What's this? My first post in over a year?  It better be good right?  I did a meditation at our sunrise service this morning (Easter Morning) and since I had it all typed up I thought I'd post it.  The Bible passage I read was John 20:1-18, read it here if you want to get the rest in context. Now, on to the devotional (please excuse my bad grammar and any typos):

It’s really not hard to pick a topic for your meditation on Easter morning. The resurrection of Jesus is the inescapable topic.  So I was thinking about it, and it occurred to me that today’s topic doesn’t really make sense without the inescapable topic of two days ago.  You can’t talk about Jesus’ resurrection without talking about his death.  Then I wondered, is the converse true?  Can you talk about Jesus’ death without talking about his resurrection? Of course you can, many people do.  And it seems like a great many people would prefer that we always talk about Jesus’ death and never talk about his resurrection.  The resurrection is the part of the story that’s controversial; it’s the part that people have a hard time believing.  I’m reminded of a book I read called “Farewell to God” by Charles Templeton.  In it he said,

“We are told that approximately 2,000 years ago, a young unmarried woman was made pregnant by God himself and that her child was, in fact, Almighty God, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity; that he traveled ancient Palestine as an itinerant preacher, performing numerous miracles and even raising the dead. We are told that he was arrested by the Roman government and executed by crucifixion and has not been seen since.  The Christian church insists that he rose from the grave and ascended into Heaven. Whom should you believe the Christian Church or your own common sense?”

Charles Templeton asked that question implying that the resurrection of Jesus defies common sense, and I have to say that in a way I think he’s right.  But I find it most uncommon that so many people commonly believe that it does make sense.  Why is that?  Why the controversy?  I think it’s because so much of everything depends on whether or not Jesus rose from the dead.  The event that occurred on this morning approximately 2,000 years ago outside of Jerusalem was the pivot of history.  Things don’t make sense without it.  Think about it.  What would the crucifixion be without the resurrection?  If I was living in ancient Judea how would I have seen it?  Would I have been indifferent, passing it off as just the latest in a long list of Jewish rebels executed by the Romans?  Just one more cross to join the thousands that lined the roads of the Roman world?  Would I have even thought it was worthy of recording in the annals of history?  Or maybe I would have been one of those Jews who had been following the rise of this charismatic Galilean Rabbi.  Maybe I would have been attracted to his early teaching and its liberal departure from standard Judaism.  However, if I was this sort of person, I would probably have been rather disturbed by what his later teaching, it was moving from radical to incoherent and strange.  I might have heard rumors of crowds had tried to stone him for blasphemy.  Maybe I had even heard how when he was called before the Sanhedrin he admitted that he was the Son of God.  What kind of weird blasphemy would I think that was?  What Jew in his right mind would claim to be the Son of God?  Surely he would know that it would bring the death penalty, and even if he somehow escaped who would follow him after he made a claim like that? 

That raises the question was Jesus insane?  If the resurrection never happened, I think the answer is yes. Insanity would certainly explain a lot. But when it comes to Jesus’ seemingly insane actions I have to reconsider my definition of insanity. I know that an insane person doesn’t see himself as insane.  He sees himself as the only sane person world.  And that raises the question, what if what we view as sanity is really insanity, and those we think are insane are really the few people who are really sane?  Maybe I’m crazy to, but thanks to the resurrection I have to say that I think that idea is true.  That’s what Jesus turned out to be, the only really sane person in an insane world.

No, Jesus wasn’t insane. He proved that when he answered one of life’s most unasked questions, what do you do the morning after you rise from the dead?  I guess common sense would say you walk up the temple steps or go knocking on the palace gates.  But then we already said, common sense says that you don’t rise from the dead.  So what did Jesus do?  He spent his morning in a garden.  I’ve tried to imagine what he was doing there while he was waiting for people to show up.  Maybe he watched the sunrise.  Isn’t it funny to think that a man who had become the first of a whole new creation, who was about to change history forever and to shatter into fragments our conception of the impossible, would spend the morning in a garden watching the sun rise?  The most important morning in all of history doesn’t get any less anticlimactic when he turned and asked, “Woman, why are you crying?” And yet without that simple question I maintain that history doesn’t make sense, that what the apostles did doesn’t make sense, that the cross, and even Jesus himself doesn’t make sense at all.  The world doesn’t make sense without the resurrection, and that’s why I think the only sensible thing to do is say, “He is risen!”

I'm back in school, commuting to Shippensburg University.  Computer Science major and all that, over all it's not to bad.  My first semester is almost over and finals start next week.

I quit my job, although I'm thinking about getting another one very soon. 

I also bought a car to drive to school, then a week or so ago some guy on a cell phone ran a red light in front of me.  Here is a before (stock picture) and after picture of my former 2002 Hyundai Accent:

I'll be sure to put up some more timely pics of my next car.

That about sums up the important, must post stuff.  Which brings me to the reason I am updating.  I had to write a paper on Arianism for history class.  Since I put some work in it I decided to release it under the Creative Commons license.  It seems that not many people know what Arianism was, but it is an important part of church history.   It is still around today in the from of Unitarianism.  If you have no clue what I'm talking about go ahead and read the paper:

When Some People Thought Jesus Wasn't God

The paper was written after I read the book "When Jesus Became God" by Richard Rubenstein.
Well, that's all for now,
sirh_cybe