Right Game, Wrong Clothes
Most of us have great memories from our youth where we dreamed of emulating our favorite sports heroes. Who doesn't wanna aspire to play baseball like a Barry Bonds, basketball like LeBron James, hockey like Wayne Gretzgi, or football like Tom Brady?
Pass any park on a beautiful Saturday afternoon and you're likely to see a bunch of kids tossing a football around, running plays, and tackling each other to the ground like the Superbowl championship was at stake.
Maybe for Christmas or your birthday one year, your parents bought you a football uniform, complete with helmet, pads, and a jersey and pants from your favorite team. You'd have looked like a regular little football player.
Eventually, though, you'd have likely discovered that a football uniform does not make one a football player!!! You can't just dress up and make it so.
Some of us sitting in church pews today are not so unlike those young kids dressing up like their sports heroes. We want to be Christian. We wanna be a good Christian, maybe even a great one.
We come to church each Sunday dressed in our Sunday best. We carry our Bibles or our iPads with the latest Bible app. We maybe even mount the stage to lead songs of worship and praise.
We do all of the expected things of a church goer. But just as the old saying goes: Just because a mouse is in the cookie jar, it doesn’t make the mouse a cookie!!!
The only way we can be properply suited up for this thing we call the Christian life is to have a personal RELATIONSHIP with Jesus Christ the Risen Savior through faith in Him and His completed work on our behalf!
Don't show up to the right game in the wrong clothes. We need to be clothed in HIS righteousness alone!
"I delight greatly in the LORD; my soul rejoices in my God. For he has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of his righteousness, as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels" (Isaiah 61:10, NIV).
"God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God" (2 Corinthians 5:21, NIV).
It Isn't Nonsense
Definition Fish Story:
An exaggerated story : a story that is so strange or surprising that it seems very unlikely to be true. He told a ridiculous fish story about a swarm of giant mosquitoes.
Well, I've got quite a Fish Story for you! A true Fish Story.
A child of an aqcaintance, a kindergartener, is given to telling tall tales. Recently, he told a story to his classmates about catching 100 catfish in his back yard, some of them with his own bare hands. When his teacher questioned him about it, he insisted it was all true.
So the teacher decided to take it up with his mother, expecting her to refute the story. Instead, the mom said it was a crazy, true thing, and even had some pictures with him holding a catfish in his hands and grinning from ear to ear.
Apparently, where they live there are two ponds on a hill just behind their property, one situated just above the other. Recently, after some extreme rainfalll, the upper pond overflowed its banks, spilling over and downhill to the second, already swollen pond, which in turn then overflowed into their back yard, turning the entire yard into a two to three inch deep mud puddle full of catfish. Okay, so mayber there weren't a hundred fish flapping about in the yard, but there were many, MANY fish there -- enough that, to a young child, would appear to be a hundred.
To the ears of the teacher, who did not with her own eyes witness the event, his story sounded like nonsense.
Surely, as the women returned from the tomb that first Easter morning, proclaiming the news of the resurrected Lord, their claims were met with incredulity -- a mere Fish Story -- baseless fantasy. As the definition goes, to the recipients of the news, it was nothing more than "an exaggerated story : a story that is so strange or surprising that it seems very unlikely to be true."
Luke 24 (NIV):
On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. 2 They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, 3 but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. 4 While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them. 5 In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? 6 He is not here; he has risen! Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee: 7 ‘The Son of Man must be delivered over to the hands of sinners, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.’ ” 8 Then they remembered his words.
9 When they came back from the tomb, they told all these things to the Eleven and to all the others. 10 It was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the others with them who told this to the apostles. 11 But they did not believe the women, because their words seemed to them like nonsense.
Oh, but it WAS true! And anyone with enough curiosity, who cared to know its veracity, could check it out and see for themselves. Such was the case with Peter,
Peter, however, got up and ran to the tomb. Bending over, he saw the strips of linen lying by themselves, and he went away, wondering to himself what had happened.
In a world of skeptics, be a Peter. Run to the tomb to see for yourself!
Easter Without Good Friday
I'm sure you're familiar with the phrase, "Sunday is coming!" It has become a popular saying in the church in recent years, often associated with Easter. "It's Friday, but Sunday is coming!"
While the sentiment is appreciated, it's imperative for us to not overlook the significance of Good Friday.
To illustrate this, think of the symbolism of a cancer patient "ringing the bell" at the oncologist's office, signifying the end of a long and difficult cancer treatment journey. The celebratory act of ringing the bell wouldn't hold any significance without the challenging and painful experience of treatment; the ringing of the bell essentially proclaims that the treatment is over, done, and complete.
Easter Sunday is a core Christian belief; it signifies Jesus' resurrection, proving His divinity and victory over death (Romans 6:4; 14:9).
However, to reach Sunday, we must first acknowledge Friday. Jesus' death and burial hold their own meaning, and understanding that is crucial to fully appreciating the Easter message.
Jesus did what he needed to do - not for Himself, but rather for us. Only us. Consider this powerful prophetic scripture from the eighth century BC. Although it is indeed eloquent, it is full of significant truth.
But he was pierced for our transgressions;
he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
and with his wounds we are healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have turned – every one – to his own way;
and the LORD has laid on him
the iniquity of us all. - Isaiah 53:5-6
Pause with me and consider the descriptive words: pierced, crushed, chastised, and not to mention wounded.
As we all gather in our church homes on Good Friday to “celebrate” the piercing, let's likewise look forward to the healing, and prepare to ring the bell of salvation on Sunday morning!