The focus of our church the last few weeks has been the celebration of Easter. For some, the celebration started weeks before and hit a climax at Fat Tuesday and paused until Easter Sunday. For others, it began on Ash Wednesday and was steady until Palm Sunday and Maundy Thursday when it kicked into second gear, revving up with Good Friday, and topping out Easter morning. I looked up the Saturday and it is called many names including Holy Saturday and Black Saturday. Apparently Thursday and Friday have different names as well and I am ignorant of these facts. I am reading a book where similar aspects of ignorance about basic things makes reaching conclusions difficult.
A few weeks back our pastor discussed the aspects of Satan (Deceive, Divide, Destroy, and Distract) and of the Great Harlot (Megaporn) from Revelation. As it happened, I had to explain the Great Harlot to the 11-year-old girl, so it was an odd Sunday to be sure. The responses to Satan of Truth, Unity, Live, and Focus were big lessons in and of themselves, but only steps along the day’s path. Truth comes from the study of God’s Word and must be a point of discipline in our lives. Unity comes from gathering with other believers and must be a point of discipline in our lives. Live comes from not being afraid of trials and must be a point of discipline in out lives. Focus comes from putting God’s call first and must be a point of discipline in our lives. Oddly enough a later sermon had “Discourage” in place of “Destroy” and pushed me to look at our response to Satan as being disciplined to overcome discouragement. The old “Fall down and get back up” theory.
The sermon on my birthday had too much for me to concentrate on. The piece I liked was about the unknown name of Jesus that will be revealed when the events of Revelation Chapter 19 occur. My mind works different from others and sometimes I like to figure stuff to, and sometimes I prefer not knowing. Who done it on a tv show is one, and when will Jesus come is the other. I do not mind not knowing many things as I am happy to leave them to God. The others are stressful for I sometimes miss whether I need to work to know them or drop them.
Easter Sunday was capped by the list of martyrs and how they died. Christ was victorious over sin and death, but only after death. We receive eternal resurrection in death, but personal resurrection in life. If Jesus is our priority in life, our life works better than when our priority is ourselves. Jesus and His life have two reactions in people. Either they think it was all nonsense or the are completely in awe. When in awe, we have Life, we have discovery, and we have joy, but we also have death. Believers in Christ we killed by a sword, dragged to death, hanged, crucified, be headed, thrown off a cliff, flayed, hung on a cross, lanced, shot with an arrow, and on the list goes. Giving our life to Christ does not mean to live long and peacefully, it means to live purposely.
One of the challenging things to understand is the millennium revealed in Revelation. Is it 1000 years? Is Christ on earth? Are all Christians alive? Who is deceived? I read it and I have an opinion, but I know others have strongly held differing opinions. As noted earlier, sometimes we have difficulty reaching conclusions based on the available data and what is real that is not revealed. We can come to conclusions and then realized with different knowledge, we would therefore have a wrong conclusion and have to change it. With the 1000 years, the question is does it matter? Do I spend effort trying to figure it out or just relax and let God be in charge? As a believer, I never really worried about living all the way through the tribulation and having to worry about living during the millennium. I assumed I would be bold enough to be killed off pretty quick trying to counter evil. My purpose is to share this hope with others. The victory is secure, and I am on the side of the victor. This mystery of Easter, I know and am encouraged.