Resurrection Meditation 2: Futile Faith

SCRIPTURE: And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied. 1 Cor. 15:17-19 ESV

THOUGHT: It is a futile faith that doesn’t believe in the resurrection – and, look, I don’t say that out of judgment. I say it because I lived it. I doubted the entirety of Jesus while I believed in God (or said so anyway).  I held to a form of godliness but denied it’s power.

But to strip faith of the resurrection is to have no solution to sin, no access to the throne room, no hope of seeing your friends or family again when they pass from this mortal body, and no comprehension of the power of God. What a pitiful belief system. It’s like gutting and stuffing an animal, mounting it, and pretending it’s still alive because it’s in your house and looks real. It’s gutted and there’s no life in there.

As one whose been redeemed from my former futile faith, I’m in good company with the writer of 1 Corinthians. He, too, was a man who held to a form of godliness – much purer and heady than my own I might say – determined in that passion to stamp out Christianity. But after meeting a resurrected Jesus who asked him just one question, “why do you persecute me?”, Saul was transformed from futile faith to a living faith that we could argue has changed us too. His life and life’s work have helped shape the faith of millions of Christians over the centuries.

So, as you go into post-Easter mode, don’t let the resurrection get too far from your heart and mind. It’s either a shocking reality that changes everything, or a dust-covered fable that has no power. Just don’t live somewhere in the middle in a futile faith.

PRAYER: Oh Jesus, thank you that you came back a second time to show your nail-scarred hands and feet and pierced side to Thomas. I was a doubter too, and you watched and waited until I was ready to listen.