It is Good Friday. Christ is lying in the tomb and His devastated disciples are at the brink of sanity in their grief. Everything for which they have put their life on hold, has vanished. They have nothing to show for the days they followed this teacher all over creation. Nothing to prove that they have been in earnest or that they believe He is the Messiah.
Now what?
That was a major question, but the larger issue was that He was no longer with them. And they had loved Him unabashedly. When I read about how they followed Christ and the closeness of their conversations, I wish men in America today could relate to one another the way I imagine they behaved together. It was very Jewish in terms of expressiveness, and it had an earthy, intimate essence to it. There was not that awkward Anglo distance and touch phobia that we have in our society. They could say they loved one another and in fact, Jesus encouraged that because He told them repeatedly to love each other.
Now the One they loved was lying in a tomb.
I think J.S. Bach described their mood correctly when he wrote Erbarme Dich from the St. Matthew's Passion. This piece always wrings my heart. Jesus was dead, in the tomb, and everyone was devastated. The world went from having the Son of Righteousness among them to the darkness of futility once again.
Easter always makes me think of Romans 4 about poor old Abraham, "as good as dead," wishing to become a father. Little old Sarah leaning on her cane, who had never been able to carry a pregnancy during her childrearing years, let alone at 90 years of age, and who hadn't had a period for 40 years. And yet they must have chuckled together as they tried to overcome the effects of age and honor what God had predicted: You shall be the father of many nations. Ummm, right. "Sarah, shall we try again?" So they would try again, their elderly bodies once again trying to defeat nature. Young couples who are trying to conceive keep temperature charts and do all sorts of things to enhance conception. Not least of which, is to have sex as frequently as possible and particularly during certain peaks of basal temperature. Even when there was no particular attraction or desire for sex. Just do it.
Abraham and Sarah were suddenly in this situation. There were few sexual aid products to assist them back then, which means that their attempts could not have been comfortable. So they found repeatedly that both were as good as dead in the sex and fertility departments. Even though they loved one another and probably enjoyed intimacy and closeness as most older adults do. But other than an aerobic workout, these encounters would not be terribly efficient in producing much.
Perhaps they wondered if God would perform some sort of in vitro fertilization for them. After all, the mechanics alone for people of their age trying to have a child were daunting. Paul says that Abraham was "as good as dead." Oh my. I would hate to have that said about me, even though that would be true about my ability to conceive. Yet Abraham and Sarah continued to go through the motions because God had said that something would take, just once, and Sarah would become pregnant. I'm sure that Abraham thought more than once, that he believed what God said but that what he was doing wasn't going to get him anywhere. But because they believed, and because they lived as though they believed by acting accordingly, even though it is not feasible that any component of their bodies could have produced Isaac, God was able to do what He had promised.
The last part of Romans 4 says this:
Abraham and Sarah's faith and efforts composed the prelude to the work of the resurrection power of Jesus Christ. It was that power that made conception possible from nonexistant or dead reproductive elements. All they did was respond to the promise of God and He did in them far above anything they could have imagined. No wonder Sarah said, "God has made laughter for me; everyone who hears will laugh over me." There is such a comical gradient between what she and Abraham could do and what God actually did. But as God said to them, "Is anything too hard for the Lord?"
Let's fast forward history to today. Here I am, trying to do what is right--to make right choices and live a godly life. My tools to do that are as good as dead. I'm overcome with temptation time and time again. Every noble resolve is a mockery in the end, because my best efforts are comical in terms of being able to produce righteousness. As Paul wrote in Romans 7 in that tangled passage, in essence, the good that I would like to do I don't do, and the things I don't want to do are what I end up doing. Even though I know better.
For I delight in my inmost self, but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin which dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?This is not going to get me any kind of righteousness.
Well, that's me. I'm going through the motions--praying, reading the Bible, talking with others about spiritual things, trying to keep my mind stayed upon God. And what can I possibly produce by doing this? Nada. Zilch. Every now and then one may see a glimmer of something that is halfway hopeful, but then it crashes with the rest of everything that I do that is supposed to be "righteous," into the mass grave of all that is holy in my life.
Indeed, I am wretched. Yet God has promised that faith in His death and resurrection will in the end, produce what He wishes for me: eternal life and a godly character. It is all because of the resurrection power that this is even thinkable. Because He "gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist." (Romans 4:17). Like goodness or righteousness from me.
I think that in the great feast table in heaven, when we sit down to share a meal with all of the redeemed, I will be looking for Abraham and Sarah. Because they have for centuries been reminders for struggling Christians that nothing is too hard for God. Because the same power that enabled them to conceive is what will get me to heaven one day. There will be a good deal of delighted laughter there one day. Because it is God's power, not my puny abilities.
That Power laid in the tomb over the Sabbath day, centuries ago. No one knew it was there, but the power of God would bring Jesus out of the grave to live in an immortal body. Death could not hold Him. Neither will life, or death, or angels, principalities, things present or things to come, or powers, or anything else in all creation be able to separate us from the love of God and His power. This power that called Isaac out of unreliable bodies and Jesus out of the tomb, will one Day be the power that changes my sinful mind, soul, and body, into an immortal and perfect being.
We are all as good as dead. And we all have the knowledge that what God has said He will do for us, He will do.
Thanks be to God at this wonderful Easter season!
Now what?
That was a major question, but the larger issue was that He was no longer with them. And they had loved Him unabashedly. When I read about how they followed Christ and the closeness of their conversations, I wish men in America today could relate to one another the way I imagine they behaved together. It was very Jewish in terms of expressiveness, and it had an earthy, intimate essence to it. There was not that awkward Anglo distance and touch phobia that we have in our society. They could say they loved one another and in fact, Jesus encouraged that because He told them repeatedly to love each other.
Now the One they loved was lying in a tomb.
I think J.S. Bach described their mood correctly when he wrote Erbarme Dich from the St. Matthew's Passion. This piece always wrings my heart. Jesus was dead, in the tomb, and everyone was devastated. The world went from having the Son of Righteousness among them to the darkness of futility once again.
Easter always makes me think of Romans 4 about poor old Abraham, "as good as dead," wishing to become a father. Little old Sarah leaning on her cane, who had never been able to carry a pregnancy during her childrearing years, let alone at 90 years of age, and who hadn't had a period for 40 years. And yet they must have chuckled together as they tried to overcome the effects of age and honor what God had predicted: You shall be the father of many nations. Ummm, right. "Sarah, shall we try again?" So they would try again, their elderly bodies once again trying to defeat nature. Young couples who are trying to conceive keep temperature charts and do all sorts of things to enhance conception. Not least of which, is to have sex as frequently as possible and particularly during certain peaks of basal temperature. Even when there was no particular attraction or desire for sex. Just do it.
Abraham and Sarah were suddenly in this situation. There were few sexual aid products to assist them back then, which means that their attempts could not have been comfortable. So they found repeatedly that both were as good as dead in the sex and fertility departments. Even though they loved one another and probably enjoyed intimacy and closeness as most older adults do. But other than an aerobic workout, these encounters would not be terribly efficient in producing much.
Perhaps they wondered if God would perform some sort of in vitro fertilization for them. After all, the mechanics alone for people of their age trying to have a child were daunting. Paul says that Abraham was "as good as dead." Oh my. I would hate to have that said about me, even though that would be true about my ability to conceive. Yet Abraham and Sarah continued to go through the motions because God had said that something would take, just once, and Sarah would become pregnant. I'm sure that Abraham thought more than once, that he believed what God said but that what he was doing wasn't going to get him anywhere. But because they believed, and because they lived as though they believed by acting accordingly, even though it is not feasible that any component of their bodies could have produced Isaac, God was able to do what He had promised.
The last part of Romans 4 says this:
That is why his faith was "reckoned to him as righteousness. But the words, "it was reconed to him" were written not for his sake alone, but for ours also. It will be reckoned to us who believe in him that raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was put to death for our trespasses and raised for our justification.
Abraham and Sarah's faith and efforts composed the prelude to the work of the resurrection power of Jesus Christ. It was that power that made conception possible from nonexistant or dead reproductive elements. All they did was respond to the promise of God and He did in them far above anything they could have imagined. No wonder Sarah said, "God has made laughter for me; everyone who hears will laugh over me." There is such a comical gradient between what she and Abraham could do and what God actually did. But as God said to them, "Is anything too hard for the Lord?"
Let's fast forward history to today. Here I am, trying to do what is right--to make right choices and live a godly life. My tools to do that are as good as dead. I'm overcome with temptation time and time again. Every noble resolve is a mockery in the end, because my best efforts are comical in terms of being able to produce righteousness. As Paul wrote in Romans 7 in that tangled passage, in essence, the good that I would like to do I don't do, and the things I don't want to do are what I end up doing. Even though I know better.
For I delight in my inmost self, but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin which dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?This is not going to get me any kind of righteousness.
Well, that's me. I'm going through the motions--praying, reading the Bible, talking with others about spiritual things, trying to keep my mind stayed upon God. And what can I possibly produce by doing this? Nada. Zilch. Every now and then one may see a glimmer of something that is halfway hopeful, but then it crashes with the rest of everything that I do that is supposed to be "righteous," into the mass grave of all that is holy in my life.
Indeed, I am wretched. Yet God has promised that faith in His death and resurrection will in the end, produce what He wishes for me: eternal life and a godly character. It is all because of the resurrection power that this is even thinkable. Because He "gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist." (Romans 4:17). Like goodness or righteousness from me.
I think that in the great feast table in heaven, when we sit down to share a meal with all of the redeemed, I will be looking for Abraham and Sarah. Because they have for centuries been reminders for struggling Christians that nothing is too hard for God. Because the same power that enabled them to conceive is what will get me to heaven one day. There will be a good deal of delighted laughter there one day. Because it is God's power, not my puny abilities.
That Power laid in the tomb over the Sabbath day, centuries ago. No one knew it was there, but the power of God would bring Jesus out of the grave to live in an immortal body. Death could not hold Him. Neither will life, or death, or angels, principalities, things present or things to come, or powers, or anything else in all creation be able to separate us from the love of God and His power. This power that called Isaac out of unreliable bodies and Jesus out of the tomb, will one Day be the power that changes my sinful mind, soul, and body, into an immortal and perfect being.
We are all as good as dead. And we all have the knowledge that what God has said He will do for us, He will do.
Thanks be to God at this wonderful Easter season!
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