An Ossuary Is Not Shock and Awe

If you're in doubt about the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth from the dead, the one who was crucified, there is little to nothing I can say in this brief space, or even in other settings, to change your mind! And if that's the case, then both of us, you and I, join a long list of folks who've recognized this reality before. You join the long list of doubters. I join the long list of witnesses who fail miserably.

Even Mark's Gospel reports that the first witnesses, the three women who discovered the empty tomb, had their doubts, "... So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid." Mark 16:8. Read: shock and awe!

Clearly that wasn't the end of the story. Still, no one follows Jesus today based on knowledge from the past. We keep following Jesus - banking our present and future actions, choices and decisions on his word - by trusting that Jesus lives. Jesus is risen! Read: shock and awe.

See, at one level, it doesn't matter what happened to Jesus' body. And YES, I know that St. Paul wrote that if Christ is not risen from the dead then our faith is in vain. I believe that, too. But the focus of Paul's claim had, and has, more to do with what it means that Jesus lives, and less on habeus corpus, "show the body."

It's much like the saying, "Don't just tell me what you believe as a Christian, show me the difference that believing in a living Jesus Christ makes in you and in your world."

Folks are much more interested in hearing you tell them the last time you heard Jesus call you by name, than they are in finding out whether you think Jesus sits at the right or left of the throne of God!

Folks are much more convinced that Jesus is risen when you tell them the last time Jesus influenced your risk-taking, than they are when you read them the riot act cuz today the whole enterprise is too tough for them to swallow. Read: shock and awe.

Folks are much more interested in hearing how the story of Jesus is the story of your own everyday life, than they are in hearing you or me preach! Part of reclaiming the living Jesus, dead and risen for you, for me and for the whole world, happens when we put ourselves through the solemnity, the terror, the shock and awe, and even the tedium of worship each Sunday, but especially in Holy Week: Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, and Good Friday.

Give yourself the gift of hearing the talk and walking the walk, again. Come reclaim the shocking, awesome things this great "coming for us God" has done and keeps on doing with only water, bread, wine, wood, nails, and blood, because Risen Jesus lives. Read: shock and awe!