Now You See Me, Now You Don't

 

Now You See Me, Now You Don’t

^{John 2:19 “}Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”

^{Matthew 27:52 “}And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose,”

^{Acts 1:3 “}To whom also he shewed himself alive after his passion by many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God:”

^{Acts 1:9 “}And when he had spoken these things, while they beheld, he was taken up; and a cloud received him out of their sight.”

     I don’t’ have a problem with this.  It is easy for me to believe that Jesus rose from the dead. I recently attended a funeral.  The loving one lay there in the casket as many passed by.  She was thoroughly dead, and I was thoroughly convinced she could climb out at the Lord’s command.  When He said in Romans to believe in my heart that He rose from the dead, it was a no brainer for me.

     What would I do if my sister Sherri knocked on my door today in a body twenty-five years old in her prime?  Would I be taken back?  Surely.  It would be the event of the year.  I had seen her body wither from cancer.  The waxed shell I scarcely recognized anymore.  Her passing was marked by hospice nurses taking her final pulse.

     Could Jesus do it?  Yes!  I would like to see my mother again.  I would introduce her to my family she has never met.  How proud she would be seeing the people they have become!  But like Jesus, then I saw her, then I didn’t.  She lay in the casket peacefully.  My grandmother cried out for her to wake up then my grandfather asked the funeral director for privacy.  They buried her in the ground.  Only pictures remind me of her face for memories fade and times change.

     What we read in the Revelation is a different Jesus.  One like the Son of man, hairs white as snow and eyes a flame of fire.  Quite transfigured, John sees Him in His glorified state.  No wimpy Jesus.  The Church now understood Him as the conqueror, bigger than Ceasar.

     Maybe it is more important to see them then not.  God prepares a better presentation.  Like a master chef, the rigors of the kitchen are finalized upon a decorated plate.  What we once saw we leave behind as we behold the finished work.

     I would remember her wrinkles no longer.  Her frailties and imperfections would slip away. A perfect spirit radiating through windows of her being.  Is it worth it?  Can I give her to God for a while as He crafts perfection?  Then I saw see her, but now I not.  Time casts its cold shadow on my soul, but God promises a warm reuniting in the end.

    My mother knew Jesus.  Passing into death, she sleeps with Him.  I will see her again as Jesus displays His power in the resurrection.