Artificial Roots = Artificial Fruits…
04/17/22
Is there anything more appetizing than a nice big bowl of crushed beetles? Or how about baking a fresh loaf of hair and feathers? IF you have kids, the fan favorite is no doubt a handful of breaded silicone nuggets in your favorite animal shapes.
If you are still reading at this point, you might be confused. Each of these items (which were the least gross I could find) are examples of some of the strange products that are, believe it or not, used to be a substitute or flavoring in some of our most common foods. The beetles? Red food coloring. The hair? Store bought bread. The silicone? America’s favorite fast food, chicken nuggets. I promise I am not sharing all this to gross you out… there is a point.
First, there is no nutritional value to some of these strange and often artificial ingredients. In fact, research tells us that the fewer these substitutes we consume, the healthier we are likely to be. Second, nobody likes to be tricked. When we are searching for something real, we become upset if we come to realize we have been tricked. Application time…
This Easter, we just celebrated the resurrection of our Savior, Redeemer, and King, Jesus Christ. Victory in Jesus! O Death, where is your sting! Amazing grace how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me!
What now? How do we move beyond the celebration of our Hope, to living IN our Hope? First things first: We must reject all the other substitutes. Our one Hope is Jesus. The only way we can see what living IN our Hope looks like is by focusing on the life OF our Hope, the life of Jesus.
Now that we have faith in Jesus, the Holy Spirit is continually seeking to grow us, mature us, help us to bloom into the fullness of the Goodness of God. If we want to keep growing, if we want to keep experiencing the life that comes with our hope in Jesus, we need to stay rooted in Him.
Tara Beth Leach says it well with these words, “The story that this fledgling church must be rooted in, has been passed down to God’s people through the apostolic witness, which is rooted in King Jesus. Anything other than that story had the potential to interfere with the growth, health, and flourishing of the family tree.”
Maybe an apple flavored candy, or a McDonald’s apple pie tastes better than a salad with diced apples, but what is better for us? If we are hoping for results that are not given to us in the life and words of Jesus, we might be putting our hope in a substitute Jesus. That hope won’t lead to growth. That hope won’t lead to peace. That hope won’t lead to fruit.
Now to the part about being tricked. It has been mentioned in this series before, Jesus is not a mascot. When we make Jesus our mascot instead of our King, the world notices. What happens when Santa’s beard falls off and is discovered to not be Santa at all to a room full of expectant children? Well… I can tell you this… it’s not hope. When our worship of Jesus stops at the songs we sing on Easter or the verses we quote on our socials, but neglect to learn about and live out the ways of Jesus, we are presenting a counterfeit hope. An artificial fruit.
The world will see the power of Jesus, the breaking in of the Kingdom of God, not just by our imagery, but by our authenticity. And, this is not just true for the world, it even applies to us, the Church. We must protect ourselves from being tricked that what Jesus wants to do in our lives is in isolation. If we try to live in the Hope of Jesus on our own, we will never be able to fully experience His New Creation. “To embrace the gospel of Jesus is to lean fully into the good news of A PEOPLE as the new creation in Christ. (2 Cor 5:17) As the new creation in Christ, we are invited into a new way of living and being as a newly created community.”
As we move into the next series (One Vision) we are excited to discover together the ways that we can live in this new Hope, live with a renewed sense of community, and experience the in-breaking New Creation. As we walk this path together, our hope is that we can continue to refine our understanding of who Jesus is for our lives, and how we can continue our resurrection celebrations by knowing, serving, and revealing the Light of the world so we can expose and drive away the darkness.
Let us celebrate the resurrection yesterday, today, and forever! Happy Easter!