Witness This

Sometimes I feel like I'm living in-between two worlds.

One world's cluttered with aggravations like minivans, checkout lines and software upgrades; the other revolves around struggling to shut up and pay attention to the Holy Spirit.

Here's what keeps me focused on the second: Christ's resurrection from the dead was a BIG DEAL.

Bigger than Columbus running into North America, bigger than the Super Bowl, bigger than the moon landing, bigger than any headline about Iran, Iraq, or North Korea.

Christ's resurrection was Huge.

What makes the resurrection so critical is either it literally happened as the scriptures describe, or it didn't. There can be no in-between, no gray area or "well, maybe" about it.

The word "hard" doesn't come close to describing how difficult it is, even for believers, to grasp the significance of Christ's resurrection. That Jesus's literal return from the dead stands alone as the single most significant headline-making event in human history, period.

Was there ever a religion in all of recorded history to claim their spiritual leader promised eternal life through grace, got murdered for his trouble, and came back from the dead preaching love and forgiveness against his killers? Can we even pretend human beings could fabricate such an outrageous tale?

Nobody would believe it. Not unless there were eye-witnesses to the event who went into the world and shared what they'd seen with others ... witnesses whose actions and sacrifices proved that seeing the resurrected messiah had changed their lives forever.

I'm guessing that seeing a dead man brought back to life will do that.

The resurrection proved Christ was who he claimed to be: the only son of the living God.

Maybe for the first time the apostles understood there's no way to be a part-time follower of Christ. That there's no way to ignore the parts of scripture we disagree with. That Christ's sacrifice on the cross only applies on Sunday mornings between 11:00 am and noon.

We don't have the option of sinning "just a little bit" or of "doing the minimum" to serve God. It's gotta be full-time, all the time, everytime.

Christ Offers Eternal Life is the biggest, most important headline anywhere in the universe. And the news ought to show and be re-told daily throughout our lives ... not just when the minivan drivers stay home and it's all green lights ahead.