Don’t Settle for a Dead God

Ever notice that sometimes

what sounds like a beautiful statement

is just a load of cr-

afty nonsense?

Once I heard a preacher say,

“It doesn’t really matter if Jesus ACTUALLY rose from the dead. All that matters is that we have ‘resurrection hope.'”

What?

Yeah, I don’t think so.

Some helium filled “resurrection hope” balloon is not going to get this soul’s basket too far off the field. I need a real resurrection or I’m not laying my life down.

I mean,

it’s my life.

I won’t settle for a dead god.

I was born in the sixties – eyes wide open watching the black-and-white war in my living room and knowing heroes can’t be protected from well-placed snipers

cut my teeth on expose reporting in the seventies and eighties, pulling back the curtain on every “Great and Wonderful Oz” pretending to be a demi-god.

I’ve seen Kool-Aid cults, impeached presidents and Batman without the suit.

So, you’ll excuse me if I don’t follow blindly.

If I choose to worship a guy, you know He can walk on water and

I won’t bend my knee for someone who claims to be God if all He can produce is a symbolic resurrection.

No way. If there’s a dead body,  I’m not vacating the throne of my own life.

I won’t follow a dead God.

That leads to dead religion.

But here’s the truth:

There is no body – not in the ground, in the grave, or in an undisclosed tomb.

Jesus lives.

How do I know?

Because, if Jesus didn’t come back from the dead, it all falls apart.

He’s not a good teacher or a wise guide if he said He would rise again and then remained in the ground like every other prophet before him.

That makes him deluded or deceitful and, no thank you, I won’t walk the straight and narrow for a crazy man or a liar.

Plus, I didn’t know the disciples personally, but I have known a lot of men and let me tell you, these guys could not have kept together a conspiracy.

When Jesus found this motley crew, they were a bunch of yokels. Read the stories. These guys were barely holding it together.

They couldn’t even stay awake with Jesus to pray on the night He was betrayed.

They scurried off like mice at his arrest and Peter flat out denied knowing Him.

They were cowards.

Until after the resurrection.

Something happened that turned these self-preserving, sissy-boys into bold, courageous men, most of whom eventually chose to be cruelly martyred rather than to deny that Jesus was God.

Seriously, look at the men you know.

As comparison, the conspirators in the Watergate scandal fell apart with their stories in little over two weeks of pressure and they didn’t fear for their lives, just their livelihoods, jail time and finances.

They turned on each other in a heartbeat, while Peter, John, and the guys devoted their lives, and eventually lost them because they had seen the risen Christ.

And another thing,

these guys weren’t capable of creating a religion out of nothing – seriously, they even struggled to catch fish.

But, if someone was trying to promote their guy as Messiah back in Israel, they would NEVER start their main gospel by mentioning the women in Jesus’ lineage.

Matthew’s genealogy mentions Rahab (a prostitute),

Tamar (who pretended to be a prostitute, tricking her father-in-law into impregnating her)

Ruth (not even a Jew – a Moabite)

and Bathsheba ( an adulteress)

oh, right, and His mother Mary – unwed at the time of His conception.

Now anyone will tell you, that if you’re making a case that your guy is King of the Jews, you avoid mentioning that his family tree includes hookers, adulterers and Gentiles. It’s certainly not the lead story in your gospel.

Matthew had been a tax collector – a Jew working for the Romans. If anyone understood spin, it would have been him. So, what he wrote, had to be the truth – not some lie he concocted with a bunch a guys down at the seashore.

Jesus rose from the dead.

Each of us must deal with this historical fact.

Jesus rose from the dead.

He lives.

Don’t let anyone tell you it doesn’t matter if it’s a real resurrection or not.

It matters.

It was real.

He lives.

And because He lives, so can we.

Job 19:25 “For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth.”