If I may, I’d like to wrap up the devotionals I’ve shared during Holy Week with a question and a possible answer. The question is a simple one. The answer perhaps less so.
The question, though not directly stated in the scriptures, is one I’m most certain was asked among the disciples. (Probably by Peter!)
“NOW WHAT?”
I can picture the apostles sitting around the table in the upper room, where just the previous week they’d been with Christ before His sacrifice, burial and resurrection. So much had happened in the past few days. The tomb was empty, to be sure.
More amazing than that, Jesus had appeared to several of them.
Mary Magdalene.
The other women who were running back to tell the disciples.
Cleopas and his companion on the road to Emmaus.
Simon Peter.
He had even appeared to ten of the Eleven, leaving Thomas to wait another week for his epiphany.
The multiple appearances in Jerusalem, at the Sea of Galilee, to the 500 witnesses had not occurred. The command of the Great Commission was, as yet, unspoken. Some great and significant parts of both the call and the means of walking it out were still very much unclear. The question had to be in their minds, if not upon their lips. “Now what?”
I see our Communion standing in a very similar position. The reality of Christ’s resurrection is absolutely certain. The details of precisely how we are to go about living out that miracle for maximum global impact are less clear.
May I submit that the answer is to be found in the mirror.
Each devotional image from this year’s Holy Week series featured an image designed to drive home the point of the message. Today we have no picture of Jesus, nor any of His disciples. We have a picture of a mirror. Please interpret that as me having inserted a picture of YOU.
JESUS IS THE ANSWER, to be sure. But it is Christ IN US who is the hope of glory.
He has called us.
He has commissioned us.
He has sent us.
You and me, we are the answer to the question “Now What?”
And so God has filled us with that same power with which He raised Christ from the dead. Like the Apostles, we may have certain questions. But the answer is to do what they did. Walk by faith. Pray by faith. Minister the Word of God by faith.
Trust and believe.
The power of the resurrection is made manifest in us, for we are the Body of Christ. He has departed so that which is better could come. He has departed so that He could fill hundreds of millions of us with the same power by which God raised Him from the dead. It is better for the world to have swarms of called, obedient, Spirit-filled followers of Jesus Christ to go places He did not go and pray for people whom He has never met. These are the “greater things” He has promised we will do. Through us.
Will it be easy? Certainly not. Will it require incredible sacrifice, courage and determination? The last two thousand years has already answered that question with crystal clarity. In fact, it will require more than courage and determination — it will require faith.
Why did I present this solution as “a possible answer” as I began this morning? Because any step of faith can be considered a foolish risk at some point. Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something greater than fear is more significant, and worthy of the potential sacrifice. The possibilities will only become reality as we embrace the sacrifices and live the resurrection.
LIVING the resurrection. Interestingly enough the price and the reward are the same, and yet they are also so very different.
The price of living the resurrection will cost us everything we have.
The REWARD for living the resurrection? Everything Christ has.
“For as His children we are heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ”. (Rom 8:17)
Let’s be known as those who will give our life to live our life. Look in the mirror and see Christ’s hope for the world today.
It’s us, you and me. We are the answer.
So the question isn’t really “Now What?”
It seems the real question is “NOW WHO ????”
And the WHO is YOU.
Let’s Live the Resurrection!
