When I imagine the women who came to the tomb to see the body of Jesus the day after he was crucified, I understand their sickened panic. The body had been taken somewhere unbeknownst and unknown to them. It was out of their sight, out of their care. He was out of their sight—not an empty shell, not “just” a body, but the one they loved. Mary Magdalene was devastated. She ran to Peter in horror: “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they have put him!”

There is something about the human spirit that inherently seems to understand the importance of caring for the dead, of moving them carefully from the place of death to a place of rest, finality, and farewell. What we have come to know commonly as the funeral is based on this fundamentally human behavior. It is understood that the dead cannot remain among the living, and yet their removal from society is never a task met with levity. Evidences of tender ceremony are noted in the oldest human burial sites ever found.(1) This movement of the dead from the place of the living to a place of parting is full of tremendous symbolic meaning.

For British statesman and avowed atheist Roy Hattersley, this meaning and symbolism has been a complicated part of the imagination with which he views the world. For years he has disapproved of the funeral service, finding it a paradoxical attempt to soften the blow of utter darkness, with clergy fulsome about the dead man’s virtues and discreet about his vices, and congregations gathered more as a matter of form than feeling. In the mind (or at the funeral) of one who remains committed to the unpleasant truth that life simply ends as haphazardly as it began, there is no room or reason for the promise of resurrection and the pomp of certain comfort.

And yet, Hattersley writes in The Guardian of an experience that almost converted him to the belief that funerals ought to be encouraged nonetheless. His conclusion was forged as he sang the hymns and studied the proclamations of a crowd that seemed sincere: “[T]he church is so much better at staging farewells than non-believers could ever be,” he writes. “‘Death where is thy sting, grave where is they victory?‘ are stupid questions. But even those of us who do not expect salvation find a note of triumph in the burial service. There could be a godless thanksgiving for and celebration of the life of [whomever]. The music might be much the same. But it would not have the uplifting effect without the magnificent, meaningless words.”(2)

Continue reading Ravi Zacharias Ministry – The March of Easter →

There is a great amount of anticipation leading up to Easter Sunday. Easter has always been a springtime holiday. Coinciding with the Jewish celebration of Passover, where death gives way to life, the spring is a season of beginnings and of openings. What seemed “dead” in the natural world over the long, winter months now breaks forth with green buds of new life. The Easter season opens the door to verdant spring meadows, even as it closes the door behind on long, cold, dreary winters.

The historic Christian church laid out the liturgical calendar not only to coincide with the natural seasons of spring, summer, winter, and fall, but also to coincide with the events in the life and ministry of Jesus. The spiritual significance of the resurrection of Jesus from the dead—he is the firstborn of all creation—also finds expression in the cycles and seasons of the natural world. But the celebration of Easter is far more than a mirror for the natural world. The celebration of the resurrection of Jesus issues a call to reveal the continuing reality of the Risen Lord in the world. In many church traditions, Easter Sunday is simply the first day of the season of Eastertide, which lasts until Pentecost. It is an invitation to consider how the continuing presence of the Risen Lord is perceived by and made manifest in the world. It is a season that invites followers of Jesus to consider how and in what ways their action in the world bears witness to the reality of new life, of opening, of new beginning.

Yet, when we’re honest, many simply view Easter as an annual remembrance day of an event that happened long ago. Many of us do wonder what difference the resurrection has made in the practical realities of our lives and in this world. We still argue with our spouses and loved ones; we still have children who go their own way. We have difficulties at work or at school. We still see a world so broken by warfare, selfish greed, oppression and sin. Like the two pilgrims on the road to Emmaus recounting the events surrounding the death of Jesus, perhaps we wonder aloud at the things we might have hoped would happen. “But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel” (Luke 24:21a). Signs of redemption seem fleeting like the spring. Flowers fade and grass withers. Things seem pretty much as they were before Easter Sunday and the reality of our same, old, lives still clamor for redemption.

Continue reading Ravi Zacharias Ministry – Continuing Presence →

To the people of ancient Israel, God’s house was an image that shaped the way they saw everything. In the minds of ancient Israelites, the house of God was the center of the world. The modern notion of the separation between heaven and earth would have seemed strange and wrong. God’s was a house reaching from the heavens to the places on earth where God caused his name to be remembered. God’s house was seen in experiences like Jacob’s, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it.”(1) It was experienced in the tabernacle that once moved among them as pilgrims, and later in their pilgrimages to the temple. Ever-expanding their vision of God’s house, altars were built over the places where God had appeared to them, marking the reach of its walls. Though at times as prodigals, their longing for home was a part of their identity as children of the house of God: “One thing I ask of the LORD, this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to seek him in his temple.”(2) The house of God as it reached from heaven to earth was occupied by the Creator. As the people of God, they had been invited inside, and they longed to remain; they longed for this home.

As with any group with a clear vision of inside and outside, belonging and not belonging, the Israelite’s understanding of the house of God could have easily become the very rationale for excluding foreigners, neighbors, and outsiders. Yet not long after God had called the people of Israel his own, God instructed them very specifically on the treatment of such people: “Do not oppress an alien; you yourselves know how it feels to be aliens, because you were aliens in Egypt.”(3) “The alien living with you must be treated as one of your native-born. Love him as yourself, for you were aliens in Egypt. I am the LORD your God.”(4) The house of God was to be a house of hospitality, for such a spirit reflected the very God within it: “For the LORD your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality and accepts no bribes. He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the alien, giving him food and clothing. And you are to love those who are aliens, for you yourselves were aliens in Egypt.”(5) Called to ever-remember their own status as foreigners, the people who were invited into the care of God’s house were to become a sign of that care themselves.

Continue reading Ravi Zacharias Ministry – In the House of Resurrection →