The Meaning of the Resurrection --- Keystone

[HKHaugan]

The Meaning of the Resurrection --- Keystone

Two psychiatrists walking down a hall in opposite directions. Each said good morning to the other and as they passed, each thought, “I wonder what he meant by that?” That pretty much sums up human experience. Without God we see everything about us, people, national and local issues, broken families, hurting individuals, and the world in chaos. Everyone to one degree or other is passing by and saying ‘I wonder what is really happening here?’ ‘Why is he or she so distant, angry, sad looking, happy, lost looking?’ ‘What kind of person do I tend to avoid the most?’ ‘Why can’t we all just get along?’

If we really get into ourselves we ask why is the world like it is? Why am I here? What’s it all about Alfie? Is that all there is? Is life what Elvis sang about, ending up at the end of lonely street in Heartbreak Hotel? Why all the suffering especially by good and innocent people? Why all the crime and violent demonstrations? Our final summation is always a personal one. This is what makes the Resurrection so vital, so critical, so monumental in each of us.

When you get right down to it, we, you and I, are our world and how we think about and act within it is personal. Being personal, individual and unique at that, is ultimately in our hands. How each one of us individually think about it, how we process it spiritually and emotionally requires truth, balanced response and confidence that who we are, what we are and how we react makes sense. Without God we are all alone making decisions based on momentary survival. No one ever gets it perfect. No one gets it really right. No one gets it done alone. And there is the key to why Jesus came. He came to enter our aloneness so that we know we are not alone. Jesus is all the things we need to live a real life. His Resurrection assures us of His presence and that all we need to be relational and productive spiritually is available in a relationship with Him. The essence that makes it possible is His Holy Spirit. The Spirit brings the faith of Jesus to us. His faith in us. Our resonse? Faith in Him in every next moment.

What Jesus has done in the Resurrection is to reorient everything with Him as the focus for all issues large and small, near and distant, communal and national and international.

First and foremost, the Resurrection makes Jesus the focus for everything we do, think and ponder. It proclaims His claims claiming His eternity are for real. He gets us to think in God’s eternal terms. He brings an eternal frame of reference and everything is seen in an eternal perspective. In Christ everything is encased in spiritual, personal and interpersonal categories that transcend temporary physical reality. He redefines every aspect of what the world has shredded in the way of being an eternal spiritual image of God residing in a temporary physical body.

The world (not the planet) into which we are physically born, has an invisible atmosphere that surrounds us. Sin is the world’s offensive weapon and the devil its prince and gladiator striking in the dark alleys of our weaknesses, doubts and fears. It has one goal, self-centeredness, to make and keep all people separated from God and one another. It does that by holding up false goals and promises of fulfillment that end in aloneness and death. You can tell its influence by the way it keeps you alone and on edge each day. The Resurrection is the defeat of the devil and the eventual destruction of sin and death.

The Resurrection declares an entirely different program. Instead of us being turned upside down by the world day after day, faith in the risen Jesus turns the world upside down, inside out and exposes both its hidden dictator and his program. It resets and reorders the priorities of how we deal with life. This is the reorder of ‘everything’ starting with the personal, then the relational, then the communal, the community, the nation and the larger world. Note the order of control. What we can actually influence is most important and what we can’t influence is least important. It’s the reversal of how the world works. We start with where we live, where we have the most influence as individuals. Just like Jesus. Again, just like Jesus. The Lord Jesus never traveled far beyond his home. He spent most of his time with his disciples, friends and individuals He met along the way. That has got to tell us everything about our responsibility where we are.

With the risen Jesus as our companion we know it is the Holy Spirit working Him in our mind, heart and spirit. He is the One showing us the truth of God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit and that the Son is who He claimed to be, Savior and Lord.

The Resurrection says that Jesus is the true definition of what it means to be human and we are called to be like Him.

The Resurrection verifies everything in Jesus’ life; His words, actions and attitude.

It verifies the Cross as the way of life for each of us, to take everything and place it at the foot of the Cross. Our cross is to meet every person, situation and event with faith in Him. So we know immediately that Paul’s words asre so accurate, ‘That which does not proceed from faith is sin.” Sin, self-centeredness, doing my will instead of God’s will, me first, is the essence of sin. Sin is ‘me-first’ and practiced inter-personally.

The Resurrection establishes the Bible as God’s manual for living. It is all, every bit of it, the mind of God at work for us.

From His Scripture we know that each of us is a spiritual image of God living in a physical body; mind, heart and spirit. We are not human beings having a spiri8tual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience. It establishes the dignity of every individual as equal before God and one another.

It was the Resurrection that gave the Jewish people and Israel their historical visibility and importance.
If you really look at it, the very existence of our civilization is the result of freeing the individual from the restraints of the past to search for meaning and to be able to use the universe as the developing ground to glorify God through invention and discovery in every field of the mind, heart and spirit. As a result the 10 Commandments are the relational ways to live with one another and build a trust that enables us to invent, travel and explore. The moral structure of our faith releases us to be creative and productive in obedience to the Genesis command to subdue the earth and be fruitful.

The Resurrection exposes the devil and his work as real not mythical. Remember ‘pin the tail on the donkey?’ Well, we can pin the tail on the devil without a blindfold. Simply by rebuking him in the name of Jesus. It makes confession and absolution the only way to solve the sin crisis in our lives. And that His forgiveness guarantees nothing can separate us from the living God..

It makes each human life holy from conception to death and beyond. It’s His plan to have each of us conceived then born. Conception is the beginning of life because that was the way Jesus was conceived and the born from Mary.

The Resurrection makes death not the end but the gateway to life eternal which we were given when we received Jesus into our hearts. The way we look at death as a constant in spirituality shows that relational disruption is a kind of death experience overcome by the healing from Jesus when He is allowed into any crisis.

It also made relational living the central most important experience in reaching the goal for which He died and rose again, our freedom from sin, living in aloneness only for the moment. Why? Because God is by nature relational; Father, Son and Holy Spirit and leading each of us back into that fulfilling purpose He has for us..

It makes prayer, worship, sharing and growing spiritually in small groups the way of the Body of Christ. It’s what Jesus modeled with the disciples. They were disciples before they were apostles.

It made the growth of each local community our mission: to be spiritual salt and light and agents to help others in their recovery from sin and evil. Also to penetrate the structures that influence a society, economically, educationally, socially, politically.

But now here’s the bottom line for each of us: “The whole conviction of my life now rests upon the belief that loneliness, far from being a rare and curious phenomenon, is the central inevitable fact of human existence (Thomas Wolfe quote).”

First, the Resurrection is the proof Jesus is the sole foundation to understand spiritual reality.
Second, the Resurrection is the proof that seals Scripture being God's Word.
Third, the Resurrection is the assurance of our salvation, the guarantee of eternity with God.
Fourth, the Resurrection validates the claims of Christ.
Fifth, the Resurrection shows the Cross is the means to experience God.
Sixth, the Resurrection lets us look back so that we can look forward in faith.
Seventh, the Resurrection makes faith in Jesus the way of life.
Eight, the Resurrection allows Jesus to live in our hearts by the Holy Spirit through faith.
Ninth, the Resurrection is the revealing work of the Holy Spirit.
Tenth, the Resurrection is the proof of spiritual rebirth.
Eleventh, the Resurrection is source for confidence in giving our testimony.
Twelfth, the Resurrection is how we become part of His Body of which He is the head.
Thirteenth, the Resurrection defines our spiritual relationship to God and others.
Fourteenth, the Resurrection defines human beings as images of God.
Fifteenth, the Resurrection defines the nature and purpose of morality.
Sixteenth, the Resurrection defines our spiritual job description in the Body.
Seventeenth, the Resurrection was, is and will be for all people everywhere at all times until He returns.
Eighteenth, the Resurrection reveals, defines and empowers God's love in Jesus.
Nineteenth, the Resurrection is always getting us to look forward acting in faith.
Twentieth, the Resurrection is spiritual, personal and interpersonal.
Twenty first, the Resurrection gives us the purpose and function of all existence.
Twenty second, the Resurrection gives personal meaning and application to love, truth and grace.