He Has Risen

While many are thinking of the Easter celebration, I think its important to realize that the celebration of the resurrection of Jesus is not a Holy Day like we would find in the Old Testament where God directed the Israelites to set aside certain days.  Instead these annual events Christmas and Easter were established as traditions by the church.

Sometimes traditions can help us to remember certain events and sometimes the tradition itself takes on its own life.  We add practices to the tradition based on our culture and history.  These practices expand and soon we are eating Cadbury chocolate, buying cute bunnies for the kids, wearing pretty dresses, meeting for sunrise service, church breakfast and decorating with Easter lilies.

Don't worry I am not going to jump out with a condemnation of these practices.  When the kids were home we had egg hunts in the back yard and our church has a sunrise service and breakfast. As a matter of fact I delivered the sunrise service message this morning that had a similar theme to this blog.

We need to step back from the traditions and realize there is something real going on here.  Jesus truly  did rise from the dead.  This is the difference between Christianity and religion. We have a truly risen and living Savior.  Lets look at a couple of verses from the very first Easter.

Mk 16:1When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go to anoint Jesus' body. 2Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they were on their way to the tomb  

So what is happening?  The woman were on there way to fulfill a tradition.  They could not attend to Jesus properly on Friday night because of the beginning of the Sabbath.  So they had to wait for the first day of the week.   They were not expecting to see Jesus alive.  Though they had spent several years with Jesus they fully did not grasp His nature as the Son of God.  Especially after seeing Him endure an agonizing death on the cross.  They probably felt that surely if Jesus was the Son of God, He would have stopped the suffering and stepped down from the cross alive.


After the resurrection Jesus made clear to His disciples the fulfillment of prophecy that a sacrifice is required for sin.  But at the time the woman were not thinking of that.

They did not expect to meet the risen savior.  Here is another part of the story recorded in Matthew.


 ^{Mt 1:5}The angel said to the women, "Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. ⁶He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. ⁷Then go quickly and tell his disciples: 'He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him.' Now I have told you."
 ⁸So the women hurried away from the tomb, afraid yet filled with joy, and ran to tell his disciples. ⁹Suddenly Jesus met them. "Greetings," he said. They came to him, clasped his feet and worshiped him. ¹⁰Then Jesus said to them, "Do not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me."

The angel proclaims He (Jesus) has risen from the dead.   This is not a myth, a fair tale, a legend or a story told to create a moral message.  Jesus truly did rise from the dead.  This is a historical fact with more evidence than the assassination of Julius Caesar.

My prayer is that you are not distracted by Easter as a religious thing, a Holy day, some story told as a moral to give hope.  My prayer is that your heart and eyes are open to the real story about God's Son who was sacrificed on the cross for you and then rose from the dead.  Your savior is truly risen.

Changing Careers

Well its spring time in Maine, which means it's in the mid-20s when I head out to work, and might be in the 50s during the day.  Though we had one day last week reach 60 at home, but it was still 46 in Portland where I work.  Plenty of rain and snow melt.  Though we are not experiencing the same flood conditions as North Dakota we are getting to that time when the rivers and streams are running fast, deep and wide.  Not exactly a time to run out with you fishing pole and expect to get any fish. At least if your as poor a fisherman as myself.

Well the last time I posted I included a passage about a fishing expedition.    We are going to take a little time to look at some of the verses that really change the direction of the story.  

Jesus was preparing to speak to the crowds and there were fishermen near by washing thier nets.  In order to create room for the crowds Jesus borrowed one of the boats and pushed off from shore a little bit and began to teach. 


^{Luke 5:4} When He had stopped speaking, He said to Simon, “Launch out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.”
⁵ But Simon answered and said to Him, “Master, we have toiled all night and caught nothing; nevertheless at Your word I will let down the net.” ⁶ And when they had done this, they caught a great number of fish, and their net was breaking. ⁷ So they signaled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both the boats, so that they began to sink. ⁸ When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!”
⁹ For he and all who were with him were astonished at the catch of fish which they had taken; ¹⁰ and so also were James and John, the sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. And Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid. From now on you will catch men.” ¹¹ So when they had brought their boats to land, they forsook all and followed Him.

So you can picture the scene.  Since the fishermen are washing the nets that means they were done.  They were tired and they had caught nothing.  You can imagine how they felt.   Their was certainly doubt about success given their experience during the night when fishing was optimal.  But because of their respect for Jesus they would obey in blind trust.

As the story goes (this is not a fish story about the one that got away) they caught more fish then the two boats could hold.  This was both a miracle and a gift.  It wasn't just a trivial show of Jesus authority over creation, but met the real needs of the fishermen.  Simon recognized two things this was an incredible gift to him and his family.  Also that Jesus was truly sent from God.  This gift came from God.  So what is Simon's reaction.  "I am a sinful man, O Lord!".   


According to his culture and ours you need to lead a saintly life to be worthy of God's favor.  You need to be like the religious leaders for God to bring you blessings.  This is what the religious leaders taught then and now.  With this teaching many had reached the point of giving up, saying I can't be worthy of God.  I can't have God in my life because I deserve punishment.  Maybe if I don't think about God any more or pretend He really doesn't exist I can go on living the way I am.  But now Simon doesn't have the choice of pretending God is not real.  So Simon reacts and says "Depart from me".   He cannot grasp the idea of God's forgiveness.


Jesus in a few words gets to the heart of the matter.  "Do not be afraid".  Do not be afraid of God's mercy, do not be afraid that you cannot earn forgiveness, do not be afraid because of the sin that seperates you from God.  Jesus is saying trust me.

An incredible miracle now happens to equal the miracle of the fish.  Simon's life is changed.  He gives his fears to Jesus and places His trust in Him.  What is past is past, you are forgiven if you follow me. "They forsook all and followed Him".   Not only has Simon left all behind to follow Jesus but he is also changing careers.  He will now work for Jesus telling others the good news.  When others hear this good news and follow Jesus then Simon will now be a catcher of men. 

The Ice is Three Feet Thick

Several weeks ago several men went up to northern Maine for a men's retreat.  We stayed in a wood's camp made available by one of the couples in our church.   They were very gracious it allowing us the enjoy this very special place.  We had a great time building relationships, studying the Bible, eating lots of man food and on Saturday we went Ice Fishing.

There might be several readers of this blog not familiar with this activity.  You might wonder when casting the line how you would catch a fish trapped underneath the ice.  Well you actually need to cut a hole in the ice.  Back in the days of yore this might have been done with a special axe and was certianly a lot of work.  Myself I have a manual ice auger.   It has knives on the bottom and as you rotate it cuts (scrapes) the ice and the auger blades drag the ice up out of the hole you are making.  A manual auger is a lot of work when drilling through 10 - 15" of ice.  The hole is about 8" and you need to make 3 - 5 holes in which you suspend a trap with a reel of fishing line down into the hole.  If look carefully at the picture in the lower right is a trap set in a hole.

Fortunately that day we had a gas powered auger, which you hold while the motor drills the hole.  Great, we started the first hole and the auger went lower and lower and lower.  Just when we thought the motor was going to come to rest on the ice the bottom broke through.   The ice was three feet thick.  We went on to drill 12 more holes since 3 of us had a license and traps.

When we had a great day on the ice.  Some might wonder at our sanity but ice fishing is a great social activity.  Your traps are about 15 - 20 ' apart in a random pattern with little flags that pop up when a fish strikes.  So you can stand around and just talk, drink cocoa, eat and watch for the action.

Well we had several takes on the lines that day but we were not able to bring them to the surface.  We did discover later when consulting a depth chart that the lake was at least 40' deep where we were fishing.  I know I had my lines only down about 25'.

While we were waiting around as men often do our minds turned to more humorous topics.  We got out the camera and had some fun.  Here is a picture of a potential catch that day.

Well how does this tie into the topic of this blog.  Next time we will be looking at our next passage of scripture where in verse 10 Jesus told Simon "Don't be afraid, I will make you catcher's of men".  Below is the entire passage so that you can see what Jesus was really talking about.

Luke 5:1 One day as Jesus was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret, with the people crowding around him and listening to the word of God, ²he saw at the water's edge two boats, left there by the fishermen, who were washing their nets. ³He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little from shore. Then he sat down and taught the people from the boat.
 ⁴When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, "Put out into deep water, and let downthe nets for a catch."
 ⁵Simon answered, "Master, we've worked hard all night and haven't caught anything. But because you say so, I will let down the nets."
 ⁶When they had done so, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break. ⁷So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them, and they came and filled both boats so full that they began to sink.
 ⁸When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at Jesus' knees and said, "Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!" ⁹For he and all his companions were astonished at the catch of fish they had taken, ¹⁰and so were James and John, the sons of Zebedee, Simon's partners.
   Then Jesus said to Simon, "Don't be afraid; from now on you will catch men." ¹¹So they pulled their boats up on shore, left everything and followed him.