Wednesday, March 23, 2005

Expectation vs uncertainty

On the bus yesterday, there were two Christians from different kinds of churches, who were talking about the differences between the ways their churches experience Easter.
One way they talked about was experiencing death of the Friday and the Saturday with the expectation fo the resurrection on Sunday.
The other way was by experiencing the Friday and the Saturday as though we don't know that the resurrection is coming on Sunday, like Jesus' first disciples had to. They didn't have any reason to celebrate yet, and had evey reason to mourn.

Last night, at church, Tucks got us to listen to 'Secret Ambition' by Michael W. Smith. The chorus ends with,

Nobody knew His secret ambition
Was to give His life away
It reminded me of what the people on the bus had been talking about. A lot of the time we forget that the people whose stories are told in the Bible didn't know what was going to happen next or how their stories would end.

3 comments:

Tab said...

I get annoyed tho, b/c I've been to services most Good Friday where u all leave feeling depressed and stuff. It's good to remember and go thru it, but it sucks when u are all depressed for a weekend when Jesus is alive! I'd rather celebrate tha Jesus is alive EVRYDAY! Life's too short to get sad about stuff when we know God's already won.

I'm not saying this well. Sorry. I know that poeple will misunderstand what I'm saying, but I can't put it in better words right now. If u think u know hwat I'm trying to express then write it pls!

John M said...

Yeah I get what you are trying to say.I agree a bit and think sometimes at easter it is like there is too much focus on Jesus death and not enough on him Alive and it can be like leaving him in the grave. Which would be a very sad thing indeed!

Christop said...

Yeah, I see what you mean.
Here is what I am thinking:
We should focus on Jesus death for the first two days.
On the Third day, we should celebrate the resurrection.
During the year in general, we should try and focus more on the resurrection. (I do think we focus a lot of the cross, at the expense of forgetting the empty tomb.)
But I also think that we can't really celebrate the resurrection without focusing on the death for the first two days.