The Day After

Central Family,

I wonder what it was like the week after Easter.  Jesus kept showing up for a while, but evidently not every day. He didn't walk around with the disciples all the time, and he didn't move back home with Mom. He would appear and then he would be gone; they didn't know if he would appear again or not. I wonder what the mood was like?  Were the people more joyful or serious or caring?  

We might not know a lot about the first week after Easter BUT we do know what happened to the world in the months and years to come.  Things changed!  Everything was altered. Things were and are irrevocably different.  The big problem for most of us is that we tend to base everything on what our five senses tell us. None of us were present to feel the Easter earthquake or hear the angel or see the place where Jesus lay, so we tend to wonder whether the story is true.  BUT the kingdom of God is not subject to our five senses. We forget that the resurrection is a faith event, and linear, propositional arguments will carry little weight for those who refuse to believe.  

So what's the point?  This Easter season, April 4 (Easter) through May 23 (Pentecost), we will be considering what it means to be Easter people!  What does it mean to be united with Christ in a death like His and be united with Christ in a resurrection like His?  We will be focusing on six particular aspects of our life together in Christ.  One year ago we took part in the REVEAL SPIRITUAL LIFE SURVEY.  The survey was designed to help us determine what is most effective in helping us grow as disciples of Jesus and how Central is doing at those things. Most importantly, we learned the places of disease in our body and how we need to change in order to be healthy and vibrant in Christ. 

As we journey from Easter to Pentecost, we pray that the Risen Christ and Spirit of God will help us grow into the healthy body God desires. Please pray that our loving and living God will move amongst us in a mighty way as we anticipate our Charter Sunday on May 23, 2010.  Upcoming Sunday foci are; April 18 - GET CONNECTED; April 25 - GET GLOCAL; May 2 - GET INFUSED; May 9 - GET HEALTHY; May 16 - GET GREEN; May 23 - GET REAL.  If you haven't read the REVEAL REPORT you can visit www.clcelkriver.org and access it.  Another way to look at this Easter emphasis is from the perspective of MAPPING OUT OUR DNA as a new congregation of Lutheran Congregations in Mission For Christ. 

Last night I read an interview with Michael Metzger, President and Senior Fellow of The Clapham Institute, whose mission is to help people and organizations advance faith-centered cultural reform.  Metzger has some profound insights when we consider the idea of change and growth; 

"People often talk about shifting paradigms. This language comes from Thomas Kuhn's book THE STRUCTURES OF SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTIONS. We get giddy about going off on a weekend conference and coming back and proclaiming that we made 6 paradigm shifts. We fail to recognize that Kuhn said very few people make paradigm shifts, since they include repudiation, repentance and a change of assumptions.

Kuhn was right - a worldview is tough to see, tough to acknowledge and tough to change. It's like describing air to a bird and water to a fish. It's all we know and we assume it's all that's ever been. In fact, the only time a fish becomes aware of water is when you take the fish out of the water. Is that fun for a fish? Not in my experience when fishing. It feels like death. This is why most of us are reluctant to make paradigm shifts. It feels as though we're dying. Or our sacred ideas are dying. For example, one very deep, deep assumption in Protestant Christianity is the Enlightenment's idea of human, scientific rationality - that the core of our being is our cranium. The Hebrew mind, on the other hand, believed we think with our bodies and know by doing. If Protestants embraced the Hebrew model, most of our preaching, Bible Studies and educational theory would be thrown out. That would imperil the careers of publishing houses and other related industries. Better to keep the machine running. I know I run the risk of redundancy when I say this is why worldview or paradigm are so hard to change. But they are! They might throw you out of work.

So back to the beginning.  I wonder what it was like living those first weeks, months and years after Easter.  Imagine having a conversation with a disciple of Jesus from the first century. Metzger's suggests, They might hear the language we use and the way we describe Christianity and ask, "What are you talking about?" And you'd say, "Were talking about Christianity. What are you talking about?" And they'd say, "That's not the Christianity I understand."   So can we rediscover our DNA as members of Christ's body?  Can we change?  In and of ourselves we cannot. BUT EASTER CHANGES EVERYTHING!  Things are irrevocably different.  What is our responsibility?  Jesus said it best; "If you want to follow me, deny yourself, pick up the cross and die!"  There can be resurrection apart from death to self!

Have a blessed week and I hope to see you this Sunday for the Minnesota Teen Challenge Choir!

Paul Johansson