Resurrection Sunday 2016

Over the past few days, I’ve been republishing some edited posts from Resurrection celebrations of the past twelve years that I’ve been writing this blog. And I’ve written a few new posts to intersperse between and among.

Last year on Resurrection Sunday I wrote about the most important and significant thing in my life—and about what I wish for each of you who read this blog. Today I want to say it again, in different words perhaps, but still the same old, old story because it’s that important: it bears repeating that Jesus is Lord.

I’m just a fifty-eight year old mom. I’ve read a few books, birthed eight children, made a lot of mistakes, told some lies, and discovered one overwhelmingly important Truth: Jesus is Lord.

I don’t know where you are in your journey of faith. Maybe, like me, you know that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life and that no one comes to God the Father except through Jesus. Maybe you’ve died to yourself, been
“born again” and dedicated your life to the proposition that Jesus is Lord.

Or maybe you’re just not there (dare I say, yet). Maybe you have doubts about Jesus, doubts about God, fears that admitting the truth of Jesus’s lordship over your life will mean a descent into religiosity or intellectual suicide or fluffy self-delusion. Maybe the very idea of becoming a Christian, following the commands of Jesus as they are set forth in the Bible and asking Him for forgiveness for your mistakes and your brokenness and your sin, is anathema to you. Still, Jesus is Lord.

I don’t know much. Sometimes I think I do, but then events usually conspire to show me that all my great knowledge and intelligence are not enough to even run my own life properly, much less that of anyone else. And I’ll leave those who think they can do it to run for president and presume to become the “leader of the free world.” Maybe God is leading someone to do just that. Goodness knows, somebody’s got to govern the country. But whoever becomes president had better know one thing: Jesus is Lord.

Not only do I not know much, but I can’t even say what I do know very well. I certainly don’t speak with the tongues of men and of angels. If God were waiting on my eloquence to convince a dying world of hurting people to turn to Him, we would all be waiting for a long, long time. All I can really say is: Jesus is Lord.

Today is Resurrection Sunday. Jesus, who died and then rose again, is here in this puny little world, and He is Lord, Lord of the earth, Lord of the stars, Lord of the galaxies and black holes and comets and planets and quarks and quasars and anything else that anyone can imagine, as well as many things we haven’t even begun to conceive. That same Jesus who was crucified between two thieves is also the resurrected Lord, Owner and Director of all things in heaven and on earth. Jesus is Lord.

And that great Lord, mighty and powerful and full of all the immenseness of the universe, is a Lord of Love. He loves me. He loves you. He knows my name and my thoughts and my psychological complexities and everything about me, just as he knows you in all your depths and heights and quirks and qualities. Of all the bigness of everything and all the smallest infinitesimal molecules, Jesus is Lord.

Jesus is Lord, and He loves. The only rational response to that vast and intimate loving knowledge is to fall before Him and worship and give thanks and live in joyful gratitude and praise. Of course, I’m not always rational. Neither are you, probably. I muddle along, forget to pray, forget to seek Him, act as if Jesus’s death and resurrection never even happened, try to figure it all out all by myself instead of asking Him to show me the way. Nevertheless, Jesus is Lord.

This one thing I know: Jesus is Lord. He is risen from the dead, and He is Lord. He loves you and me, and He is Lord. The question remains: what am I going to do about that truth? What are you going to do about it?

My prayer for each of us on the Resurrection Sunday is that we will recognize and follow the Lord Jesus Christ.

Jesus is Lord.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *