I am the Living One, I was dead and now I am to live for ever and ever, and I hold the keys of death and the underworld.
Αποκαλυψις / Revelation 1:18
It is the evening of Great Monday, and I will be leaving shortly to participate in the 2nd Nymphíos service, where we worship the Lord Jesus as Bridegroom of the Church. I was not intending to blog during this time, but I just follow the call day by day, my own ideas take second place. My testimony is about the Living One.
The resurrected Jesus is not a religious experience to me, nor is He an idea that I have to work hard to focus on. No, His presence as the Living One presses always on me, so it isn't a matter for belief or doubt. Sometimes, it's hard for me to focus on anything else.
Once I read this phrase in a friend's blog, speaking of discipleship ‘how does this work in practice with a dead (excuse me: resurrected and metaphysically present, but undoubtedly not physically available) teacher?’ I couldn't believe my eyes to read that Christ could be called a dead teacher. With all due respect to my friend, I think it was an awkward slip of the pen, perhaps. I don't think he meant to call Jesus a dead teacher. Call Jesus anything but that! But it made me wonder about other things I've seen, such as the WWJD bracelets. ‘What would Jesus do?’ implies that He is seen only as a historical figure.
Christians! Jesus was dead, yes, as He Himself admits in the passage quoted above, but long before any of us reading this were born, He was already and for ever the Living One. If He doesn't appear to you that way, at least try to remember that it's true, else you may live your whole life as though His rising from the dead never happened.
But ‘Christ is risen from the dead, by death trampling down death, and to those in the tombs bestowing life!’
Kali anástasi! Beautiful resurrection!
Reprinted from April 2, 2007.
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