Empowered to Walk in the Truth of the Resurrection (Week 46)

Readings

  • Joel 2:28–32

  • John 14:1–14

  • Romans 6:1–10

Silent Reflection

Remarks

In the beginning, the Spirit of God hovered over the surface of the deep, over a world unformed and disordered. The Creator spoke a word through that Spirit and creation erupted into being. It was a powerful moment as the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God (angels?) shouted for joy.

As the story tells it, this same Spirit is that which God personally and intimately breathed into mankind at our creation. But not just once in the beginning. Throughout the scriptures, God continues to give this Spirit to various people in some kind of special way. This creative “energy” or “life-force” (thank you, BibleProject!) comes upon particular people in particular moments, like Samson and the other leaders in the book of Judges, or King David.

This same Spirit empowered the prophets to endure a special relationship with the Creator. Prophets didn’t simply articulate a message; by the Spirit they experienced the divine pathos and poured it out to His people. They stood up to kings and priests and spoke truth to power. They revealed the heart of a betrayed and jealous and longing God to a people who had cheated on and abandoned Him.

Then Jesus came and the same Spirit came upon him at his baptism, drove him out into the desert to be tempted, and compelled him to preach good news to the poor, heal the sick, cast out demons, and ultimately finish the work for which he was sent.

Then this same Spirit raised Jesus from the dead.

Before his death, Jesus told his followers about a coming time of ministry assisted and empowered by this Spirit, and he instructed them to stay in Jerusalem until it had been given to them. Could this have made much sense to his followers, either before his death or in the days that followed? Likely not, because explanations and instructions about this Spirit tend to fall short until one has experienced it. Which is why it was not until Pentecost that the lights came on for them. After that day, though, the same Spirit that created the world and empowered the prophets and raised Christ Jesus from the dead was now living in them together as a people.

The same Spirit, but with a new angle. No longer was this simply a Spirit given to a special anointed leader for a unique time. The resurrection had turned this Spirit loose. The curtain had been torn and God had changed addresses. He was now living in and through his people—the children of the resurrection.

And the resurrection certainly had changed everything, hadn’t it?

Things that we had always known for sure now had all sorts of question marks surrounding them. Until that moment, death was the most final, the most finite thing a person could experience. It was the great constant. There was nothing more real than death. But if death is now no longer as final as we thought it was…

Maybe hope has a whole new meaning.

Maybe this “new creation” is about more than just “not sinning as much now that I follow Jesus.”

Maybe this resurrection is really capable of changing everything about the world. Maybe all of creation is being renewed and this new way of living impacts all of our relationships and the way we use money and the way we engage the work of justice and the way we notice and see people. Maybe it eradicates our biggest fears and insecurities.

To phrase it in a more poetic way, Paul told the Romans, “We know that we also live with [Christ]. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.”

Now that’s a thing! Think about all the things that belong to the order of death that you’d love to die to: all your mistakes, failures, struggles, hurts, and diagnoses. In the resurrection, you join Christ in putting all those things to death and walking in a new way, a new life—a resurrection. This Spirit empowers you to find a whole new reality and share it with others.

A life that sees hope where there should only be despair. A life that believes cancer or greed or abuse or sickness doesn’t get the last word; instead, the Spirit insists on healing and compassion and generosity and forgiveness and protection and justice. God’s people filled with the Spirit now stare the old order in the face and find they have a steely resolve, because we have been empowered as a people, together, by the same Spirit that came upon David and Joseph. The same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead is raising all of us from our own tombs, as well.

And there’s a new creation bursting forth in the midst of this one.

Silent Reflection

Response

  • Where does the Order of Death have its talons in your life, or where does it threaten to define what you see?

  • What does a resurrected Christ have to say to that situation? What does Jesus, standing outside an empty tomb, have to say about the challenges you long to address in your life?

  • What about the challenges in your community? What does the resurrection invite—or even compel—us to do in response to chaos? What does the resurrection have to say to our local world?

  • Do you feel like you are empowered to address these things? If not (which is completely true much of the time), how do you feel? Jaded? Exhausted? Unconvinced? Defeated? Overwhelmed?

  • What is the next step that the resurrection invites us to take (first as individuals, then as a group)?