April 21st
2019 Easter Sunday (Cycle C)
Believing unto Salvation
The tie in
between today’s readings: Examining Faith
The
stone which the builders rejected has become the chief corner stone. This is
the Lord’s doing; it is marvelous in our eyes (Psalm 118:22-23). The despised,
rejected, and crucified Jesus Christ has been raised from the dead and now is
exalted and glorified by God the Father. What a difference the few days from
Good Friday to Easter Sunday make! Surprisingly, even after Jesus repeatedly
told His disciples that He must rise from the dead, they still did not
understand the scriptures (John 20:9). In time, though, they did catch on and
turned the world upside down. They and those that followed after them fanned
out to the four corners of the earth to spread the good news that anyone who
believes in the name of Jesus receives forgiveness of sins (Acts 10:43). But what
does it mean to believe in Jesus and why is faith so vital?
First,
faith must launch off a solid base of facts. The death, burial, and
resurrection of Christ is the most historically scrutinized and vindicated
event in history. The authenticity of His resurrection validates everything
that Jesus said about His deity and His mission. It establishes Christianity
uniqueness among the world religions because its Founder transcends death and
offers eternal life to all who will follow Him. One of the very reasons to
trust the Bible at all is because
Jesus is alive. From this body of truth the church developed creeds of beliefs,
which church members confess and adhere to as fact. Believing in a creed, as
truthful and necessary as it might be, however, is not saving faith. It is only
the first step on the way. Your factual faith has to reach out and go beyond to
achieve saving faith.
In order to better understand what I mean by
reaching out in saving faith, I want to introduce an underlying principle found
in the Bible. It’s the concept of becoming united with whatever or whomever you
touch. There are several accounts of this in the Old Testament. You could
become unclean, for example, if you came in contact with something that was
also considered unclean such as a dead body, unclean animals, or a disease like
leprosy (Numbers 5, Leviticus chapters 11-21).
One the other hand, you could be made holy if you were touched by
something that was holy, as seen in Isaiah 6. A clear example in the New
Testament is the unclean woman with the bloody discharge who received healing
power by touching Jesus’ hem (Mark 5:25-34 and Luke 8:43-48). Marriage and sex
contains this idea of the two becoming one also. There are more examples, but
the Bible’s greatest application of union by touch is seen in the Incarnation,
when God became man.
There were incidents in the Old Testament where
God appeared in human form. These are called Theophanies. In fact, if the Lord
had just wanted to give us an example of how to live, Jesus could have spent His
life with us on earth as a Theophany and that would have been good enough. The
Incarnation goes way beyond God as teacher and takes us to height of
relationships: God as Lover. Christianity is much more a relationship than a
religion. God, who is Spirit, touches physical man in Jesus. It was absolutely
necessary for the Almighty to humble Himself and become one of us in order to
unite with a fallen human race. In this condition, Jesus, the God-man, can be
our sin bearing Savior. On the cross, Our Lord and Lover, Jesus Christ died for
our sins. Now this is where saving faith comes in.
Think of faith as the physical touching the
spiritual. It is one of the few God given attribute available to us that
transcends space and time. By faith, we can imagine the future and act in
anticipation of it. We can also, by faith, travel back in time to a cross on
Calvary’s hill and touch our God. Jesus Christ physically died on the cross.
Faith puts us on the cross with Him spiritually at the same time. At the cross,
the Eternal and Spiritual through the Incarnation meets up with the physical
and finite through faith and the two of us become one. It is here that,”He who
knew no sin became sin for us that we may become the righteousness of God in
Him” (2 Corinthians 5:21). And we DIE
together with Christ! As the Apostle Paul said, “I have been crucified with
Christ” (Galatians 2:20a). When Jesus was laid in the tomb, we were laid in the
tomb as well, but that’s not the end. Now if we died with Christ, we believe
that we will also live with Him (Romans 6:8).
Jesus is alive! He rose from the grave on Easter
Sunday and by faith, we did as well. We are born again to a new life in Christ.
A life with our Lord that is so real and so intimate that we can move away from
the abstract idea of loving God and actually be in love with Him. For His part,
our Father could not get any closer to us than what He has done by placing His
Holy Spirit in us. This relationship comes with a new focus. Our reading in
Colossians directs us in our new life priority:
“Therefore if you have been raised up with
Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right
hand of God. Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on
earth. You have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ,
who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory “(Colossians
3:1-4).
Can you picture a new church experience? If our
lives are hidden in Christ, then in our worship we transcend the centuries and
unite ourselves by faith with the sacrifice of our Lord and Savior. The
tangible bread and wine brings His sacrifice to us in our time. In the Lord
Supper, we have a common connection of grace and love with all believers living
close by or around the world and even with those that have passed on. We are
all Christ’s Body! It's a living, timeless, family dynamic. Our Father wants us
to spread His gospel to others who do not yet know Him, so more sons and
daughters can be added to His family. If your time in church has been dull,
dry, and dead end, perhaps you’ve been stuck on the creed level in your faith
journey. If that’s the case I urge you to reach out in faith to the cross for
the forgiveness of your sins and establish a living relationship with the God
who loves you. Look to Jesus with new eyes of faith and believe. Happy Easter!
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