My, wouldn’t it be wonderful to see it happen again? Many today say it’s impossible. The world is too calloused. Too secular. “This is the age of information, not regeneration!”
The door was locked. Deadbolted. Inside sat ten knee-knocking itinerants who were on the fence between faith and fear. Looking around the room, you wouldn’t have taken them for a group of men about to put the kettle of history from the back burner to the front. They were uneducated. Confused. Rough hands. Heavy accents. Few social graces. Limited knowledge of the world. No money. Undefined leadership. And on and on. No, as you would have looked around the room at that fearful group, you would not have suspected much potential. But something happens when a person witnesses someone who has risen from the dead! Something stirs within the soul of a person who has stood within inches of God.
It all started with ten stammering, stuttering men. Though the door was locked, He still stood in their midst. “As the Father has sent Me,” He said, “so I am sending you!” And send them He did! To courtyards. To palaces. To boats. To synagogues. To ports. To prisons. They went everywhere with the good news of salvation. The message of the Risen Christ dominoed across the then civilized world. That group of disciples was an infectious fever. They were a moving organism. They refused to be stopped. They were uneducated drifters who shook history with a message.
“Could it happen again?” someone asks. The rest of us deadbolt the door in fear, and hence the world goes largely untouched with the message. The few believers who do go out often come home weary and wounded, numbed at the odds and overwhelmed by the tremendous needs.
What would it take to light the fire again?
Maybe we should all return to the empty tomb. Maybe we all need to be infected with Resurrection Fever. “Will you tell them?” Jesus challenged. “Will you tell them that I came back-and that I’m coming back again?” “We will! ” they nodded. And they did! Will you?
May/June 1989