The Grove Church // Bryson City, NC

Resurrection

What's so important about the word resurrection? I mean, when's the last time you saw someone who died come back to life? Anybody you know been gone for three days and then come back fully cognitive with no signs of deterioration and having all faculties fully functional? Not me.

But what about conceptually? Resurrection isn't a new idea and it wasn't in Jesus' day either. 

So is this an absurd assertion that Jesus came back from the dead or is it just a boring, mundane, run-of-the-mill, everyday occurrence?

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From a book I'm reading: "In the Fall in many parts of the world, the leaves drop from the trees and the plants die. They turn brown, wither, and lose their life. They remain that way for the Winter – dormant, dead, lifeless. And then Spring comes, and they burst into life again. Growing, sprouting, producing new leaves and buds. For there to be Spring, there has to be a Fall and then a Winter. For nature to spring to life, it first has to die. Death, then resurrection. This is true for ecosystems, food chains, the seasons – it's true all across the environment. Death gives way to life.

A seed has to be buried in the ground before it can rise up from out of the earth as new live."

The miracle is in the mundane. It's extraordinary. How something can die and come back to life. It happens all around us. Within us. But we have to be willing to let go. Assent to death to attain life. But that's so counterintuitive, isn't it?

Again from that book: "When we cling with white knuckles to our sins and our hostility, we're like a tree that won't let its leaves go. There can't be a Spring if we're still stuck in the fall. Lose your life and find it, [Christ] says. That's how the world works. That's how the soul works. That's how life works when you're dying to live."

Celebrate your Resurrection!

- Randall