come worship our dead god

Why is it that a dead Jesus gets talked about more than the living Jesus? Why is the church so pumped on the fact that he died and not very pumped about the fact that he rose from the dead? For the past few months I have heard this message preached time and time again, and its starting to bother me. Jesus dying on a cross isn't nearly as important as Jesus raising from the dead. 

The early church was not moved by the idea that Jesus died on a cross. Big Deal! The early church didn't grow because Jesus' death was preached, it grew because he rose from the dead. In John 20 we can see the mindset of the disciples after Jesus had been killed. They locked themselves in a house because they were afraid of the Jews. They weren't out preaching, "Jesus died on the cross so you need to quit sinning and go to church." That was not the message that moved them. They were running scared when Jesus was killed. The Christ that they expected wouldn't be killed. The Christ they expected would come to save them from the sorry state that they were in. The Christ was revolutionary, unstoppable,  anointed by God! When Jesus died, they were lost. 

The only message that moved the early church, and I propose, will move the church today is not the dead Jesus hanging on a cross but the living Jesus, seated in majesty, who invites us to share in his Glory. 

Paul says that we were once alienated from God. But because of Jesus' death we have been reconciled with God. If we have now switched sides from enemy to child of God, how much more will we be saved through his life. 

Yet, I don't hear this as the focus of our preaching today. I hear that we are to get rid of our sins so that we can follow God more. 

"Jesus died for your sins, so quit sinning... go to church, read your bible, don't say #*$(#. Don't Smoke, Chew or run with girls that do." 

While we shouldn't do those things, they shouldn't be our focus! We use the word "repent" when talking about following Christ. In the Greek it refers to the changing of ones whole being... thoughts, mind, heart.. all that stuff. But when we use it, we only focus on the act of doing, not the method behind it. We refer to "repent" and say that it means to turn around from our sins, and start going the opposite direction, and we assume that is God. Here is the problem. We, for some reason, keep our eyes on the sin and don't watch where we are going... much like a wide receiver catching a pass. We keep an eye on the sins in our life to see how far (or close) we are getting to them, while neglecting how close (or far) we are getting to God. 

What if we were to focus on God more... "for we died to sin, how can we live in it any longer". 

A final note... I love some of the Greek Orthodox Church's  simply for this reason. When you look at the front of the church, you don't see Jesus hanging on a cross, you see him in majesty after the Resurrection. I think that's golden. 

The message that caught the church on fire was not "Jesus died for your sins" but rather, "Jesus died, rose from the grave and offers you a new life." 

Lets focus on the positive and let God take care of our negative.