, persecuted and martyred.

What would cause a bunch of mostly un-educated, illiterate country bumpkins to stand up to their leaders in such a way? Last Sunday, I heard my Sr. Pastor mention a debate he had had with a fellow educator at a Christian College. The debate was about the physical resurrection of Jesus. My Pastor’s “opponent” believed that the resurrection was strictly metaphorical – it didn’t really happen, but over time it became the reality of the believers. I tend to land on the side of my Pastor in response – NOT a chance!

No, I believe that it would take far more than a nice metaphorical lie to make grown men and women to do some of the things that they did in the Book of Acts. In my heart of hearts, I just don’t even see the remotest of possibilities that these early followers didn’t truly believe that Jesus had tangibly and physically been raised from the dead. They believed it so much that they “willingly” went from terrified in an upper room to standing in the middle of the city (the very one that Jesus had just been crucified in) declaring that Jesus was indeed the Messiah.

Last week, we celebrated the Resurrection of the Messiah. People poured into churches all across this country and sang songs like “Christ the Lord is Risen Today” or ended with Handel’s Messiah or a million other declarations of this truth. But, how many will be back this week? How many of our churches were filled with people who won’t come back and weren’t changed by a single word that was shared? I watched one guy play solitaire and eat a pack of cookies during worship and our church isn’t one of those bring your own coffee and doughnuts on into worship with you kinda churches. How did the story affect him or the countless others – you and ME? How did I leave worship on Easter Sunday any different than when I entered? Did I encounter the resurrected Christ for real – not the metaphorical one, but the REAL one?

That same call and opportunity is given to us just as it was to those first followers. It may be a little more difficult to see him than it was for Peter, Mary Magdalene and John, but we still can encounter Him. I’d like to invite all of us to stop and ask when was the last time we did that? If it’s been a while or it’s just been a couple hours, take some time today, this evening to stop and pause and think on this resurrected one. Read John 20-21 and Acts 1-3 sometime soon and who knows, maybe one day soon we’ll be talking about the Acts of the Holy Spirit In YOU.?!