You Are Resurrected Everyday

Daniel Roebuck is a character actor. You’d recognize him if you saw him. He was in movies like “The Fugitive” and “U.S. Marshals” (which was really the same movie). He’s been on “Matlock” dozens of times as Andy Griffith’s assistant. I heard him on the radio the other day. He says he idolizes Andy Griffith. He says a hundred years from now people will still be watching the old Andy Griffith show, because of its timeless wisdom and values.

I remember watching “The Andy Griffith Show” when I was a kid. I think I watched it because Barney Fife, Don Knotts, was so funny. And it did have timeless wisdom and values. It treated people with dignity and respect. How many times did Andy go out of his way to avoid embarrassing Barney or to make Barney feel good about himself? When you watch old shows like that, you just might find yourself yearning for what seemed like a better time in America.

If you wanted to, you could pretend that the last 50 years or so never happened. You can go on Amazon.com and buy the first season of “The Andy Griffith Show,” from 1960, for about 16 dollars. You can go online and for about 20,000 dollars, you can buy a 1964 Mustang, the first year they were built. And for only about 25 dollars, you can buy a Nehru jacket from the ‘60s. Then you could make-believe that you’re living a half-century ago or so.

Some people want things to never change. They hate change. They want the world to always stay the same, the way it was back in “the good old days.” They themselves want to stay the same and never change, too. Usually they’re pretty successful at it. They believe the same things they did 50 years ago. They have the same friends (and the same enemies). They’re like the guy who goes to his 25th high school reunion and is proud of the fact that he acts the same now as he did then. “A man who views the world the same at fifty as he did at twenty has wasted thirty years of his life,” says Muhammad Ali, a Muslim.

I wonder if the nine Christian militia members in Michigan (all white), who were arrested the other day for allegedly plotting terrorism, just really hate change. I wonder if they yearn for “the good old days,” when Presidents of the United States of America were white and Speakers of the U.S. House of Representatives were men and immigrants weren’t illegal because they weren’t people of color.

I wonder if the Tea Party protesters feel pretty much the same way. (Is it a coincidence that they’re all white, too?) They say they hate the deficit, but they can’t really hate the deficit, because they were silent when it was ballooning during the Bush years. They say they hate socialized medicine, but they can’t really hate socialized medicine, because many of them seem to be old enough to be on Medicare – socialized medicine. Or do they just hate socialized medicine for everybody else? Or do they just hate change? (Especially change from a Republican president to a Democratic one.)

Today, Christians celebrate what they consider to be the biggest change ever. Christians believe that 2,000 years ago Jesus went from Good Friday to Easter Sunday, from death to life, from burial to resurrection. It’s a miracle. Christians believe it had never happened before and it hasn’t happened again since. Nobody else has ever gone from Good Friday to Easter Sunday. Nobody else has ever died and come back to life. Nobody else has ever been buried and then been resurrected. I’m not here to confirm or deny the claim that Jesus was resurrected. I’m just here to wonder if people aren’t resurrected all the time, at least metaphorically.

Saul was a Jew who hated the teachings of Jesus, even though Jesus was a fellow Jew. Saul didn’t like the emerging Christian movement, even before it was called the emerging Christian movement. We don’t know whether Saul was one of the people at Jesus’ inquisition yelling, “Crucify him! Crucify him!” I think you could make a logical case that he would have been there. We do know that Saul stood by and watched one of Jesus’ followers, Stephen, get stoned to death. So he was at least an accomplice in Stephen’s murder and martyrdom. The early Christians, people of the Way, saw Saul as an evil man, at least before he traveled on the road to Damascus.

You probably know this story. Saul is walking along, on his way to persecute more followers of Jesus, when all of a sudden he is blinded by a light! Then he hears a voice! It’s Jesus! “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” Eventually Saul regains his sight and changes his ways and his name. He becomes a follower of Jesus known as the Apostle Paul. Some say he was the most significant Christian ever, planting many churches and converting many to Christianity.

What happened to Paul on the road to Damascus? I would like to suggest that he went from Good Friday to Easter Sunday; that he died and came back to life; that he was buried and then was resurrected. Could that kind of thing happen to you and me? Could we go from Good Friday to Easter Sunday? Could we die and come back to life? Could we be buried and then be resurrected?

Nelson Mandela was an anti-apartheid leader in South Africa. Although he was an admirer of Mahatma Gandhi, who was all about peaceful civil disobedience, Nelson Mandela fought against the white supremacist government of South Africa, sometimes with violence. The U.S. government called him a terrorist. He was arrested, tried and convicted of sabotage and treason. He spent 27 years in prison. He got out in 1990.

When he got out of prison, Nelson Mandela did not go back to violence. He led South Africa through a peaceful transition, from white rule to multiracial democracy, from violence to reconciliation. He became the first president of South Africa to be elected in a fully representative democratic election. He served from 1994 to 1999. In 1993 he won the Nobel Peace Prize.

What happened to Nelson Mandela over the years? I would like to suggest that he went from Good Friday to Easter Sunday; that he died and came back to life; that he was buried and then was resurrected. Could that kind of thing happen to you and me? Could we go from Good Friday to Easter Sunday? Could we die and come back to life? Could we be buried and then be resurrected?

“Amish Grace” is a movie that aired on the Lifetime channel this past week. It was excellent. It was about the mass murders-suicide that happened at an Amish school in Pennsylvania a few years ago. The world took notice of that tragedy, because immediately afterwards, the Amish parents of the children killed went to the widow of the murderer and offered forgiveness and support. The world was flabbergasted that a group of religious people actually practiced what they preached, or heard preached. The story focused on Ida, played by Kimberly Williams-Paisley, the mother of one of the victims. In the story, she was unwilling to forgive, at least for a while.

Then one of the survivors of the shootings told Ida that her daughter said to the gunman that she would pray for him, which she did, just before he killed her. Ida broke down. She then offered forgiveness and support to the murderer’s widow, figuring she had to follow her late daughter’s lead.

What happened to Ida over the course of the movie? I would like to suggest that she went from Good Friday to Easter Sunday; that she died and came back to life; that she was buried and then was resurrected. Could that kind of thing happen to you and me? Could we go from Good Friday to Easter Sunday? Could we die and come back to life? Could we be buried and then be resurrected?

They say you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink. Perhaps in a similar way you can lead a human being to truth, but you can’t make him think. I think of religious people who say they believe that the universe is only 10,000 years old; even though scientists tell us it’s billions of years old. The religious people don’t want to go against the timetable they see in the Bible. I used to be concerned about those religious people, but I’m not concerned about them anymore. It dawned on me that hundreds of years ago religious people believed that the sun revolved around the earth. They saw that in the Bible. Then Copernicus came along and said that the earth revolves around the sun. Religious people back then said that idea went against the Bible, so they rejected it, at least for a while. (I like to imagine that on the behinds of their horses those religious people had “rumper” stickers that proclaimed, “The Bible says it. I believe it. That settles it.”) But I don’t know of any religious people today who still believe the sun revolves around the earth. So eventually the truth was accepted by everybody, just as I think it will be – eventually – with religious people who believe in a “young earth.”

A human being can change. A human being can be renewed. A human being can be reborn. A human being can be resurrected. Sometimes it’s altering your perspective. Sometimes it’s altering your attitude. Sometimes it’s altering your actions. If you believe you’re ignorant about something, you could go to sleep tonight determined to change and wake up tomorrow filled with a quest for truth. And after you’ve discovered truth, you could try to share it with others. If others don’t share your quest for truth, that’s okay. There’s nothing you can do about them. You can’t change them. You can only change you. And you have. You’ve changed. You’ve been renewed. You’ve been reborn. You’ve been resurrected. You’ve been resurrected from the dead; the dead state of ignorance, to a new life of truth.

They say you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. But you can teach an old human being new tricks. And a human being can change. A human being can be renewed. A human being can be reborn. A human being can be resurrected. Sometimes it’s altering your perspective. Sometimes it’s altering your attitude. Sometimes it’s altering your actions. If you hate someone, you could go to sleep tonight determined to change and wake up tomorrow filled with love for that person. The next time you see that person, you could simply say to yourself, “I love that person.” Even if that person hates you; that’s okay. There’s nothing you can do about them. You can’t change them. You can only change you. And you have. You’ve changed. You’ve been renewed. You’ve been reborn. You’ve been resurrected. You’ve been resurrected from the dead; from the dead state of hate, to a new life of love.

They say a leopard can’t change its spots. But a human being can change. A human being can be renewed. A human being can be reborn. A human being can be resurrected. Sometimes it’s altering your perspective. Sometimes it’s altering your attitude. Sometimes it’s altering your actions. If you seek revenge against someone, you could go to sleep tonight determined to change and wake up tomorrow filled with forgiveness for that person. The next time you see that person, you could simply say, “Hello.” Perhaps that person will be taken aback. Perhaps that person will say, “Hello” back. Perhaps that person will ignore you completely. Or worse. There’s nothing you can do about them. You can’t change them. You can only change you. And you have. You’ve changed. You’ve been renewed. You’ve been reborn. You’ve been resurrected. You’ve been resurrected from the dead; from the dead state of revenge, to a new life of forgiveness.

When you go from ignorance to truth, when you go from hate to love, when you go from revenge to forgiveness, you’ve been renewed; you’ve been reborn; you’ve been resurrected. It’s a miracle. Happy Easter!