The meaning of resurrection

Margaret Wheatley, author and teacher writes, "There is no power greater than a community discovering what it cares about."


We are not so very different today from the people in that first small community, who were huddled together for comfort and courage when it looked like all was lost. When we commit to something, we were not so different from the people in Mark 16 . After all, they were just a handful of ordinary people who were a bit shy about trusting in their own understanding of who Jesus was- true even after they had spent three years following their Teacher, learning truth from him, watching him do the unimaginable, and wondering how they could ever fill his sandals and articulate his message to the world when he was gone. We have had moments of doubting in our ability. They struggled with feelings of hopelessness as their leader lay on the wrong side of a very large bolder. Whatever fears you may be struggling with today, even if you question the validity of the story, we are called, not by chance, but by destiny, to fulfill the work of God even as that small group had been called.

Every strong community, every individual, has to go through their time of testing, to walk as it were through the deep waters of doubt and uncertainty, in order to get to what they believe. We have tested the waters of our own fears and doubts and I, no less than you, have wondered from time to time about what we were being asked to do and how we could manage to do it. We are built on the unquenchable hope that we will prevail against all odds--- for to lose what we love here is to somehow miss our calling, to fail to change our world, to miss becoming the resurrection people that God is calling us to be. We are waiting for that moment when the power of Christ within each of us transforms our reality.

The story of the Resurrection is really a story about removing the boundaries which we face every day in our life. Don’t you find it interesting that, as the women all came to the same puzzlement, how they would get past the tombstone, the obstacle was suddenly removed. Why? Could it be that they simply stepped into the plan of God without realizing it? Isn’t that is how God operates- suddenly. When we live by faith, life is far more effortless. When we live in the truth that everything we need is already available within us (this is the God/suddenly part), we can let go of our fears of not having. Listen to God's voice; seek his direction; trust that he will guide you. Life may not take you where you want to go but it will take you to exactly where you are meant to be. Mine did and I am truly grateful for the most difficult times when I put my trust in God. [Janet Pfeiffer, The Secret Side of Anger]

"If doubt is challenging you and you don’t act, doubts will only grow. Challenge the doubts with action and you will grow. Doubt and action are incompatible." [John Kanary]

To reap the greatest benefits from what we sense to be true, we need to take ACTION. Be in motion- keep moving in the direction you wish to go. Act as if your highest expectations have already happened. Prepare for them with all you have. Build the space for them to become reality. Pray and ask for more opportunities and people who can assist you or teach you. Let go of your attachment the present reality so that a new reality may come. Create mental space and physical space. One of my teachers told me---plan your work and work your plan. Miracles rarely happen by doing nothing. Most miracles happen through other people. If we are unwilling to be God’s provision to another, we have locked up our own storehouse, and God cannot increase his provision to us.

How do we move into this space of trusting God? What things still tie you up in our unbelief? We have a lifetime of messages that diminish our capacity to believe- to trust God to do what He said he will do. These are some of the messages I got growing up: Don’t stand out; the spotlight will reveal your inadequacies. Stop trying so hard, it isn’t worth it. No one will believe you, and you will fail. Don’t trust anyone, they will abandon you. How can your life be important, you’re nobody special? Perhaps you have heard similar messages growing up.

But if these messages were the truth, there would be no church and we would have no resurrection. It is time to let go of the barriers that have blocked you from all the fullness life has for you and step on the accelerator!

Do the people in your life need you to be fearless? Yes! As much now as it needed those in the infant church to be courageous and bold with the truth. Certainly the complex problems and the lack of spiritual direction we face today cry out for people of courage and conviction to step up and counteract these forces with compassionate truth.

If you feel you are inadequate to the task, let me state for the record that God is the same today as he was on that first Resurrection morning. The miraculous waits to be unleashed by our words and actions. Michelangelo once said, “I saw the angel in the marble and carved to set him free.” Rarely can we take great strides toward our life’s masterpiece, but in the day to day, moment to moment shaping of our life, we find the Master carving out the angel in us.

Can you bear witness to what has been given to you to say? Can you connect to God so that you can live in the fullness of who he created you to be? What does the world lose if you don’t? When we allow God to work in our lives, when we dare to believe him to be true to his word, something happens inside us. That something is called Transformation- the process of developing one’s character and becoming more like the original. Here is another definition of transformation: the process by which what lies deeply underneath is brought to the surface- the process of uncovering what is at the core of who you are.  Who do you choose to be for yourself- for the world? By what name or identity do you limit or liberate yourself? Are you a person in transformation so that you may be the one through whom God brings his solutions?

In the three days following Jesus’ death and burial, the people in Jesus’ life were buried under a mountain of fear and grief. It is at such a time in our own life that we may think God has abandoned us. But God is at work- as surely as he was in the story of the Resurrection. When you don’t feel or see Him working in the situation, remember that what you don’t see is more important than what you do see. That is how God works- making the ordinary extraordinary. Taking our end of the road moments and breathing the miraculous into them.

What do we do in the meantime? How do we discern what the next step should be? In reality, the work we do in the meantime space may be quite ordinary. A few weeks ago I was touched when I watched the women at a friend's church do something as ordinary as dust in their sanctuary. A small group of people sharing the work to keep a church open was transformed into a statement of courage and hope. As we continue to seek God, and believe in the resurrection power of his promise to us, we wait and work- that’s what we do in the meantime.

The message for us today is that God is extending to each of us a generous welcome to become part of the miraculous--- to be part of the resurrection story. The question for us to answer is this: Are we willing and are we ready? Are you ready to say yes to the transformation that will enable you and empower you to move forward and take the next step?

No matter where you are in your life, Philippians 4:13 reminds us, “Whatever I have, wherever I am, I can make it through anything in the One who makes me who I am. For I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength”