Easter & Ecclesiology

Hands and feet nailed to a tree, stood up, hung to die, and through this our sins are forgiven. This is the execution device we wear around our necks and get tattooed on our biceps. And while he was on this cross they stuck a sword in his side just to make sure he was actually dead. All this happened on a Friday. 

Jesus is buried in a tomb and the glorious thing about this Holiday is not just pastel colored button up shirts, hardboiled eggs, or the freakishly adult-sized bunny who answers to the name Peter Rabbit, but the fact and belief that Jesus was raised from the dead. He was resurrected. And this happened on a Sunday! Resurrection Sunday!

Then, in cool fashion Jesus approaches Mary who is crying outside Jesus’ tomb and she thinks he’s the gardener. Jesus calls her name and immediately she knows exactly who he is. She runs to tell the disciples. That night Jesus reveals himself to the disciples and their minds are blown.
However, there was one who wasn’t with them…

Thomas.

Who has been referred to as “Doubting Thomas”. But really, Thomas’ story is our story. Because of his doubt and unbelief we like to point fingers at him, but the truth of the matter is we too understand that the novelty of Jesus wears off doesn’t it?

We get used to it. We rehearse it. We get indoctrinated in it. It can actually get old.
There is something in us that loves what is new.
We like new things its universal to the human condition.
We keep up with our committed beliefs by mouth and perhaps that’s only because we don’t want to face the repercussions of option two of being on the other side.
Well, far too often in life, we have drifted away from God.
You start to have the habits of faith without the heart of faith.
You have structures without the Spirit.
You are going through the rituals but you don’t have the real thing. You are going through the patterns of faith but no longer with the power.

And if you have ever come to that time in your life, when things aren’t quite right,
when your religion has become more of a ritual than a real thing,
when it is more of a pattern than power,
when it is more structure than Spirit,
then something needs to be done.
 
You see, Thomas is not so different from us.
This is an insight that says you are this person.
Thomas is a spirit that lives inside you and I.
 
How much of you nodding your head at these declarations of Jesus are programmed… automatic… habitual…?
 
Spiritually speaking, if you don’t feel like you’re alive for the very first time then perhaps you need to rediscover the magic and the mystery that allows you to experience life for what it really is.
 
Rediscover the art of believing in Jesus.
 
Believing in Jesus gives life and brings us back to where we came from
for the very first time.
 
May we all be restored with fresh faith in the Jesus that not only died for our sins,
but also by the power of God was raised from the dead.
 
May we believe in Resurrection,
and through it may we constantly be made brand new.
 

Hosanna

Why do we celebrate Palm Sunday? 

Palm Sunday is the start of Holy Week, which is the week before Easter, commemorating events in the last days of Jesus Christ's life. According to ancient scriptures Jesus rode into Jerusalem where people gave him a hero's welcome during the Jewish Passover celebration.

As he rode in on a donkey with all his disciples following, people threw down their clothes and tree branches for the donkey to walk on. It was like rolling out the red carpet.

The tree branches would’ve most likely been from palm trees.

This is why we call it Palm Sunday.

As Jesus is riding in on the donkey people are shouting a word…

“Hosanna”

What does Hosanna mean?

This is not a word that was made up my Hillsong United.

When the word "hosanna" occurs in the New Testament, it’s the the same word in Greek- "hosanna." When it was translated we just used English letters (h-o-s-a-n-n-a) to make the sound of the Greek word.

The Greek dictionary will tell you that it’s not even a Greek word. Those who wrote the New Testament in Greek did the same thing to a Hebrew word that the English translators did to the Greek word.

They just used Greek letters to make the sound of a Hebrew phrase. Our English word "hosanna" comes from a Greek word "hosanna" which comes from a Hebrew phrase… 

hoshiya na

And that Hebrew phrase is found one solitary place in the whole Old Testament.

Psalm 118:25, where it means, "Save, please!" It is a cry to God for help. Like when someone is falling: "Help, save me . . . Hoshiya na!"

But something happened to that phrase, the meaning changed over the years. In the psalm it was immediately followed by the exclamation: "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!" The cry for help, hoshiya na, was answered before the author could blink. Over time the phrase stopped being a cry for help.

Instead it became a shout of hope and exultation.

It used to mean, "Save, please!"

But gradually, it came to mean, "Salvation! Salvation! Salvation has come!"

It used to be what you would say when you were falling.

But it came to be what you would say when someone was about to catch you.

"Hosanna!" means, "Hooray for salvation! It's coming! It's here! Salvation! Salvation is here!"

This is why people shouted it when Jesus rode in on a donkey. 

This is why we celebrate Palm Sunday.

Salvation is here.

Leadership is not Forever

Recently my wife and I were talking about a friend of ours who for most of his life displayed a brilliant business plan. He would start a certain kind of business in a community. Then he would hire an apprentice, show him the ropes, and eventually after building the business up sell it to his apprentice. Then he would go and start another one in a new community and repeat the process.

He did this over 30 times.

I started thinking about this at a red light while my wife sat in the passenger seat. I said, “You know, I think a church is the only place that doesn’t happen… If you put in the hard work of building up a church, you can’t sell it to someone like a business; even if that’s what the day to day operations are modeled after.”

You give it away.

Then my wife being the giant of brilliance PhD student she is- says,

“That’s because it’s a church.”

It wasn’t so much that I was unaware of this truth as much as hearing someone say it out loud brought all these implications to the surface for me.

Stewardship.

This must be why corporations have defined retirement dates for their executives. If those in charge are not submitted to an overall plan, the thrust of what they are doing will not work in the long term.

Leadership is not forever. And there are no exceptions to that rule.

An airline pilot has the authority to enter the cockpit of an aircraft. He is qualified by skill, training, and experience to fly. He has the temperament and has passed the physical examination.

Together with the navigator, co-pilot, and attendants, he will fly that aircraft from Chicago to San Francisco. When he arrives in San Francisco, he will leave that plane, knowing that the next person has the competence, experience, and skill to handle the job as well as he did.

While he was sitting in the pilot’s seat, he had the authority to fly that airplane, but he did not own it. It was not his — it belonged to the airline. And when he arrived at the destination, he left the aircraft for somebody else to fly.

No matter what you accumulate in life (things, people, power) …

No matter what authority has been granted unto you…

May we all be awakened to the universal truth that we actually don’t own anything,

May our hearts be adjusted to the realization that we are not owners but managers.

And may we manage in a way that inspires the owner to say,

“well done.”

this article originally appeared in TheoMag