"Resurrection", by Rob Bell

"Holy Week & Easter" 
from The Liturgists Podcast

"You have your breath. The exhale. The inhale. This lifeforce that gently, and quietly, and unassumingly surges through you. In and out. In and out. 

Your breath enters and then leaves your body. And your body is made up of all these molecules, which are made up of these cells, which make up these systems. You are this odd blend of soul & spirit, dust & bone. You have hair, and eyelids, and toes, and elbows, and knees. 

And opinions.
And you make assumptions.
​And you have expectations.

You are this potluck of emotions, and feelings, and physicality. You are part mountain, and part ocean, and then part spirit. You are a fascinating, endless, mystery. And then you move about this world.

And there is cement and taxes and there is your insurance agent. And there is the person you buy bread from ..."

Jamie Hagan

"And you have people that you love and people who are like human sandpaper; they annoy you to no end. There are people that you embrace on a regular day. And there are people that you pass by once on a street in a large city on the other side of the world and you will never be close to them again as long as you live.

You live in this body with this breath that comes and goes. And then in this body you experience this world with wind, and waves, and trees, and rocks, and deserts, and mountains.

It’s all part of what you call your life.

And in these experiences with this breath, coming and going... And in this body - with these people that you know, and this set of circumstances that is called your life; you have these experiences.

And some of these experiences fill you with hope and with life. Sometimes it’s a beautiful song. Sometimes it’s holding the hand of your young daughter. Sometimes it’s sitting by the bed as your grandfather takes his last breath.

Sometimes it’s a holiday meal with relatives. Sometimes it’s friends from school. Sometimes it’s that moment at work where you get this sense that what you're doing matters! We have these moments of meaning. These moments of substance. These moments when we think, “Yes! There is a point to this!”

And then there are the other moments..."

Marzie Vafa

"​The moments of despair. The moments when it doesn’t go well. There are the long, cold silences. There is that thing that happens when the alarm goes off in the morning and you think, “Another day…” 

There is that thing that happens when you’re driving to work and you think, “Why? What’s the point?” There is that small habit that grew and grew until now it’s like, a destructive pattern, you don’t know what to do with it. 

And so what happens ever so gradually, if we do not guard our hearts, is that we come to gradually be overtaken by this pervasive sense that there may not be a point to it. That underneath it all, it actually is random and pointless.

And so what happens is those good, beautiful, true, moving, inspiring moments. The lump in the throat. The tear in the eye. That sense when you embrace somebody and it feels like you're holding the universe in your hands. Those moments start to feel like they are just little detours & escapes from how it really is…

Which is cold, dark, lonely, and pointless..."

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Mostafa Ashraf Mostafa

"Resurrection is the opposite.

Resurrection says, “No, no no. Those glimpses - those are actually the real thing! They are the thing that undergird the whole thing!” Just that moment when that person said that kind word and it ignited a whole new world in your heart. That wasn’t just an aberration for how things are, that was a sign, a symbol, a glimpse, a glance of how it actually is!

Resurrection says that this is our home and that our home is good. Resurrection says that not only is our home good, but everything about our home that is wrong, twisted, broken, destructive, flawed, and failed!

Everything about it!

Whether it may hurt. Whether it may be something like cancer, that is real. And however big the bruise is and however much blood there is on the floor. Whatever it is, however real it is, and however much it broke your heart. It is, in the end, in some really, really hard to describe way - temporary."

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"​​That in fact, there is a new creation bursting forth - right here in the middle of this one. And there is a new Heaven and a new Earth coming together. And this Jesus, in His resurrection, insists that in the conquering of death, He has brought about something new. Something you can trust. That whatever it is that is holding you down. Whatever feels like it’s drowning you. Whatever feels like it’s a weight chained to your ankle does not have the last word… that is resurrection."

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Nine Koepfer

"Now, a guy rising from the dead 2,000 years ago. Can I prove that happened? No. 

No one can. And be very suspicious of anybody who says they can prove that. And be especially suspicious of sermons where people spend forty-five minutes proving to you that a man actually rose from the dead. Nobody knows.

What we know is there has been a community of people for several thousand years who insist that something happened. That a tomb is empty. And that when you trust this story, something will be unleashed and unlocked in your heart and in your life. So yes, it’s history, but it’s a bigger, better, wider, more expansive understanding of history. 

So, for those who think, “What? C’mon, how far fetched is that?”... Try it.

Try living in this story. Try trusting that all those little glimpses and glances of hope, and beauty, and truth, and light. That they weren’t aberrations. They weren’t mistakes. They weren’t some blip in the system. They were actually showing you what it’s really like...

That this new life is as close as the breath you just took and the breath you’re about to take."

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