Resurrection

Not a “Hallmark Movie” Easter Message

/ LeahDawnRoot29 / Leave a comment

“Jesus replied, ‘You do not understand now what I am doing, but someday you will.” John 13:7

About a month ago my car developed a rough idle. I made an appointment with the mechanic and received what I dreaded hearing-my car would need a $462 repair. I had just had it in the shop at the beginning of the year for a $600 brake job and was not looking forward to another repair expense so soon after the first one. Fortunately, my vehicle was still drivable, so I decided to wait until after my business trip to Chicago that I had to take in early April before scheduling the repair.

One week prior to the repair, while pulling into a grocery store parking lot, I heard a pop and hissing sound. I thought I had run over something and punctured a tire but didn’t hear any hissing when I shut the engine off and had exited my vehicle. I thought perhaps it was fluke, commenced with my shopping and then drove home. The hissing, however, was once again noticeable when I pulled into my driveway. Anxiety overtook my overthinking brain as I began to wonder what else was wrong and how much the additional repair would cost me. I had someone come to my house and diagnose the engine hissing the problem. I googled what suspension issues cause a shimmy and what the estimated cost of repairs could be because my vehicle was also experiencing some shaking when I reached certain speeds. I cancelled all plans that involved extra spending or extra driving that week and even considered just parking my car and walking everywhere. If we hadn’t had freezing rain/snow predicted for weather that week I probably would’ve chosen walking as my mode of transportation.

This past Friday I took my car in for repairs. I told the mechanic about the additional concerns and asked him to give me a quote for it all before he started any repairs. I left my vehicle at the shop and walked home. That was at 10:00 in the morning. At 1:00 in the afternoon, I called to check on the status of my vehicle. I learned they were running behind and hadn’t even looked at it yet. I thought to myself, “Great! Now I have to wait longer to know how much this is going to cost and who knows if my car will even get fixed today.” Three more hours went by and called again. Not only was my vehicle fixed but guess what the final bill of sale was…TWENTY DOLLARS! Remember that hissing sound coming from the engine that started one week earlier? What I thought was going to be an additional repair/expense, turned out to be the whole problem. I had been praying and asking God’s help over this situation but what did I ask for? Well, I only ask God to provide what my budget would not be able to cover. What did He do instead? He revealed the whole problem with one simple fix and saved me $442!

Today is Easter Sunday. For the next 24 hours, my social media is going to be flooded with photos of families in matching “church” outfits, gatherings centered around ham dinners and easter egg hunts, and “He is Risen!” posts. Churches all over the world will be preaching on Christ’s resurrection, some with smoke-filled theatrical reenactments of a stone rolling away and a boisterous choir or worship team belting out “UP FROM THE GRAVE HE AROSE…” Salvation and Christ conquering death will be the ultimate takeaways preachers will hope their flocks glean from today’s sermons. But what if Christ’s death and resurrection includes a message we are missing? What if there is an additional lesson we need to learn from Holy Week and especially from Resurrection Sunday?

Jesus’ disciples walked with him for three years and knew Him more intimately than any of His followers and probably even more than Jesus’ own mother. Yet, Jesus warned His disciples of His impending crucifixion, and they did not comprehend what He actually meant. Peter even tried to prevent Jesus from being arrested, and instead of his best friend who was under attack joining the fight, He stopped Peter and call him “satan.” Jesus preached salvation through death and resurrection before He was ever arrested, beaten and killed and although His followers believed He was God’s son, none of them understood that He was actually going to die and rise again three days later. The Old Testament prophesies about the Savior and gives hints to the people of that day of God’s ultimate plan for redemption, yet God’s chosen also could not fathom the events that actually occurred.

But then again, isn’t the Bible filled with examples of how God speaks or gives a promise, skips the details on when or how He will fulfill that promise and humans create their plans of just how that promise will be fulfilled? When the angel told Mary she would give birth to the Savior, that angel left out the gory details of what her son would endure or that His life would be the ultimate sacrifice that redeemed everyone. God told Abraham He would be the father of all nations, yet Abraham’s wife was barren and although God gave Abraham two sons, one of which was not a part of His original promise, yet Abraham never lived to see the full extent of God’s promise. God told Joseph he would govern over his brothers, but complete opposite happened first. Joseph’s brothers sold him into slavery; he ended up falsely accused of a crime he did not commit and imprisoned for about 14 years. It was while he was in prison, that God fulfilled the promise He had given Joseph, in a dream, so long ago. Joseph interprets Pharoah’s dream, gets released from prison and becomes second in command. God uses Joseph’s leadership promotion to not only save Joseph’s family but also sustain an entire nation during a severe famine. God didn’t give Mary, Abraham or Joseph all the details. He just gave them a promise and expected them to trust Him without knowing how He would deliver on those promises.

Today, as you celebrate Christ’s resurrection, take time to reflect on the ways how God has redeemed your life, your circumstances or saved your family. How has His ways exceeded all of the ways you thought He would do it? Don’t be surprised if He gives you a promise and then allows really hard circumstances that look like the complete opposite as the catalyst for keeping His word. Jeremiah 29:11 reminds us of God’s plans for our lives being good and His promise of a hope-filled future. But Romans 8:28 reminds us that God uses all things including, stressful, painful or circumstances we did not ask for or can humanly comprehend, for our good and His glory.

Although the salvation story and Christ conquering death are the most important takeaways one should glean on Easter Sunday, Jesus’ ministry, death and rising from the dead should also remind us that we do not serve a Hallmark movie kind of God. Our faith walk is not based on a meet-cute of God’s promise, some minor interference or unexpected plot-twist and human predictable happy endings. No, we serve a God whose ways are much higher than ours and whose deeds are beyond human comprehension. If anything, our faith walk can resemble a Lifetime Movie Network original complete with our personal Judases and Job-like experiences that include plot twists packed with betrayals and losses of people or things that can never be replaced. We pray, we believe, we fast and then the opposite happens. We experience crises or even tragedies we simply do not understand. When question what the hell God is doing, He gives us a John 13:7 answer. We are not meant to understand what He is doing while we are in the fiery furnace or lion’s den situation. It is only later, with no exact timeline of when later will be, where God will give us the details needed to grasp or comprehend what God is doing in the right now.

In spite of all the mystery and unknown, we should never cease to pray or ask God for help, to intercede on behalf of our families and to believe that God will restore what the enemy has stolen from us. What should we cease doing? Expecting God to deliver on His promises in quick, easy, nontraumatic, simplistic kinds of way. Keep standing on God’s promise He gave you and trust Him to answer, when He deems the time is right and in the very way He knows is the absolute best way. Even if it feels He is crushing you right now, He will never fail you or fail to keep His word for you and your family.

Dry Bones Rattling on Resurrection Sunday

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“…I have rebuilt the ruined places and replanted that which was desolate. I am the Lord; I have spoken, and I will do it.” Ezekiel 36:36b

“I’m dead inside.” Those were the words my friend read in a text received from me, after asking me “How are you doing?” I received this question and sent my response after a day’s worth of horrific events occurred and I was home alone, in such a state of shock that all of my emotions had shutdown. I cried myself to sleep that night and for many nights in the months that followed. For a series of days that led into months, I was a shell of a person. I couldn’t concentrate nor carry on any sort of coherent conversation. I tried functioning but those who knew me best knew they were not seeing a “live” version of me. The heaviness of that day and events that continued to occur for months after, felt as though I had been buried alive.

I thought I was leaning on God. I prayed every day. But I prayed angry prayers every day. When I say “angry”, I mean I screamed, I cried and I cussed at God. I wasn’t just angry with specific people, I was also angry at God. Every prayer included a demand for God to “DO SOMETHING” and “FIX THIS!” In fact, on at least one occasion, I recall yelling out, “You’d better fucking fix it RIGHT NOW, God!” Using the F-word in a prayer should have been an immediate wake up call for me but it wasn’t. It was the epitome of just how dead inside I was and how deep I had fallen into a pit of despair and hopelessness.

About six months after that horrible day, I realized I couldn’t go back and undo what had been done to my family. I knew I wasn’t handling the situation well and I was tired of feeling suffocated by all the darkness within me. I had allowed a root of bitterness to grow and it wasn’t just emotionally or spiritually killing me. It was effecting my physical health also. I had gained 20 pounds, I wasn’t sleeping well and had suffered two panic attacks in the middle of the night. By panic attacks I mean being awakened from a dead sleep by a racing/pounding heartbeat that caused me to sit straight up and question if I was having a heart attack. Using the “F-word” in prayer may not have been my wake up call, but that second panic attack made me realize that I was not physically, emotionally or spiritually healthy. Enough was enough. What had been done was done and although I couldn’t change evil, if I wanted to heal, I had change how I responded to it.

I couldn’t heal myself though. I didn’t even have the strength to stop hating the one(s) who had done evil to my family. To be honest, I wanted to heal, but I also wanted to keep hating the evil doers. Hate, however, doesn’t produce healing and I lacked the ability to stop hating my enemies. This meant relying on the very God I was angry with, the one I had been belligerent to for so many months. Although He hadn’t changed the circumstances, I knew He could change me in spite of these circumstances. I also knew, I needed His forgiveness of my own sins and His strength to forgive others. What I needed most, was His redeeming love and unending grace to resurrect all that had died within me.

Today is Easter. Today, churches all over the world will be flooded with increased attendance. In fact, for some people, today is the only day (or one of two days) they attend church annually. Some churches will put on theatrical shows that include at least one church member, dressed as Jesus, coming out of a cardboard”tomb” while their praise and worship team leads the congregation in “Glorious Day” by Casting Crowns (Bleeker, M., Mark Hall, J. 2009, Be Essential Songs/My Refuge Music) or an outdated hymn such as “Christ Arose” by Robert Lowry. (1874) Little girls may don pink chiffon ruffled dresses with delicate white sweaters and matching patent leather buckle shoes. Little boys may be dressed in cream or light blue colored suits that their mothers are praying they keep clean long enough to get that one family picture captured. Some little girls and women may wear flowery hats. Men may wear that one suit that hangs in their closet the rest of the year and only comes out for weddings, funerals or this one specific Sunday.

Sanctuaries will be decorated with fresh Easter lillies. If there is a wooden cross on display, it will likely have a white cloth draped across it. Communion will be offered during many services today. “He is not here, for He has risen” will most likely be spoken in at least 90% of the sermons preached today also. “He is risen” will also be posted and overload many social media sites. Afterall, from a Christian stand point, today isn’t just Easter, it’s Resurrection Sunday. Today is the day the stone was rolled away. This is the day Christians celebrate Jesus rising from His grave and conquering death. This is also the day some pastors rely on the Easter story to bring salvation to the unsaved.

But…

Resurrection Sunday was not the first time Jesus had conquered death, nor is it the first resurrection mentioned in the Bible. In 1 Kings chapter 17, the prophet Elijah brings a woman’s son back to life. In the New Testament, Jesus brought Jarius’ daughter back to life and called Lazarus out of his grave after he had been dead for four days. Throughout the Bible, God has shown His resurrection power time again over human life and over our dead circumstances too. The book of Jeremiah prophesies His promise to restore or “resurrect” Jerusalem’s ruins. Daniel fasted for a promise from God that seemed “dead” but in Chapter 10 we read Gabriel telling Daniel that this promise will happen in “days yet to come.” (Daniel 10:14) Humanly speaking, Sarah, Hannah and even the woman who’s son Elijah resurrected all had “dead” wombs. Yet God brought life into them allowing each of them to become pregnant and bring sons into this world. All these situations seemed fatal and hopeless, yet God resurrected what was “dead” in each circumstance.

As grateful as I am for Christ’s death and resurrection, my favorite resurrection story comes from the book of Ezekiel. This is because it gives a visual of what a resurrection looks like. In chapter 37, we find the prophet walking amongst a valley of dry bones while engaging in conversation with God. During this conversation, God asks Ezekiel this question; “Son of man, can these bones live?” (verse 3a) Ezekiel responds with the perfect example of belief in God’s resurrecting power. Ezekiel replied; “…God, You know.” (verse 3b) God then tells Ezekiel to speak these bones. I’m just gonna get real for a minute and say, if I ever find myself walking in a valley of dry bones and hear God tell me to speak to them, I am confident I would ask “You want me to do what?” at least three times, just to ensure I heard God correctly. That’s of course after I got over being completely creeped out from walking in a valley of dry bones. (Feel free to insert a “laugh out loud” response now.)

Ezekiel, however, doesn’t question God nor is he bothered by what he’s walking through. He’s intent on listening to God and following His instructions, which is exactly how God continues the conversation. First, Ezekiel is instructed to prophesy over the bones telling them to “hear the word of the Lord.” (Verse 4). Then God declares He will give these bones breath, sinews (tissue), a covering of flesh and more breath so that these bones will live. Ezekiel’s response? Ezekiel tells his readers; “So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I prophesied, there was a sound, and behold, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone.” (verse 7) He obeyed God’s instructions.

So what do my emotional death, Resurrection Sunday and dry bones coming alive have in common? The healing God has done within me is my own personal resurrection experience. At some point I believe God asked me, “Can your dry bones live? and I had to answer with, “God, You know.” I also had to pray my own version of “Lord, if you’re willing, take this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will but Yours be done.” (Luke 22:42) When I finally surrendered all of it to Him, He did not fail. In fact, every day that I surrender all of my “dead” circumstances to Him, God breathes new life and new hope into me. I feel most alive today because He was faithful in bringing me emotionally and spiritually back from the dead. God is a Man of His Word and He kept His promise to give me a new heart and a new spirit, removing from me a heart of stone and giving me a heart of flesh. (Ezekiel 36:26). He will be faithful to His promises to you as well.

Christ’s resurrection is not just a salvation story. It’s His promise to resurrect the dead inside each of us as well as bring life to circumstances and dreams that also seem dead to. If you’re struggling with believing this, just remember, that very power that Ezekiel experienced watching dry bones come to life, is the same power that Elijah used to resurrect a woman’s dead son. It is also the same power that opened up this woman’s, as well as Hannah and Sarah’s dead wombs. This is the same resurrecting power that raised up Jarius’ daughter, brought Lazarus out of the grave and raised Jesus from His tomb. We are not meant to live this life like emotional zombies; shutdown, detached, and having cut off our feelings to avoid pain. Jesus’s death and resurrection was for us to have life and to live it abundantly. (John 10:10) If, like me, you’ve felt dead inside, God wants to revive your dry bones and bring you back to life too.

Have you experienced an emotional or spiritual death recently? Have overwhelming and/or unfathomable circumstances beyond your control left you feeling buried alive? Are you especially at a point where you’re tired of feeling hopeless and desperate to live again? Then son (or daughter) of Man, prophesy to your dry bones. Call out in Jesus’ name and ask God to resurrect all that is dead inside of you. Prophesy over your dead circumstances. Easter isn’t about spring dresses, ham dinners or attending church once a year. It’s also not about having the only deacon with a beard portraying Jesus on a church stage performing some re-enactment that includes a fog machine and drum solo just for added special effects. Easter is about resurrection power. As Jeremy Camp would sing, it’s “the same power that rose Jesus from the grave, the same power that commands the dead to wake” that is living within us. (Camp, J., Ingraham, J., 2015, The Same Power, Essential Music Publishing)

May today be the day you call out to Jesus and have the dry bones inside of you resurrected too! When you do, don’t be surprise if you hear some rattling. To quote my favorite Resurrection Sunday song, that rattling sound is “praise, [that] makes a dead man walk again.” I pray for those reading this post, specifically those who are in desperate need of an emotional/spiritual resurrection, that today you cry out, “open the grave, I’m coming out, I’m gonna live, gonna live again.” For that kind of prayer “is the sound of dry bones rattling…” (Lake, B., Brown, C., Furtick, S., 2020, Rattle, Elevation Worship Publishing.)

What’s Your Worth?

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“For He has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son He loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

Colossians 1:13-14

 

In today’s world people are desperate to feel valued and scrambling to find their worth.  Popular magazines write articles about value and self-love.  There is a plethora of self help books covering this same topic.  Music apps are full of songs with lyrics revolving around finding one’s worth.

There are many ways people define their worth too.  Some chase after success.  If they are successful in their career, their relationships, athleticism, etc. they feel worthy. Others define their worth solely in romantic relationships.  If they’re dating or married, that means someone loves them and that person’s love, makes them feel worthy.  Then there are those who define their worth in their looks.  Physical fitness, perfectly coiffed hair, daily make-up regimes that are professional grade and wearing designer labels makes them feel as valuable as a rare diamond.

Working hard and having a successful career is a good thing. Being a top performing athlete is a great thing.  Doing the work for a steady and trustworthy relationship is definitely something to celebrate.  Even taking care of your body and valuing how you look is important.  But-none of those things make you anymore or any less valuable that someone else.  That is a sentence that may be quite upsetting for some to read.  Upsetting or not, the truth is, success, marriage, dating, having a super model body, even being an Olympian athlete, does not make you any more valuable than someone who doesn’t work, isn’t into sports, may be overweight and perhaps single, divorced or in a bad relationship.

We wear ourselves out placing our worth in material things and in human beings.  When our worth is defined through the success of our business, what happens when that business fails or we lose our job?  Does that make us a failure?  Not at all.  When we define our worth in our relationship status, what happens when our spouse wants a divorce, our partner cheats on us or we’re chronically single for a decade?  Does being single with an empty date card make someone less valuable that a married couple who are celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary?  I certainly hope not because personally, I’m on year nine of that “chronic singleness with an empty date card” path.  How about overweight people?  Are they less valuable than someone who works out hours a day twelve times a week and eats like a caveman? The answer again is NO.

Defining our worth in things, status or relationship can lead us to feel unworthy when things don’t work out the way we think they should.  I am firm believer that suicide has been attempted and completed when someone is at their lowest point feeling unloved, unwanted and unworthy.  Young kids have taken their own lives after being told they should kill themselves by their peers.  Adults have killed themselves after being rejected by their spouse or lover.  There are others who have taken their lives after losing their business or career. When we lose what we think defines are value and worth it’s inevitable that we are going to wrestle with despair and feel lost.  It’s also inevitable that we will believe we aren’t valued or worth anything. People struggle to choose life when they feel they are have no worth.

Personally, I am guilt of defining my worth in my career, relationship status and my physical appearance.  I worked a dead end job for 10 years and felt completely devalued on a daily basis.  I have been dumped more times than I count and tend to chase after the guy who only sees value in what my body can give him or wants to control me.  I have felt more worthless in a few romantic relationships than I have felt these last few years of singlehood.  Physically I have struggled with weight gain for years and am currently at my heaviest weight I’ve ever been (even heavier than when I was 9 months pregnant with both of my children.)  I look in the mirror and see minimal glimpses of my youth but more and more changes that occur when one is considered “middle aged.”  I dress to hide all the bulges that are present with being overweight and out of shape.   I have spent many years feeling completely worthless.

If success, relationships and our physical appearance do not define us, what or who does?  There are only two things in life that can define worth. One is the dictionary.  According to Google, worth is defined as “the value equivalent to that of someone or something under consideration, the level at which someone or something deserves to be valued or rated.” Deserving is the key concept in that definition.  Worth is dependent upon what is deserved.  This definition makes it natural to get caught up in the idealogy that we get what we deserve so if we are getting failure, rejection and heartache, we must’ve done something to deserve it.

The second definer of worth would disagree.  The other definer of worth is God.  His definition of worth is simply this, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only son, that whoever believes in Him will not perish but will have eternal life.” (John 3:16)

God is the defines our worth because He is our creator.  He created space, Earth, the planets and galaxies, the sun, moon and stars, and every creature that roams the Earth, including you and me.  When an artist creates a painting, they know how much the supplies cost and how much sweat and tears went into making the artistic piece. Thus, they can set a price for it because they created it.  The same goes for you and me.  Because God created us, He knows us inside and out.  He defines our worth and sets a value to each of us.  The price He set for us is this-while we were still sinners, He sent His son, Jesus Christ, to die on the cross for you and for me. (Romans 5:8)  Christ’s death and resurrection is was the ultimate sacrifice made for those who live before Jesus, walk with Jesus and for those (including you and me) who came along after Jesus.

The Bible is full of examples of God’s love, deliverance and redemption.  No greater story defines exactly what we mean to our Heavenly Father than Jesus’ crucifixion.  Christ was nailed to cross and crucified in order that we can be cleansed from all sin and spend eternity with Him. Second Corinthians 5:21 explains it best, “God made the One who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we would become the righteousness of God.”

If you belong to God, you are His pride and joy.  His love for you is endless and He pursues you daily. Your worth is defined in Him and Him alone.  There is nothing, not your past, not your definition of failures, NOTHING, that can separate you from His love. (Romans 8:38)  If you don’t yet belong to Him, I pray this message moves you to seek more about Him, His love for you and exactly how He defines you. I want to encourage you to attend a Easter church service or watch a sermon on YouTube to learn more about Jesus’ ministry, death and resurrection.  I pray you choose Him, become a believer and seek His truths.  But whether you know God already or not, know this-whenever you feel worthless or devalued, God says you are more precious than rubies (Proverbs 31:10) and He thinks you are to die for!

From my family to yours, Happy Easter.  May God’s redeeming love penetrate your heart and His love overflow in you and through you today and always.