Friends in faith, welcome to the Grand Reopening! The Grand Reopening of the whole world on this Easter day! The Grand Reopening celebrated every day and in every way we live out our Easter faith!
I trust you’ve seen and been to stores that have put up a Grand Reopening banner … perhaps along with some bright balloons, a string of colorful flags and maybe one of those weird but whimsical giant inflatable wiggly waving figures. Such stores have solid reasons for reintroducing themselves to their surrounding community – the business was at risk of going under, it needed major interior or exterior renovation, its stock or service was out of synch with the competition and cultural shifts. All in all, it’s always about getting more and more people in the doors to experience what is being offered.
At the beginning of Creation, at the Grand Opening of all, God had an endless bounty of beautiful, beneficial, priceless things in store for our world. In the economy of God’s grace, these were freely offered holy things like pure goodness, perfect health, true harmony, total peace, unbounded love and eternal life. God’s plan for sustaining and expanding divine business was built upon a community model that created and called together trusted partnerships.
The very first managers of all the good stuff God had in store were vital to this being a successful endeavor. Created in God’s image, they are known to us by the names Adam and Eve. At first, they freely chose and enjoyed the benefits of complete loyalty to all of God’s business. They took care of and enjoyed what was given as their charge, such as giving names to help identify the vast array of items in the holy inventory.
Tragically, other investment schemes slowly slithered into view. This tempted Adam and Eve to back out of their partnership with God. And not only back out, but to actually try and take over God’s world as theirs. Ever since they took the tiniest taste of this, there has been devastating disloyalty in the great company God created. The disastrous enterprise of sin became established, which humankind kept investing heavily in. This had a costly impact to God’s bottom line of holy love.
In very many ways across time, God tried to gain back loyalty and trust so as to save, preserve and expand the original divine plan. God did so time and time again by proving to be absolutely trustworthy of this investment. This was done through signs and wonders and covenants with select partners who helped make many re-openings possible. The re-openings happened in such awe-inspiring locations as the Red Sea, Mt. Sinai, Canaan, and especially Jerusalem. Each time, God lovingly expected people to have such an incredible experience that they would stay and support the management rules for enjoying, serving, and promoting all the good things God had in store. But time and time again, God was betrayed and heartbroken.
Over 2,000 years ago, God decided that there would only be one more rescue, one more renovation of the failing human enterprise, one more world reopening. Unlike all previous efforts, God decided this final time had to be fully handled in person. The sin-struck middle management in charge of training and casting vision for the holy company was dismissed so that God could take charge in a new and more authoritative way. God did so directly by becoming the flesh and blood of the person known as Jesus of Nazareth. In this case, counting on the family company’s future success by giving it to the leadership of the Father’s Son was absolutely guaranteed to work our well!
The success of any Grand Reopening depends on a core group of people doing a lot of careful preparation for the big day. Knowing this, Jesus led a small team through intensive training and preparation for about three years, starting when he was called upon to do so at about thirty years old. He did so very personally, very powerfully, with overwhelming love and radical commitment, and at great personal cost to himself. His long holy work days were spent communicating all the good that God had always had in store for the world and showing how to rightly help manage it.
To do this effectively, he simultaneously had to call people to turn away, to repent, from the sinful status-quo that had caused the dire need for the Grand Reopening …
He took on administrators with long-established rules designed to exclude some people in the human company from receiving divine benefits.
He made sure comprehensive health care policies and practices were put in place to bring about immediate and long-term restoration.
He tackled aggressive, cut-throat power and expansion strategies that did not reflect God’s original intentions of a peaceful, unified world.
Jesus didn’t do all this just for those who placed stock in his leadership, who had indeed expected him, the Son, to one day come along and show the world the true and right Way of God being in charge. He did everything so that absolutely all of humanity would be invited to come and see, to follow, to become part of God’s gracious enterprise, especially following the day of the Grand Reopening.
After hours and days and weeks and years of painstaking preparation, Jesus knew the old way of showing what God had in store for the world had to be completely shut-down. And even though he was absolutely the greatest asset to God’s work in this world … the complex closing strategy called for his voluntarily stepping down from his power and authority. This wasn’t easy, for the plan unfolded in a way that caused his entire leadership team to turn against him. Further, it included having hostile forces seemingly take over God’s company. And most of all, it meant his not merely taking a mysterious leave of absence, but a total one. He sacrificed His very life.
Even though Jesus had clearly explained how all this was to happen, and how it had to in order for there to be a Grand Reopening, the majority of people took his gruesome, untimely death as a tragic sign that God was somehow really going out of holy business. What more, really, was there to invest in after a giant tombstone put in place by insider scandals and the arm of an evil empire shut the door on their leader? The Son of the Father?
So what a surprising, amazing, glorious morning it was on the day of the Grand Reopening! According to all God had and still has in store, Jesus came back to life, to take charge, three days after the world tried to kill his holy business forever!
This all wasn’t some slick marketing stunt. That tombstone hadn’t been a paper mache display model. It had been very real, very heavy, and very definitely removed by the power of God so Jesus could step out. In stepping out, Jesus embodied a whole and holy truth -- no human would ever again have to fear being forever closed down by their failure to properly help manage God’s world. The horrible mismanagement of our first managers, Adam and Eve, was totally forgiven and reversed. And, for the record, this resurrected Jesus was most definitely not anything like one of those weird but whimsical giant inflatable wiggly waving figures!
Unfortunately, the initial reactions to the Grand Reopening of the world among Jesus’ closest, most trusted associates weren’t all that great. Utter shock and confusion surrounded it all. Quite naturally, it took some time to accept that it had really happened just as He said. Glory be to God, however, once they did accept it and began to follow the new way Jesus would be leading them and sharing his power, they rejoiced greatly and started building upon the foundation of that rolled away stone. This is what and why you and I are here today to celebrate!
The Grand Reopening spotlight still shines upon Jesus, and through Him, upon all of us. He alone empowers and equips us to keep accepting, keep exploring, keep sharing and keep building upon the good and holy stuff that God has in store for us, our loved ones, our neighbors, this vast world very much in need of it all.
Corporate meetings are held here weekly so we don’t lose our ability and accountability for faithfully checking in on the holy inventory every single day. There are endless aisles before us, open to all. First and foremost is the aisle for taking stock of the forgiveness of sin bought personally by Jesus Himself. From there we check such amazing aisles as the ones where restorative hope instead of deathly despair are found, where holy seeds are available to plant wherever our gardens have gone to rack and ruin, where there are faithful furnishings for homes and churches and all sorts of spaces, and where spiritual nourishment that strengthens and fills the world with justice, peace, and above all the full bounty of God’s love, is always in stock.
Friends in faith, once again, welcome to the Grand Reopening! The Grand Reopening of the whole world on this Easter day! The Grand Reopening celebrated every day and in every way we live out our Easter faith! Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment