More Real Than Real

I have been to a lot of funerals in my life and some of them have been for people I was really close to and really cared about. When you first find out someone you love has died, it takes your breath away and the very rotation of the earth seems to stop. Then you start planning and getting ready for the funeral. You call family, you use quiet voices around the house... it’s somber and delicate. Then you have the funeral and someone talks about the one who has passed, and all the emotion you feel and have felt for that person floods over your heart and out of your eyes. You feel, you hurt, you cry and then you talk... you talk to family and friends, you eat food and eventually you start to tell old stories, and then at some point you realize it’s okay to laugh again.

On a strange and singular Friday, Jesus died. The sun burned out in the middle of the day and in those dark hours, Jesus really stopped breathing and was gone. His friends couldn’t believe it. Joseph laid Him in a tomb and some women helped prepare His body. Everyone went home and slept. Amazingly, almost unimaginably, the sun rose on Saturday, as if somehow, anything in the world could ever be the same again...

Then, on Sunday morning, just as He said He would, He rose. 

Luke tells us that in the evening of that Sunday when our Lord rose from the dead, two people were walking the seven mile road from Jerusalem to the village of Emmaus. They were still in the throws of all of the emotion of Jesus’ death along with the confusion of reports that His body was not in the tomb. Apparently some angels showed up and told the women that He had risen from the dead! They didn’t know what to think or what to feel when all of a sudden Jesus showed up. The two on the road didn’t recognize Him, but He walked that seven miles with them and gave them what must have been the greatest Bible Study lesson of all time... the Resurrected Jesus unfolding the Old Testament Scriptures that spoke of Him! Wow. Then, before they knew it, He disappeared from the dinner table like that, POOF! They were so excited, they ran the whole seven miles back to Jerusalem to find the Disciples and tell them that it was all true! He was back! He’s not dead! We saw Him! He told us everything! And then, BAM! Poof! He was back again! Right there, in their presence again!! 

When you read these accounts, it’s hard to get a handle on what Jesus risen from the dead was/is really like. I mean, He appears and disappears at will. He eats food, lights fires and touches people. He is unrecognizable, and then totally recognizable... what’s the deal? Some might say He is like some sort of less-than-real ghost, the way He passes through space and matter, but He can’t be a ghost because people touched Him and ate food with Him! He can’t be less-than-real... Somehow, Jesus risen from the dead is more real than reality. He is more real than walls and miles and wavelengths of light. He is wherever He wants to be instantly. He is so much more substantial than our reality that He passes through our matter without even disturbing it!

How can this be?! How can something be more real than real? How can something be more substantial than solid matter? Well, did you know that an eagle can see an image that is three times sharper than anything the human eye can perceive? Whoa! That means that with all our amazing HD TVs, we’re still no where near the clarity and detail that eagles have been enjoying for thousands of years! There is a whole world of crisp, sharp images we have never even dreamed of seeing! There is a level of real that we know nothing about, and Jesus is real like that! He is really risen from the dead! He’s alive and powerful, which means You’re not alone! He’s here, right when you need Him to be! You can call on Him and He will help you! As He Himself told His Disciples, “Surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”


Here's an Easter song for the Simon Peter in all us:

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