Day 3096 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

1 Thessalonians 4:14 NIV

There's an immense reason as to why the death, burial and resurrection of Christ is one of the foremost concepts discussed and believed upon within our faith.

And that's because those three experiences apply to us too.

Yet we find ourselves still living as a people unwilling to accept we owe any personal cost for anything. We’re surrounded by this mindset that has everyone most assured that there’s nothing ever to be required of them in life, in faith, in love, in anything. It should all just be there, should just be free. Life is a gift, but that doesn’t mean we’ve nothing to give it in return.

And faith, so too a gift, is also more than deserving of hearts willing to immerse themselves into whatever it may take to know a deeper level of hope. Especially since we should have none.

But alas, we likely don’t see it that way. We probably find ourselves somewhere in the middle at best. Sort of stuck between here and somewhere else, somewhere we don’t know how to be. Because it’s truly a strange thing, this faith of ours and all it is built upon and still building upon. It’s an entirely alien way of understanding. But could it be that it only seems so strange because we’ve yet to take more than a step or two down what is an endless journey?

Have we kept it strange and uncertain because we’re still so little invested personally that we’ve yet to find any personal connection? Have we unknowingly settled into a religion assuming it a relationship?

I guess it could be a longstanding challenge that's existed throughout history, but I don't know because I wasn't there, but in terms of this time in which I have lived, it seems as if we've a problem going somewhat unnoticed. Likely because it's filled with catchy words and trending ideas and preferences presently popularized. But still, I think it's far more dangerous than we tend to consider.

Buzz words and similar billboard style language has seemingly become an underestimated threat to civilization, or at the very least and to be more specific, to our faith. You see, there are a great many words that get thrown around like water balloons at a summertime birthday party for an 8-year-old. Words like salvation, mercy, persecution, brimstone, cornerstone and a whole list like them are spread evenly throughout any good religiously aimed message or undertaking.

But it's not only words, it's concepts and phrases that are also being consumed along these words that are so widely used that they've almost become clichés that only have meaning as they can be used to quickly identify someone as being a member or follower or devotee to some movement or group or religious belief system. So many of these absolutely crucial concepts are becoming so beat to death and buried that they just seem to have lost their meaning.

Like the one we're talking about today: Death, burial and resurrection. It's a group of three words, always listed in the same order with the same punctuation plastered or printed all over Easter pamphlets and other papers and postings passed around around springtime or left in gas station restrooms in some sort of road-side evangelism outreach effort.

But within or behind all the celebrations and colorful signs meant to grab attention and spike interest and our other attempts to make ourselves sound as if we have any idea of what others around us are talking about, have we managed to relegate one of the most central aspects of this faith to nothing more than a mere poster?

Well, I'm afraid that if we haven't, we could be well on the way.

Because, as with many other ideas and the ways in which we respond or react to them, the concept of Christ's death, burial and resurrection seems to have been left all on Him. And perhaps that's been done for good reason. It was His work, His mission, His plan and purpose perfectly plotted. But where I think we're at risk of not necessarily misunderstanding but potentially under-understanding that work He did is that it didn't end with Him.

No, it's the good work that Christ began in us. It's how He opened the door for that good work to begin in us. It's the plan He had to clear away all the debris we'd piled up and set on fire across a lifetime thus far entirely misspent. It is the power of God displayed for all to see. But it's not a movie we're only meant to watch.

It's a path we're called to follow. That's what He points out to His followers in Matthew 16:24. "Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me."

He didn't simply mean for the Disciples to pick out some tree branches, fashion some makeshift crosses and form a neat and orderly line behind Him to the next town they were going to visit. He doesn't ask us to run to the local jewelry store and pick out our favorite cross necklace and then drive around showing it off. He doesn’t mean for us to all buy matching shirts with crosses on them so that the whole world knows we don’t fit in anymore, and that we don’t care to.

No, He calls us to take up our death and follow Him along the path He walked as He went humbly into the grave. Why? So that He wouldn't be the only one to walk out having overcome death. It was so that we might understand the fullness of the road to which we’ve been called. It was so that we’d welcome what we’ve long run from.

He calls us to embrace with thanks the many pains and persecutions which lie along this path He knows we'll find should we follow it, because He knows that's how our faith in Him will strengthen. Because He knows a faith can never ever be strong enough. And so He calls us to welcome the things we'd otherwise avoid so that we can finally learn we can't live by trying to run away from life and the hard parts it will inevitably hold.

That's why we've been talking about the more painful and punishing side of this life of faith. Because that's what life is already. It's painful. It's aggravating. It's this kind of ongoing annoyance that always seems to jolt us back to misery just as soon as we get comfortable. And friends, adding faith to a life that's already filled with ups and downs will only make matters harder.

Because we live in a world that doesn't get it, doesn't want it, won't welcome it, and will always hate it. And we're going to find ourselves caught in the middle.

Thus the necessity of our ability to both understand and accept the opportunity we've been given in the offer to share in the fullness of Christ Jesus. Should we have the courage and the humility to accept that gift, then we will learn to trust Him so deeply that we too do truly die to ourselves. It may take place a little at a time until we’re out of time. Might happen slowly over the rest of our lives. But, as He's promised, He will finish the good work He began in us upon that cross.

This meantime is our time to walk the path He paved with our cross upon His back.

Uphill. Exhausted. Beaten. In agony. Tortured and tormented with every step. Laughed at, sneered at, spat at. Hated. Mocked. Misunderstood. Mislabeled. Manhandled. Not really the words you notice all that much left by the sign person on the marquee outside a church, are they?

You see, there's more to this than what sounds good on a poster we can hang on our bedroom wall to make us feel good when we're feeling down. More to it than a story little kids rehearse and perform for the service on Easter Sunday. More than an image on a screen that some actor and director tried to capture so we'd have a bit of the story without the effort needed to read the Book that led up to it. In fact, it's not even just a story.

It's life. It's death. It's a blending of the two until what we've known comes out the other way around. It's mercy and healing and hope. And friends, it's ours. He is ours. We are His. But only if and when we allow ourselves to enter this story and understand that we're not just spectators looking on. Only when we take up our crosses and follow Him in the direction our "right minds" would never choose to go.

Only when death, burial and resurrection finally become more than what He did, but what we chose in response to what He did.

As we talked about yesterday, and in some ways across the days prior, we spend a lot of time sort of shoving to the side the realness of all this. As long as Christ is on the cross then we're good. We're saved, we're happy, we're comfy. He's covering us. He's paying our cost. But friends, what is our cost? What are we paying? Where's our investment in all this? Is our faith just an image of Savior hanging on a hill? Is that the end of it?

Is a stone rolled away all He came to accomplish? Or was it not for us to follow Him both to the death we deserve and through the death He overcame?

Yes, as Christians we believe in the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. We believe that He is God incarnate, God in flesh, Immanuel, God with us. But at what point are we with Him?

There's the rub. And again, it's a subject or idea or question which falls conveniently under other buzz words and clichés. Folks will argue faith by works or faith without needing evidence. They'll fall back on doctrines they've been taught since they were kids who loved Vacation Bible School only for the pool parties and snack foods. But behind every hesitation and misunderstanding and attempt to avoid the obvious, the fact remains.

This story is one we're called to live in our own lives. Death, burial and resurrection. Die to this world. Die to ourselves. Bury our pasts. Plant our plans in the dirt and walk away into the unknown, into the resurrection of all we've done all we could to starve to death in those old lives seeking only selfish satisfaction.

Christ came to this earth to bring a message and an opportunity and a salvation so important He was willing to die for us to understand it. He gave His life to show us that there's more to life than what we've known of it. He died to help us see that in Him, death ain't the end. He lived to let us know that because of His good work, we've the chance to share in the fullness of who He is and what He's done to make us what we've never been.

He showed us the way to eternal life. It's on us if we refuse to embrace the parts of it we don't want to make our own.

But, to be certain, if we never enter this story, we’ll never feel it come alive. We’ll never feel ourselves come alive. Instead, we’ll just stand on the sidelines left to wonder what it might have been like had we had the courage to risk something in order to find something we shouldn’t have the hope of finding.

We believe in salvation. We believe in the Gospel. We believe in the Bible. We believe in the Son of God. We believe in a cross on a hill. We believe in a stone rolled aside. We believe that He is alive because we believe death cannot hold Him. We believe all of this, but do we know it? Do we know it enough, trust it enough, trust Him enough to follow Him where He’s leading?

Do we believe Him enough to do what He’s asking us to do even though it means His leading us away from the life we’ve known, into the grave we don’t want to think about? He led the way because, as the Way, that’s what He wanted to do. What do we want to do?

It’s our story too folks. Or at least it should be.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold