This weekend on Sunday, Christians will gather all over the world to celebrate the greatest event in human history. The resurrection of Jesus Christ.
This simply means that we do not worship a dead God. He’s alive. We have a living hope.
Among other things, this means that God is actively involved in our lives. When we pray, he hears us. When we sing, he hears us. He’s doing things right now, in your life and in mine.
I found this video compelling (and clever).  It also brings up a subject that I think about a lot: the oversimplification of the gospel.  I wonder if the Church, in an effort to reach more people, have presented a “plastic Jesus” to potential converts.  A Jesus that is a caricature of the real thing.  Jesus get misrepresented as either unconcerned about sin, hell and rebellion or as loveless, angry and breathing fire out of his nostrils at all sinners of the world.
By the way I hear some preachers talk, you’d think Jesus is disinterested completely in the fate of the world that He came to save as though He’s a petulant child.   Still others make Him seem powerless and worried.  All of them 2-dimensional.
How many times have we reduced Him to a sound-bite at the end of a meeting or only displayed a 2-dimensional version of Him to our friends? Â Perhaps that’s, at least in part, the reason why so many people simply fizzle out into mediocrity. Â And maybe that’s why we so often find it impossible to trust Him.
Toss your plastic Jesus in the trash can and seek out the real one. Â See Him healing the sick, touching the leaper, calling the Pharisees dogs, displaying His glory at the Mount of Transfiguration, dying in humility and victory at the cross. Â Imagine Him returning for His spotless Bride at the end of days. Â See Him as the hero of this great story of the gospel.
Following a powerful 1.5 hours of inspiration, I wrote the following article. I delivered this, word for word, this morning for our Easter service. I’ve never delivered a message in this way before. It’s always much more free-flowing and less “theatrical”. I almost never write down the exact words that I will say, only a skeleton of notes and triggers for my memory to keep me on track. However, when I sat down to construct my sermon this week, I got really inspired to write it word for word.
This is probably the longest post ever done on this blog, but I hope you will take a few moments to read it anyway. It just sort of poured out of me all at once.
Today I’m going to tell you a story. It is the greatest story ever told. Maybe you have heard it before, maybe you haven’t. Maybe you think you know this story, but you have only heard a poor retelling of it where the wonder and mystery of its storyline has been replaced with pragmatism, stiff religion, hypocrisy. Or perhaps you have heard this story many, many times and you’ve allowed familiarity to breed contempt.
The story I am going to tell you this morning has been unfolding since before the dawn of time. It is not only the centerpiece of mankind’s history, it is the driving force behind every event, every triumph, every defeat, every tragedy. It is the impetus behind the rise and fall of every world leader and every nation on the planet. It is the common thread that runs through every seemingly coincidental and serendipitous event in history.
We all know the story. The Prodigal Son gets full of himself. He cashes in his inheritance and leaves home to do his own thing. He soon blows the inheritance on hard living and eventually finds himself wallowing in a pig sty eating with the pigs. It is at this lowest of low points that the Prodigal Son repents and returns home to the open arms of his father. We should remember that this is a story told by a Jew to other Jews. Jews HATED pigs. They were “unclean” animals. There would have been few things a typical Jew would have found more disgusting (or humiliating) than eating pig food with other pigs. When Jesus told this parable, He chose this specific imagry because it painted a clear picture of the negative consequences of rebellion and pride.
Whenever I read this story (Luke 15:11-32), it immediately reminds me of a story from my year-long adventure as a drug rehab counselor in Britain. Never have I seen this parable of repentance played out in real-life drama like I did then.
