Lent: RISE

Thinking alot about rising these 40 days...

Driving home from the 9 to 5 today, I watched the folks leaving those places where they spend a good chunk of their lives.  I tried to look beyond the tired shoulders, the weary countenances and the external appearances to the eternal people inside those bodies with about an 80 year warranty.

I wonder if they're thinking about rising too.

Did that one feel at all appreciated today after doing the thankless task of billing and posting so the rest of us can get a paycheck?  That woman who trains the new recruits, was she distracted knowing her little girl is at daycare with a rotten cold today?  The man who just found out he has a malignant tumor, is Easter even on the radar of his invisible suffering?  What about the Dunkin' Donuts lady making 9 bucks an hour and trying to figure out how to get stuff for dinner and a haircut for her son.

And the beat goes on.

Billy Joel had a phrase in a song (about a hundred years ago): ..."I've found that just surviving is a noble fight."

So it is.

Still, I'm compelled by the Passion of Christ to believe for so much more.  I know it seems way to Pollyanna for our cynical world, but I'm stoked with hope for abundant life.  Jesus the hero, bloodied and maimed, beautiful, innocent lover of all of our souls, He rises.

Dies and Rises for our sake.

"For you know that it was not with perishable things like silver and gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, a Lamb without blemish or defect.  He was chosen before the creation of the world, but has been revealed in these last times for your sake."  1 Peter 1:18-20

The empty way of life handed down to us through our spiritual DNA is in no way a bad hit on our parents. No one can help it.  We "reproduce after our own kind".   But Jesus, the most alive human being ever to walk the face of the earth, looked upon all of the generations of time, from ancient days to the days to come, and gave all He is for all we need.  So that life would be more than just surviving.  That somewhere beyond our vocations, our chores, our family duties, and all the rest of it we would grab hold of real life.  Beginning today but really culminating when we too die, and RISE.  Everybody gets the option of turning in the empty way of life for abundant life.  From the richest man in the world to the lady from Dunkin' Donuts.  From the neurosurgeon to the video game aficionado.  From the west side, to the east side.  From the mountains to the valleys.

Christianity isn't about making bad people good.  (Although that process most certainly is a byproduct...over a lifetime).  Christianity is about making dead people alive.  About waking people up from the coma of finding artificial life until their 80 year warranty is up.  It's about wild, eternal joy for all.  It's about rising.

Yeah, I'm thinking alot about rising these days.  And despite my thousands of failures, I believe the nail pierced, crucified, stone-rolled-away Savior was telling the truth when He proclaimed "it is finished."  He declared an end to death for all who would believe.  Thieves, whores, hypocrites, fools, adulterers, liars... Indeed, the beat goes on.

Take this wild offer my friends.  Make this Easter really personal.  No matter your external circumstances.  This grace in which we stand was costly.  Don't just survive.

Rise.

Your friend on the pilgrim road,

Loriann