Resurrection People by Rev Bev

Dear Friends:
Resurrection People. The church (big church not just our Rock Spring Presbyterian Church congregation) is often criticized that we are too heavenly- and after-life minded to do anything worthwhile on earth. We are regarded as paying more attention to what happens to a person after they die, than how they live in the here and now. This is a critique we need to heed.

Jesus focused clearly on who was in front of him. He spoke clearly about the presence of heaven here now, not after death. He went about his ministry without concern for being socially acceptable or get-ting elected or making a buck. He lost friends, he was ridiculed, he likely had a trade but was unem-ployed and supported by donors. Few of his friends really understood him, and even fewer were with him in his excruciating death. And, never asking for anything for himself, he gave without reward or recompense, with joy.

What could possibly allow him to offer curative power to the ill, a welcome to the outcast, hope to the oppressed, and community to the disenfranchised?

Faith. A rock solid belief that death was no challenger to the power and love of the Life-giver we call God. Jesus didn’t give his time and energy to avoiding death—whether end-of-life or the daily slings and arrows that nick and prick and kill slowly. He simply lived, fully devoted to his service to God.

Every day was new. Every day offered another opportunity to live more fully in love with God and God’s creation. Every day offered one more chance to love the people with everything he had. Every day was a resurrection to new life.

We have one advantage Jesus did not. We know that actual resurrection from death to life can occur because he was dead and now he is alive. To say that we are his disciples is to believe that death has no hold on us and to live and love with that kind of fearlessness. By doing so we can begin to bring to fruition the promise of God we pray for each week, “on earth as it in heaven.”

By doing so, we become a Resurrection People.

If you’ve been absent this summer, come back to worship Sunday and let God work some resurrection power into your day.

Peace,
Rev Bev