Carried Along

This Puzzle Called Life

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It was 1996, and while the Olympic Games were being held in Atlanta, GA, I was teaching 40+ Chinese teenagers in a Soviet-style concrete building with live electric wires running down the halls. It was a hot, June day, and my eager students, usually so quiet I could hear a pin drop, did something that shocked me; they all burst out laughing, uncontrollably. They weren’t trying to be rude like American teens might, I have seen that in my years of teaching. They revered teachers, feared them, really. They were actually in a state of disbelief that caused them to disrupt, lose themselves. Why? What brought this about? That day we were having a lesson on Easter.

Now, our summer English curriculum for this level of student included culture in order to increase the students’ background knowledge as many language programs do. I had been covering one or two holidays every day, and to me, Easter was just another holiday. After all, it wasn’t the only religious holiday. We also covered Christmas, so what was the big deal? To them, it was different. They were truly amazed, flabbergasted that America, a country they idolized in many ways, celebrated a holiday that involved someone rising from the dead. This, to them, was absurd, asinine really. How could such an educated culture believe in something like this? So in their disbelief, they laughed.

I have reflected on this incident many times since then. That day, I began to understand the shocking truth of Easter. Easter is about resurrection, an occurrence only brought about by a miracle of God. It means not only have our sins been covered, but we, in Christ, have conquered death. We are truly free of the fear of guilt AND of the afterlife. Without Easter, our faith is meaningless, we might as well claim nothing. Everything we know as Christians hinges on this miracle, foolishness to those who don’t believe. So, this weekend may we truly meditate on these words^{, “}He is not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and on the third day rise” (Luke 24:6-7). For this, this truth of the resurrection, is not just another holiday, a day for eggs, bunnies and family. It is our lifeline, our ONLY hope.

It really is hard to believe.  Who could have believed the barrage of change we have seen since last Christmas?  Sure, we knew it might be a bit crazy with an unknown virus and a U.S. election.  But a pandemic?  Countries and states shutdown?  Protests, violence and destruction?  It’s still a bit much to take in.  Not to mention, it’s not over.  Much of the change we have experienced is here to say, for the foreseeable future anyway. Many of us still can’t to work, go to school, worship, or travel normally.  Our lives have been greatly disrupted.  The world is truly upside down. 

While a lot of us are still reeling from the shock of the torrent of change, some of us are starting to ask the question:  What now?  What does God want from me now?  So, what does God want from us in a world that upside down?  Great news!  He has an upside down gospel that fits a time exactly like this. 

Now, if you’re like me, you may be saying, “Sure.  I know that God is hasn’t left me, but what am I supposed to do?  I am scared.  My children, my relatives, and our acquaintances are scared.  We don’t know how to function or move on.  We’re not even sure when or if this insecurity of the unknown will ever end.  And even if a vaccine is found, and the political climate quiets, how do we even begin to re-enter this ‘post-COVID’ world?”

It really is so easy for us to forget that the savior who has been with us in our mostly predictable lives in the recent past did not live a “mostly comfortable” life or come to save a “mostly comfortable” people.  Distraught, empty, and at our wits end?  That’s right down his alley. 

Just a glimpse of Jesus’ life reminds us of the difficult time Jesus lived in.  Who was he? An average member of an oppressed minority group from a nothing town who was placed in a feeding trough at birth.  In fact, Philip was asked in John 1:46, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”  Not only that, but he and his family were refugees, running from a tyrannical ruler who wanted him dead.

And whom did God choose to announce his birth to first?  The rich and powerful?  The religious leaders in the temple?  Not at all.  He announced it to Shepherds.  Uneducated and of humble position, they heard the news first. 

What about his welcome?  Well, it might have been a little more prestigious if his announcer hadn’t been his unruly hippy of a cousin wearing camel’s hair and eating locusts and wild honey (Matthew 3:1:1-17). 

And the list goes on.  He broke Sabbath rules, created a cabinet of lowly, uneducated laborers, and associated with religiously unclean characters.  Corrupt tax collectors, promiscuous women, cripples, children, and those who had nothing to give; that is who he brought his kingdom to. 

As for the religiously upright?  He never fit in with them. 

Because of his humble status, the upright among his own people were not only disappointed in him, but scorned him as well.  How did they react to him?  Try these:

“ . . . and when they saw Him, they implored him to leave their region” (Matthew 8:34).

“ . . . Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon?  Are not His sisters here with us?” And they took offense at him” (Mark 6:3).

“And all the people in the synagogue were filled with rage as they heard these things” (Luke 4:28).

“ . . . and they got up and drove him out of the city, and led Him to the brow of the hill on which their city had been built, in order to throw Him down the cliff” (Luke 4:29).

“But first he must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation” (Luke 17:25).

“He came to his own, and those who were His own did not receive him” (John 1:11).

“And when they came to the place that is called The Skull, there they crucified him, and the criminals, one on his right and one on his left” (Luke 23:33).

In upside down times like these, fraught with fear, uncertainty, and even despair, may we truly see Jesus.  Not the Jesus we have been fitting into our comfortable, predictable lives, but the savior whose life was always upside down, always the opposite of what those who had it together wanted.  He is the King of Kings, but few in his time saw him that way.  If anyone knows about uncertain times, it is Jesus.  So, as 2020 comes to an end and the uncertainty rages on, may we rejoice in him, the one who triumphed in uncertain times and reminded doubters then and now, “I have said these things to you, that in me you have peace.  In the world you WILL have tribulation.  But take courage; I have overcome the world”  (John 16:33).