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From the Pastor

April 26, 2019 by Rev. John Hartman

From the Pastor

John Ortberg tells of a woman who looked out her window and saw her German shepherd shaking the life out of a neighbor's rabbit. Her family did not get along well with these neighbors, so she knew this was going to be a disaster. She grabbed a broom and pummeled the dog until it dropped the dead rabbit from its mouth. Seeing the dead rabbit, she panicked. She grabbed the rabbit, took it inside, gave it a bath, blow-dried it to its original fluffiness, combed it until the rabbit looked like a rabbit again, sneaked into the neighbor's yard, and propped it back up in its cage. An hour later she heard screams coming from next door. She came out and asked what was going on. “Our rabbit! Our rabbit!” her neighbor cried. “He died two weeks ago. We buried him, and now he's back!”

Ancient people knew dead rabbits stay dead. If you were a religious entrepreneur launching a new religion, you wouldn’t be real smart to base it on a dead person coming back to life. You would base it on a philosophy or ethics or wisdom. And if you were dumb enough to base it on the rising of a dead person, you would be doubly dumb to make that rising from the dead hinge on the witness of a woman. We go right by that today, but in that day and culture, -- women had zero credibility. They could not even give testimony in a court of law. If you mugged or stabbed someone and all the witnesses were women, you would probably go free. Yet John and the other gospels say in a matter of fact way that the first eyewitnesses to the empty tomb and the risen Jesus were women. Imagine a skeptic back then saying, “Number one, you tell me someone rose from the dead? And number two, your star witness is a woman?” There were no advantages in making any of this up.

The best explanation is that what John the gospel writer recorded was absolutely true. If not, then they are triply dumb to have their star witness a woman with a history of mental problems. Before meeting Jesus, the gospels say Mary Magdalene was possessed by seven devils, – seven meaning complete domination by the powers of darkness. She was a poor, fragile creature. If she took her medicine, it was all she could do to get through the day. Nobody in their right mind would make this all up.

Friends, the resurrection was not created by the church. Rather, the church was created by the resurrection. And on this week after Easter, we can all move forward in the power and truth that Jesus rose from the dead. Death is dead, hope is alive, and Jesus Christ reigns forever and ever. Amen!

Pastor John

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Quote of the Week

“The risen life of Jesus is the nourishment and strengthening and blessing and life of a Christian. Our daily experience ought to be that there comes, wavelet by wavelet, that silent, gentle, and yet omnipotent influx into our empty hearts, this very life of Christ Himself.” Alexander MacLaren

Alexander Maclaren was an English non-conformist minister of Scottish origin.