I've witnessed a few incredible things in my 40-some years on this planet. I've seen 2 space shuttles blow up and watched in disbelief. I've also watched the surreal footage of the World Trade Center collapse on September 11. I sat at my brother's dining room table and helped plan his funeral with him - never believing he could really ever die.
To me, it would seem unbelievable that Jesus was dead in the first place. I'm not surprised that the group had issues with the fact that he might be alive. I imagine there was a lot of confusion about whether Jesus was "still" alive or alive "again". They didn't know the whole story. In fact, they were the story.
That's kind of where I want to focus this post. When Jesus came to be with them all for the first time after the resurrection He asked them a question.
Luke 24:38, 3938He said to them, "Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds? 39Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have."
It's hard to determine the level of emotion Jesus was feeling when he asked the question. Did he ask this with a loving smile on his face? Was he frustrated at their doubts and confusion? I wasn't there. I don't know. But I do know that he showed up to prove the resurrection to those who chose to meet together.
We have the benefit of reading the story from beginning to end. We can point to them and say "yeah - why didn't they believe?" because we know the end of the story. Because they were the story, they didn't have the same point of reference. Still, they were expected to believe.
As married men, we all have our relationship struggles. We struggle in our relationship with God. We struggle in our relationship with our wives. We struggle in our relationships with our kids. Life is like that. Nothing new here. But when it comes to dealing with our struggles, how much belief to we have that God is here to take care of everything? Or put another way - how little belief causes us to try to handle our struggles out of our own resources and energy? We are our own stories. Sometimes it's difficult to put our complete faith in God when we can't see the ending to the story.
Unlike the disciples and the people gathered in the room in Luke 24, we have the benefit of knowing how that story ends. True, each of us in our marriages are our own story and we might be afraid, frustrated, or angry about the current chapter we're in. Yet, because we know the ending to that story, we can be confident in the ending to our own stories - if we believe.
Faith - believing - is a difficult thing on the nuts and bolts level. I believe there is a God. I believe that Jesus Christ died to save me from myself and from hell. That's the easy part. The hard part is to believe that God will take care of me through the current crisis chapter I'm in. It's to believe that if I give up my relationship with my wife to God that he will make it better than it could be if I try to take care of it on my own. It's difficult to trust that God will heal the hurts and uncertainty done to a relationship through addiction, adultery, dysfunction, terminal illness, unplanned pregnancy, car accidents, law suits, financial distress, job loss - and the list goes on. It's difficult to trust because, in those situations, we are the story being written and we aren't sure how it will end.
I saw the movie Bedtime Stories with my family last night. In the movie the Adam Sandler character tells his niece and nephew that there are no happy endings in real life. At the end of the movie, the kids and the narrator (the late father) teach him about happy endings in real life.
In Luke 24: 34-39, Brother Luke, Jesus Christ, and our not-so-late Father God - teach us about happy endings in our real lives. If you believe - really trust on a day-by-day, hour-by-hour level of trust - you're guaranteed a happy ending to your story.
It's Easter weekend. There's a lot of reason for celebration. Yet, there's still a lot of pain and hurt out there in relationships. If this Easter weekend isn't a weekend of celebration for you, leave a comment so we can pray for you. And if you need to reach out for some help, we can do that too.
Thanks for stopping by.
1 comment:
You're so right about the perspective thing. It makes me think about the cliche of the slasher-movie where you're screaming at the victim to turn around, or not open a door.
And right about being able to verbalize our faith, without actually applying it to the current situation (which I'm probably doing right now). I've come to understand that there are several 'selves' in our head, and they behave independently usually, as a team if your lucky (or trained them that way).
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