Glad You're Back by Clint

In preparing for the Easter season services for the church where I pastor, I came upon an interesting text that I had forgotten about. It happened as I was re-reading through the accounts leading up to Jesus’ crucifixion and the accounts of his resurrection in the Gospels. At the very end of Matthew, chapter 28, verse 17 says, “When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted.” Wow. The very ones that saw Jesus crucified and then saw him raised from the dead are looking right at him but still doubting! They got to see, talk to, touch, and eat with the resurrected Lord, and yet some of them doubt. Do you think they expressed their doubt to Jesus’ face? Or, did they wait and discuss their skepticism after being alone with the other disciples? And how many doubted? The text doesn’t tell us. Faith is not easy, and the resurrection is a difficult concept. I was having lunch with Brady, and we were talking about the story of Lazarus being raised from the dead by Jesus. This happened as a sign of Jesus’ power and coming resurrection. Our conversation turned to the response of those who knew Lazarus before he had died. They probably were a little scared of post-death Lazarus and maybe even a little reluctant to be alone with the guy. After all, he had been dead. Where do you even start in conversation? “Hey man, glad you’re back.” And there is no way that Lazarus was the same person after coming back. “Lazarus, ever since you died and came back, you haven’t been the same guy we used to know.” Surely they were frightened by Lazarus’ return, and Jesus’ return must have had the same affect. If the very disciples that saw him raised from the dead doubted, then we can be sure that even for them the idea of someone defeating death is hard to grasp. Often times, faith is expected to be easy. It’s not. Many would like to believe it is, but the disciples are there watching these events, struggling with the meaning of it all. But the importance of Jesus’ resurrection cannot be ignored or taken for granted. The Apostle Paul says in I Corinthians 15:14, “and if Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation has been in vain and your faith has been in vain.” Our faith in God hinges on this belief in the resurrection. Believing resurrection is difficult and faith is difficult, but this is a good thing. Do you really want to put your faith and life and belief into a God that only does regular, everyday, boring things? Do you really want to follow and worship a Savior that made everything easy and overly predictable? The fact is that in Christ’s resurrection, we see that there is eternal life. In this, there is glory and perfect truth. The challenge of faith is the beauty of faith. The difficulty of these things is where its substance resides. Our finite minds are so programmed to stop at death. We are so limited to thinking in the realm of mortality; we must be reminded that what God has prepared beyond death will truly be glorious beyond measure.