Our church has young people. Lots of them. This is to say that things are often, er, "interesting" around Cornerstone. Such was the case this past Sunday when the leader of one of our children's programs came to me with an interesting story to tell about what had just transpired.
The children were assembled and listening carefully as the leader explained the death, burial and resurrection of Christ. A hand shot up. One of the kids asked, "So Jesus is dead?" "No," the leader patiently explained, "he was dead, but he came back to life. In fact, he is still alive!"
And then it happened. All of 8 years old, 8, mind you, one of our CBC crumb crunchers jumped up and went full-bore John Travolta: "Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Stayin' alive, stayin' alive. Stayin' aliiiiiiiy yiyyyyyy yiyyyy yiiiiiiive "
Be calm, for a moment, you who are getting angry and reaching for a pen to dash off an angry letter. One, our entire church and his parents do not and did not endorse the Bee Gees spin on theology. (Find it hilarious; yes. Endorse; no).
Two, the pastor and every teacher at every level teaches on a much more "traditional level" than the impromptu junior Easter musical might seem to indicate.
Three, none of us have any idea where a kid born in 2009 came up with a Bee Gees song from 1977 or the moves from the movie it spawned in 1983 (yes, he did the moves too. Quite well in fact, by all accounts).
All of that said, I really do not at this point in his life give a rip that he did what he did. There is plenty of time for us to redirect him to songs like "Because He Lives" and "Up From the Grave He Arose." All I care about right now is that he knows that Jesus did, in fact, rise from the dead and is alive forevermore.
Romans 1:4 says that Jesus was " declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead." Acts 2:24 says, "Whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death: because it was not possible that he should be holden of it."
First Corinthians 15:1-8 says, "Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand; By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain. For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures: And that he was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve: After that, he was seen of above five hundred brethren at once; of whom the greater part remain unto this present, but some are fallen asleep. After that, he was seen of James; then of all the apostles. And last of all he was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time."
All of the disciples and apostles witnessed and believed the resurrected Christ. In fact, all of them gave their lives as martyrs because of that truth that they could not be shaken from. The authorities, who despised the uproar Christianity was causing and desperately wanted to stop it, could have done so easily by producing the body. They did not do so for one simple reason: There was no body to produce.
Before following Christ, these men had been living comfortable lives in established jobs and worshiping comfortably in an established religion. And yet they gave it all up to become outcasts and near vagabonds. They had nothing material to gain, everything to lose, and yet they never backed away from declaring the resurrection. And it is the very resurrection of Christ that assures us that we who believe in him now have ultimate victory over death.
First Corinthians 15:19-20 says, "If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable. But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the first fruits of them that slept."
In other words, because he arose, we will too.
That is almost happy enough territory for me to join my miniature friend should he go for a repeat performance next week.
Contact Bo Wagner, pastor of Cornerstone Baptist Church of Mooresboro, N.C., at 2knowhim@cbc-web.org.