Week 26—Saturday Acts 7:54-56
Acts 7:54-56
“HE PRESENTED HIMSELF ALIVE”
We continue to look at the summing up of Luke in Acts 1:1-5 of the whole of the Divine Impact. Yesterday we saw the Word became Sacrificial at the cross. We now look at “the Word become alive”—“To them he presented himself alive after his passion” (vs. 3). God’s last word is not the cross—it is the Resurrection. The Resurrection is God’s seal of approval on the cross. It is God saying: “Well done, come up higher.” And Jesus went to the right hand of final power.
Without the resurrection of Jesus, we would come out at the place of Dr. Schweitzer’s conclusion: Jesus expected the Kingdom to come at Jerusalem. It didn’t come. “Jesus therefore died of a broken heart on the cross. ‘My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?’ His dream collapsed, but he left an ethic of love to live by.” And that is all. If that were all, then the Christian faith is the Word become word—the word of promise unfulfilled, the word of final victory become the word of final defeat. If so, then there is no Word of Victory become flesh.
But with the Resurrection the Word of Victory is flesh. It is not a Word of Victory become promise, but the Word of Victory become performance.
A Muslim Moulvi was questioning a Christian preacher in a bazaar in India and said: “Padre Sahib, we have a proof in our faith which you haven’t in yours. When we go to Medina we can find the tomb of Mohammed, but when you go to Jerusalem you cannot be sure of the tomb of Jesus. So we have a proof that you haven’t.” “Yes,” replied the preacher, “we have no tomb in our faith because we have no corpse.” Of a certain swami it was said that after his death his body remained intact, free from decay for several days. But it decayed! Of Jesus it was said: “Thou wilt not let thy Holy One see corruption” (Acts 13:35). “He presented himself alive” (Acts 1:3).
O Lord Jesus, I thank you for the embodied victory—not the embalmed victory. Everybody else’s victory ends with the grave—yours really begins there. The grave is the beginning, not the end with you. Now the Victory has nail-pierced hands! Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: Today in every situation I shall present myself alive—alive with light and life.