Deliverance

 Scripture:

Acts 10:34-43 or Isaiah 65:17-25  • 

 

Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24  • 

 

1 Corinthians 15:19-26 or Acts 10:34-43  • 

 

John 20:1-18 or Luke 24:1-12  

"I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me will live, even though he dies."

I have striven to learn the answers to the great questions all my life.  I have had a need to know "why" to many things, not the least of which is why the good and children have to die, why so many contract deadly diseases, why man's cruelty seems to prevail. I have tried to see things more clearly, and not dimly now, as Paul said.  To come out of the shadows of opinion into the sunlight of knowledge as Plato said.  I challenged my self by majoring in both Philosophy and Religious Studies in rigorous studies at a world class University where I adopted the mantra of its founder,  to never be afraid to go where truth and honor should take me. 

There are so many reasons to not believe in what, as the Empiricists say, we cannot experience by our senses, or as precise, as far as possible, as mathematical,  apodictic certainty. In "Do You Believe This?" Dan Clendenin gives us a plethora of reasons why we , as others, doubt, or do not believe in the Resurrection, such folly to the Greeks, as Paul said. But, in all of our humanity, with all its shortcomings, doubt, and dirt, comes the Lord of life itself, who does not chastise or belittle us for our doubt and unbelief, but who invites us to come to him as children, to cast our burdens  - whatever they may be - on him, and receive the peace and rest only he can offer. in life, in death, in life eternal, the true knowledge man has sought from the beginning of our ability to ask the great questions.In short, deliverance comes in the Easter of our lives. For this, I say "He is risen! He is risen, indeed."