Resurrection

Jesus is the Firstborn of all the saints.  As Psalm 68 says, He leads a host of captives in His train.  He is the Pattern; the Example for all His followers.  All of the blessed saints take part in His suffering and His glory.  This is why Simon of Cyrene was charged to carry the cross of Jesus.  And its why Jesus told Mary that John is her son, and John that Mary is his mother.  Its because the saints were crucified with Christ.  And if we are crucified with Christ, so too will we be resurrected with Christ.  The Church of Christ is the Bride of Christ; and if the Church is married to Christ, then Christ and the Church become one flesh, as the Scripture says of marriage, the two shall become one flesh.  Its why Christians are said to be "in Christ".  And why the Spirit of Christ is said to be in the Church.

Jesus is the pattern.  What He has done, Christians continue to do.  What He has done, the Church repeatedly does.  On Resurrection Sunday it seems proper to reflect on resurrection.  Not only did Jesus Himself resurrect, but some of His saints have already resurrected, and there is a day of resurrection in which all the remaining will resurrect in the literal sense.  But in the figurative sense the Church of Christ has resurrected many times.  Repeatedly the world has crucified the Church.  The world has called Christianity dead many times.  And after each of these times there was a resurrection of the Church.  The Roman Empire crucified the Church figuratively, and literally as well.  They did their best to snuff out Christianity.  A number of times they almost succeeded.  There were ten major persecutions brought on by the Romans.  But these did not remove the Church entirely.  They did, however, affect the Church in a way they did not expect.

You see, resurrection is more than just a coming back from the dead.  When Jesus came back from the dead He did not come back in the same flesh as before.  He did have a physical body, yes.  But His resurrected body was different than the one before.  It was glorified.  Again, it is the pattern that we must follow; for we too shall receive a glorified body after resurrection, if we remain faithful to Christ.  In other words, Jesus came back -better- than before (if you can imagine that!).  And that's exactly what has happened to the Church.  Each time the Romans persecuted the Christian Church, and they almost succeeded in wiping it out, the Church resurrected bigger and stronger than before.  It was a supernatural thing, which I'm sure confounded the Romans.  It was the Spirit of Christ in the Church; a Spirit, evidenced by the physical resurrection of Christ, that cannot remain dead.

There are other times in history that Christianity seemed dead.  In the middle ages it seemed as though Islam would never stop spreading across the whole world.  The older people of Europe were resigned to the idea that Islam would take over Europe, and many were ready to capitulate to Islam.  They didn't expect what happened next; there was a great revival of Christian fervor in Europe.  You may disagree with the crusades, and I may as well, but the young Christian men who hated the idea of an Islamic Europe did what they knew to do.  They picked up swords and fought.  It was not the best thing, but it did achieve something.  It did put an abrupt stop to the spread of Islam, and convinced all those old people, who were ready to surrender to Islam, that Christianity was going no where anytime soon.

You might have said that Christianity was dead in the Catholic Church.  False doctrine, Mary worship, and to top it off, indulgences.  But there came out of nowhere a rebellion.  Somewhat of an uprising, which gave an alternative to the Catholic doctrine and practice.  The Protestant Reformation.

And today, the atheists and secularists are all too eager to eulogize Christianity.  Outdated, obsolete, they'll say.  Good for people who didn't know science, but we're smarter today, they say.  As if the world has outgrown Christianity.  I find it a little funny.  Well, the Christian Church is far too big for me to say that it is actually crucified.  I may have to stretch a parallel.  But we can certainly say that the Church is weak, that it has not the power that it used to, that the secularists have succeeded in much of their aim.  But that's no reason to despair.  Its quite normal, really.  The Christian Church is crucified, or in this case goes through a drought, and comes back bigger and stronger than it was before.  And in each case there is a testimony.  A story is made.  Heros are made.  And there is a purging power in the drought.  Like Jesus said, He is the vine, and every branch that produces good fruit is pruned so that it may be more fruitful.  The trying times in church history have been periods of pruning.  And when a vine is pruned, it becomes more fruitful than before.  So too, there will be a harvest of souls in the future greater than any harvest that has ever been.  I say to my brothers and sisters: prepare for it.  The harvest will overtake the workers.  There won't be enough churches, or enough seats, Bibles or hymnals to accommodate the vast number of people rushing to be part of Christ's Church.  They'll knock down doors to enter.