Celebrating the resurrection of Jesus

Throughout the week I have tons of paper that builds up on my desk. Piles of junk mail, thing's I've won and magazines I hope to leaf through. Every now and then instead of throwing things away I find myself stacking up the papers and moving them from one side of the desk to the other. For a moment that feels great. Until I realize that it's the same stack only instead of over here, it's over there. Nothing really has changed at all. It looks better, but nothing is different.

It's so easy to approach a life of faith this way. We shuffle the papers of life around; move this here, move that there and, for a moment, it looks good. Soon, though, we realize it's still the same. The Bible calls us to faith that is more than shuffling papers. It calls us to clear off the desk, beginning brand new.

One thing that I've appreciated about the scriptures is their authenticity. The Bible doesn't hide the disasters of great leaders of faith. It doesn't gloss over failures and fears. The Bible speaks about more than most give it credit for, going into detail about many things that would cause sailors to blush. The Bible is real, it's honest and it doesn't back away from a controversy.

This is why it shouldn't be a surprise to read in the Bible, "And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins." (1 Cor. 15:17). In other words, if the resurrection were not a reality then there is no point to the idea of faith at all. That's a bold statement.

Without the resurrection, according to the Bible, there's no point to any Christian faith. The resurrection is so crucial because it is the beginning and the end of all new things. It is power over death. It is the power for new life. The resurrection says that there is more than what I see, more than what I feel. For the church, Easter, celebrating the resurrection of Jesus is everything the faith hinges on.

When we come to Easter, we can shuffle papers to make things look better; or do we start brand new in the hope of the resurrection? God wants to do more than make you better; He wants to make you brand new.

Robert Hurtgen is a husband, father, minister and writer. Read more of him at robhurtgen.wordpress.com.