By Jill Roberts and Michael Canale
This is number 53 of Michael’s and my blogs and, of all of them, this is the most important, the one that we approach with the greatest amount of desire to get this right. Therefore, we are even more dependent on the guidance of the Holy Spirit, always our mainstay in every word of these blogs.
Michael and I each have the same, very strong views about the centrality of the Resurrection. Michael wisely says that,
“There was no Christianity until Jesus walked out of the tomb.”
This belief is completely affirmed by the Apostle Paul who writes,
“And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith…And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins.”
1Corinthians 15:14, 17) .NIV
Without the Resurrection, Jesus was just another of thousands of casualties of Roman crosses.
In my book, How to Find God in Under Five Hours, I write,
“Is all this, (the victory over death that Paul speaks of in 1 Corinthians 15:54-55) true just because Jesus died on the cross? No, something else also had to happen for death to have no victory. That is, Jesus had to rise from this death; he had to come back to life. Without his resurrection, Jesus’ rescue mission was a failure, no matter the pain, no matter the miracles, no matter his claims of being part of the Godhead. EVERYTHING DEPENDED ON THIS!”
Michael, who is known by the readers of this blog for being able to take the broad sweep of an enormous issue and synthesize it into a few brilliant and succinct words, said of the Resurrection:
“It was a pivoting point.”
A pivoting point…what a word, “pivot!” While, of course, I knew, generally, what this word meant, I wanted a more detailed definition. My secular dictionary then turned quite Scriptural when giving us a number of definitions which we plugged into the Biblical context that Michael provided. The first is this: A pivot is,
“any thing or person on which something functions or depends vitally.”
Example: “Becoming thoughtful is the pivot of my life.”
This is what Michael is speaking of when he calls the Resurrection the “pivoting point” of history, the thing, (Jesus rising from the dead) that proved that a Jew, who, before the cross, claimed to be deity, was God and with complete credibility. This God, this Messiah, is, as the dictionary’s just-cited phrase sets forth, “a person on which something or someone, (in this case, the whole world) DEPENDS VITALLY. How vitally? Jesus, post Resurrection, is the sole support and foundation for eternal life. Paul says it well:
“But Christ has, indeed, been raised from the dead, the FIRST FRUITS of those who have fallen asleep…For, as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.” (emphasis added)
(1 Corinthians 15:20,22) NIV
It bears repeating: Our life after death is 100% dependent on the Resurrection of Jesus.
Continuing to look at the definitions in the dictionary, it is so fascinating how Michael’s word, “pivot,” is definitively central to the Resurrection. A pivot is,
“the person in a line, as of troops on parade, WHOM THE OTHERS USE AS A POINT above which to wheel or maneuver.”
(emphasis added)
Michael’s original phrase, “a pivoting point,” contemplates this exactly. The point person is the moral compass around which we turn to the left or to the right in making life decisions. The RESURRECTED Jesus is that pivot. We ask, when confronted by a dilemma, “What would Jesus do?” If we picture life as a parade, as alluded to in this definition, we see the Lord of Easter, the resurrected one who NOW has salvation power as that center of morality and its True North.
A third definition of “pivot,” is:
“…a change in policy, opinion, etc., that retains some continuity with its previous version, especially as part of a strategy to appeal to a different audience.”
Jesus’ own disciples are a case in point with regard to this definition. Some believed right away when Mary Magdalene announced that Jesus had risen from the dead. But this was not true of Thomas:
“Now Thomas…one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, ‘We have seen the Lord!’
But he said to them, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.’
A week later…Jesus said to Thomas, ‘Put your fingers here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.’
Thomas said to him, ‘My Lord and my God!’
Then Jesus told him, ‘Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”
(John 20:26-29) NIV
Jesus had many followers before he was resurrected but that number greatly increased after so many eyewitnesses saw the risen Christ. The audience who, like Thomas, had their doubts, had those same doubts completely reversed when Jesus again walked among them.
There is one last definition that is so illuminating. A “pivot,” is:
“…a pin or point on the end of something upon and about which something rotates.”
Here, we have the transformation of the pivot point or axis on which the very Earth turns. When Jesus resurrected on that Easter morning, two thousand years ago, the “spiritual axis,” of the planet stopped and began spinning in the opposite direction. We, the inhabitants of this planet, whirling in space, went from death to life, from despair to hope. We saw light in what had been darkness, a light that was eternal and AVAILABLE.
I can think of no more compelling analogy for this than that drawn by iconic theologian, Dallas Willard, in his masterpiece, The Divine Conspiracy. Speaking of the newly established Kingdom of God, he compares the AVAILABILITY of the Kingdom to the arrival of electricity in a rural area of Southern Missouri, where he grew up.
Dr. Willard writes that electrical lines stretched out to his family farm and to those around them. Most of the farms in that area heard what he calls, “the message,” and abandoned their antiquated forms of lighting and heating and entered the “kingdom of electricity.” Surprisingly, some did not accept this new form of power but instead, went on living “diminished lives.”
The eternal life that we have been writing about in this week’s blog, like electricity in Southern Missouri during that era, has a formidable foundation – the eternal life Jesus is living. As stated, he is the First Fruits of that life eternal. Why? Because death was overcome by him. In the same way, death’s grasp on us no longer holds us in darkness. There has been a monumental pivot!
Who said it better than N.T. Wright, perhaps the greatest theologian living today:
“The resurrection completes the inauguration of God’s Kingdom…It is THE DECISIVE EVENT that God’s Kingdom really has been launched on earth as it is in heaven…the message of Easter is that God’s new world has been unveiled in Jesus Christ AND THAT YOU’RE NOW INVITED TO BELONG TO IT.”
(emphasis added)
Surprised by Hope
Will the world, for whom Jesus came, died and arose from death, hook its theological lines into the availability of spiritual electricity, i.e., eternal lives, the power of eternity with God? What an invitation! What a promise! Here is what Jesus said about these:
“And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of those he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. FOR MY FATHER’S WILL IS THAT EVERYONE who looks to the Son and believes in him, shall have ETERNAL LIFE and I will raise them up at the last day” (emphasis added)
(John 6:39-40) NIV
Looking back over this week’s blog, our Easter blog, the most important blog of the year, we should all ask ourselves, “How high were the stakes for Jesus to rise from that tomb and walk outside on Easter morning?” Eternal life, itself, was riding in the balance!
A pivoting point…Michael said it so well! Humanity’s destiny was going either for glory or for eternal night, at the moment Jesus opened his eyes in the tomb. Outside, light was just starting to break as the Light of the World arose and walked into a world where death had just drawn its last breath.
To quote Dallas Willard so powerfully,
“Jesus looks outward to the cosmos and to the sway of human history before and after. He tells us we have no need to be anxious, for there is a divine life, the true home of the soul..,”
The Divine Conspiracy
Sunday, we celebrate the pivoting point of all of history: Resurrection Sunday, Easter. As the praise song goes, now, the grave has no claim on us.
Jesus said,
“I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though he dies and whoever lives by believing in me will never die.”
(John 11:25-26) NIV
We do believe. Hallelujah! It is Easter, a day of resurrection for Jesus and for each of us! Rejoice and be glad that, like our Savior, we have passed into life eternal, “world without end!” Amen!
Yep! Well done.