Reggie Weems Blog

Allow me two geese (get it…a wild goose chase?).  I promise we’ll catch them and cook them.  First, I spent four hours today at the Firehouse, sitting with friends as we discussed ways Heritage could better reach the nations with the gospel.  Except for spending time with my wife and children, how better could the day before Resurrection Sunday have been spent, except talking about how to make the gospel meaningful to those who have yet to hear it? 

Secondly, it has been a difficult weekend living between the tension of the cross and the tomb.  Dr. Russel Moore calls Saturday, “the time between the times.”  On one hand, we are sorrowful yet on the other hand we rejoice.  After all, crucifixion day was the day of which the Psalmist wrote when he exclaimed, “This is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it!”  Rejoice? Yes, rejoice.  If ever there was a cause to “give thanks in everything” the cross is it. 

(Now let’s catch the geese)  So as we sat around the table and exchanged stories about God’s amazing grace in our own lives and how we could most effectively share that grace with others, I could not help but think about the Philippian church in Acts16 that my community group has been studying for several weeks now.  To the best of anyone’s knowledge, by the time Paul wrote his letter to that beloved congregation, it had not grown much larger than two households - Lydia’s and the jailer’s (since he’s unnamed, I call him PJ.  Do you know why?)  Epaphraditis had joined, so had Syntyche and Euodias.  Clement was also a member.  But ten years after its founding the congregation remained so small that it could probably still meet in Lydia’s home where Paul had roomed as a guest evangelist. What was Easter Sunday like for that small, persecuted, struggling, divided congregation to whom the apostle had written a letter with just one, much-needed theme, joy? And the table conversation also reminded me of six eastern European countries, visited by our discovery team last year, where the mosque’s spire and the Orthodox steeple towered over each town’s landscape creating a dark shadow of sorrow and death. 

Tomorrow morning millions of American Christians (?) will join together for a celebration of Christ’s resurrection, many of them for only one of two times they frequent the local gathering of Christ’s body, every year.  The greeters will greet.  The ushers will ush.  The choir will sing.  The preacher will preach.  And millions of American Christians will judge the resurrection of Jesus Christ by someone else’s passion for or interpretation of the resurrection.  The kinder the greeters, the better.  The less the usher tarrys, the better.  The more exquisite the choir, the better.  The shorter the preacher preaches, the better. 

Tomorrow morning, millions will judge the resurrection’s promise and power, not on Who Christ is to them indivdually, and what He has done for them personally, but on the performance offered by a corporate church of people they hardly know but will be quick to criticize if everything is not up to some subjective standard, created by a world with whom no Christian should be impressed or depressed. 

(Okay, now let’s cook those geese).  I suppose my point is that, for (here’s the word again) ‘millions’ of Christians, Easter Sunday morning will have more to do with a corporate performance than a personal experience and the objective truth of Christ’s ramifications and its eternal consequences on a world destined for God’s judgement (Acts 17).  And if it itn’t good enough, (and judging by their attendance last week, next week or next month, it won’t be), those same people will evidence that they are not satsifed with Christ alone.

Sadly, this same kind of ‘judge the God by the ‘whoopee’ of the experience is also true of Christians who are present each week.  For the 21st century American church, bigger is better and anything short of razzle, dazzle is just insufficient to create a passion for the God Who died, almost alone, encircled by just a small group of timid, fearful friends. But historically speaking, the church of Jesus Christ celebrated, was excited about and left from Resurrection Sunday gathering inflamed over, the gospel of Jesus, even though the crowds were small, perhaps even just a household or two (Philippi).  And since you and I have heard the gospel message almost 2000 years later, it is evidently more than sufficient, individually and to the corporate church, to be satisfied with Christ alone.  Evidently, until our generation, the church has been satisfied with Christ enough to remain faithful to His story and share it with others.  Imagine for a moment, excitement, passion, thrill, satisfaction - with no lighting, stage, choir, power point, drama, greeters, parking attendants and all the other accoutrements, without which, it just isn’t church for today’s Christian. 

Even the Bible tells us that confession is good for the soul. So go ahead and reflect.  You may as well be honest.  If tomorrow morning, you drive by the mega-church with all its Easter week advertising and you know that even if God doesn’t show up, the glitz and glamor will; and when you get to your church and it’s just you, your family and a few other saints, will you be satsifed with Christ?  And perhaps if you attend one of those churches blessed (if its right to call it blessed) to to do warfare with Hollywood and Madison Avenue, would you be willing so steal away, alone, sometime later in the afternoon; read the crucifixion and resurrection story, look into the sky and whisper to God, “Lord, I am satisfied with you.”  

For friends, it is a crime of the greatest magnitude not to be satisified with Christ alone!