Resurrection 101 - The Medicine for the Soul

It's really hard to hear, truly hear the good news without the bad news first.  I wish it wasn't that way.

Bad news are difficult to deliver.  They are difficult to swallow and even more difficult to digest.  I want to avoid the process altogether and hop from one fluffy spiritual cloud onto the next, from health to wealth to popularity in ever-ascending skyward line until I am safely cushioned in heaven (or at least my version of it).

But that's not real life.  That's a seductive phantom, the illusion of life where comfort, safety and luxury are brazenly taken for granted.

Life is not always comfortable.

Life is not always safe.

As Mr. Beaver tells Lucy, Aslan, the great lion, the King of the beasts is not safe but he is good.

It's the deep, heart-knowledge and belief in God's goodness that empowers us to swallow the bitter pill of sometimes brutal reality. Without His goodness we are left at the merciless mercy of despair.

Peter's hearers got the full brunt of the bad news. They crucified the One God sent to save us.

You crucified Him... I crucified Him...

We may think that our sin is gluttony, or avarice, or lust or all the rest combined. But, those are just the manifestations of our core sin, which is unbelief. And in our unbelief, we end up crucifying the One God is sending us to save us. We still do to this very day.

Most of us get so tripped up in managing, covering up, excusing the manifestations that we never reach the core. Peter's audience, however, understood their impossible predicament and were ready to do anything to change.

Peter!  Brothers! Is there anything - ANYTHING - we can do to make it right? Acts 2:37

Looking at them, Peter remembers the place of bitter agony he himself experienced just few weeks ago:

Change your life. Turn away from the useless phantoms to God. Be baptized, each of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, so your sins are forgiven, your slate wiped clean by His blood. But don't stop there. Receive also the gift of the Holy Spirit. This gift is for you and your children. But it doesn't stop with you. It is also for all who are far away—whomever, in fact, our Master God invites. Acts 2:38-39