PostScript: Are you amazed?
From his infant birth to rising from the dead, God never ceases to amaze us (Mark 16.1-8)!
Introduction
In an age of computer-generated imagery, we are used to seeing all sorts of ‘amazing’ things. With 3-D films and computer games, we can fly, travel in space, kill or even be killed! But we can always get up and walk away. It’s common place now; there’s little amazing about it anymore. Television has its share of programmes about ‘haunted houses’, which we watch in the comfort of our living rooms and go ‘Ooohh’ when we’re shown something eerie or spooky. But a dead man walking and talking? Can we really imagine what it would feel like to run into someone we have known and loved for some years, but whose death we have witnessed, and whose burial we have attended? Would we simply shrug and say, ’well, that’s pretty cool‘? Rather, wouldn’t we be absolutely astounded? Wouldn’t it be amazingly good news?
This week's news
We sometimes have to search hard for amazingly good stories, so the following links are a mixture of new and recent stories.
Hopefully, you didn’t miss the piece about the 12-year-old schoolboy who refused a £20 reward for returning a lost iPhone, asking only that the owner do a good deed instead.
The CEO of Apple, Tim Cook, has announced plans to donate most of his wealth to charities before he dies. He is part of an amazing trend in which billionaires pledge to give away half of their wealth to good causes.
After the attack on the Copenhagen synagogue by a terrorist, people of all faiths – and none – have come out to surround and protect it. This amazing clip needs no words.
Have a look at this National Geographic link regarding black holes and ask yourself which seems more incredible: a galaxy-gulping black hole, or Jesus returning from the dead?
Reflection
Black holes, according to astrophysicists, are able to warp or distort the space-time continuum. None of us alive today will ever taste, touch, see, hear or smell a black hole – if we visited one, we are informed, we wouldn’t come out alive. (Some physicists suggest we might even end up in another space-time continuum!) Professor Brian Cox can tell us about these marvels on the TV and, and we might say ’Wow! Amazing!’ And yet… hasn’t Jesus Christ already torn asunder the space-time continuum by his resurrection from the dead?
Until his resurrection, death was a ‘black hole’ from which no one had ever returned. Jesus didn’t have need of a ‘worm hole’ through time
– he needed only the power of the Creator God, who made you and me. Isn’t that amazing? And isn’t it also amazing that those who witnessed his resurrection weren’t obliterated by the experience, as they would have been in a black hole, but lived to share this amazing news with others? And this is something which has continued until our day.
Don’t stand looking into a darkened tomb for Jesus. ‘He has been raised; he is not here.’
Prayer
This prayer could be used after the Gospel reading, or after a sermon on the Resurrection.
Creator God,
you have made each one of us
and placed in us a universe fashioned by you.
It contains untold galaxies, stars and solar systems.
The best of scientific minds struggle to understand,
much less explain, the wonder of creation.
And yet the real ‘final frontier’ for us as human beings
is not the vastness of space, but our mortality
–
the fact that each of us will die.
Lord, strengthen our faith.
Lord God,
our materialistic society would have us believe that death is the ‘enemy’,
the ultimate denier of our pleasure and possessions.
So we are encouraged to buy, to own, to eat, and to drink,
and (indiscriminately) to experience as much as possible
before we are devoured by death.
Lord, conquer our fear.
Yet, loving God,
through the resurrection of your Son, Jesus Christ,
death is no longer an ‘enemy’ to be feared,
but a passageway into eternity lived in the light of your loving presence.
Lord, strengthen our faith.
Redeeming God,
help us both to see and to celebrate this amazing reality:
that death does not have the final word;
but your living Word leads to life eternal.
Lord, lead us to life eternal.
Amen.
Questions
- Why do you think people accept as ‘fact’ theories such as ‘black holes’, when scientists also tell us that we can never actually see one; yet all of the recorded witnesses to Christ’s resurrection are treated as fanciful?
- When you hear of, read about or experience, something really amazing, are you inclined to keep it to yourself, or to share it? Do you consider the good news of Christ’s resurrection amazing – and worth sharing?
- Why are we as Christians so loathe to talk about death, when we have the promise of eternal life?
Action
Christians often have amazing stories of how God has affected their lives, but sometimes they can be very shy about sharing their experiences with others. Some diminish their experiences by comparing them with the likes of the Apostle Paul on the road to Damascus. Yet, God comes to each of us as the individuals that we are. And most of us who are Christians today have become so because we experienced the love of God in the actions or examples of others, in a life situation, in prayer, through healing, etc. We forget how inspiring and encouraging our stories can be for our fellow Christians.
Invite people (in advance of the worship, so as not to put them ‘on the spot’) to consider sharing their amazing experiences of God’s presence. You can do this in small groups (where people are sitting) sharing just among themselves, or you could use a roving microphone so that all can hear the testimony.
Young People
In small groups discuss the questions: What truly amazes you? Can you explain why?
Jack Lawson is the Mission Enabler for the East Anglia District of the Methodist Church, a lecturer in Hebrew Bible and freelance author.
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