The End of the Story Part II

Jesus raised a man who was wrapped head to toe in death.  Of course, that was only the beginning.

I am terrible at Math.  My brain just doesn't work in calculations and formulas.  Thank goodness there are people who are good at math and can compute things in their heads.  Because I can't.  

In fourth grade, there were two math classes.  Everyone knew what it meant if you were in room 7.  It meant that you sucked at math.  Room 7 was a place characterized by sorrow, failure, and a terrible view of the white brick building next door.  Room 4, however, was a place of infinite glee where young fourth graders ate cupcakes, solved math problems with ease, and generally relished in the knowledge that they would eventually become the great engineers of the age to come.  The view from room 4 was of the playground and the sweeping fields of Scotland, Pennsylvania.  Room 4 was where you wanted to be.

One particularly terrible day in room 7, I was taking a particularly terrible test.  When you failed a test at Scotland, you had to have your parents sign it; probably so that they could start planning early for what they believed to be their child's downward spiral into oblivion.  Needless to say, I had to have a few of these math tests signed; so many in fact that my parents had  forewarned me that one more of these signatures would result in what I interpreted to be my certain annihilation.

So I sat in room 7, taking my test on fractions; my future hanging in the balance.

By one point, I got a D.  I proudly stood before my parents, exclaiming brightly that I had not failed the test.  My joy was cut short by my parents swiftly observing that the teacher had graded the test incorrectly.  He had forgotten to mark an incorrect answer.  I had failed the test after all.

I tell this story for one reason, really.  For the ending.  The ending you read in the paragraph above shows you only a single perspective.  And perspective has everything to do with endings.

In a different time and a different place, the man who had restored other people from death back to life was dead Himself.  He had been crucified; killed between two thieves.  For some, everything was riding on Jesus.  Their hopes, dreams, and livelihoods.  But now those dreams were dead along with the man who inspired them.  This was probably the perspective of many to all of the disciples of Jesus Christ at the time of His death.  

And you could end the story there.  But for those of us who are Christians, we believe that the end of that story is not the end.

Because three days later Jesus was walking around and talking to people.  He was also walking through walls (but that's another story).  Along with Christ, the first Easter resurrected the hopes and dreams of those who followed Christ then and now.  Because we believe that Jesus beat death forever.  On Easter Sunday, this is the story we get.  Then church is over.

But the story doesn't end there.  Most of us know that.  Lots of amazing things happen after Christ is resurrected.  In fact, twenty-three books of the Bible full of pictures of the interaction of early Christians with Jesus and each other happen after the resurrection part of the story.

But the story doesn't end with the Bible.  Maybe you knew I was going to say that.  

The story earlier ended with my failure because that's where I ended it.  But the story didn't really end there.  If you read the last entry, you would have noticed that I graduated from college.  Obviously, fourth grade math couldn't hold me down forever.  But from our perspective, we impose endings all the time in order to categorize and understand information.  Humans have trouble with the infinite.

In our lives, relationships, and even our theology we impose all sorts of endings for all sorts of reasons.  Control.  Addiction.  Brokenness.  Confusion.  Endings are a result of sin, and sin is death.  Death is an ending.  But Jesus beat that.  And the divine reversal began.  

For every ending we impose, Jesus says "there's more."

For every person we say we're done with.  There's more.  For every tree that withers.  There's more.  For every heart that remains unfulfilled.  There's more.  Because I passed fourth grade math.  Because every cell that dies is replaced.  Because Jesus didn't stay dead.  Because even though our perspective suggests that the story has ended, there is always more.

This is why Jesus must be at the heart of the Gospel.  Jesus is the incarnate pinnacle of a redemptive movement that courses through our very molecules.  So when you think it's over, look again, because it has in fact just begun.

Maybe you know that next I am going to say that this is just the beginning too.