Burned Again

Neither personal experience nor Baz Luhrmann seems to get through to me. 

Luke 24: 1-12 1 On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. 2 They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, 3 but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. 4 While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them. 5 In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? 6 He is not here; he has risen! Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee: 7‘The Son of Man must be delivered over to the hands of sinners, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.’ ” 8 Then they remembered his words. 9 When they came back from the tomb, they told all these things to the Eleven and to all the others. 10 It was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the others with them who told this to the apostles. 1 But they did not believe the women, because their words seemed to them like nonsense. 12 Peter, however, got up and ran to the tomb. Bending over, he saw the strips of linen lying by themselves, and he went away, wondering to himself what had happened. 

Man, I’d like to rip on Peter and the rest of the eleven. I’d like to rail about them being told time and time again about how this was all going to happen. I’d like to chastise and scoff and wonder how they could consider the story they were told as nonsense but I was taught to be honest. And if I’m honest I know I’m no different than any of them. I have to look no further than sunscreen.

To borrow from a not so recent song, the benefits of sunscreen have been proven by scientists whereas my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience. Let me try to explain. I know what sunscreen is and I know it works. I have suffered the effects of not using sunscreen and I have rejected the offer of sunscreen even though I knew I probably shouldn’t have. Still, when I come back from the beach or the ball game and I look in the mirror and I look like a rock lobster I wonder how this happened. Deep down I know but I’m unwilling to admit it.

I’ve gotten marginally better as I’ve gotten older but believe me it’s only after having been burnt and burnt bad. I have had sunburns where I peeled like a snake shedding its skin; twice. That’s sort of gross but here’s the worst part. I have to come clean; I still don’t always apply sunscreen when I go out in the sun. Feel free to rip, rail, chastise, scoff and wonder how I could be so dense. Maybe that makes me a disciple (I doubt it) but it certainly makes me a flawed human. And that’s all of us, isn’t it?

The Bible tells us what happened through multiple accounts. Historically it’s been proven that Jesus was a real guy. We see the proof in others and maybe if we’re lucky we feel the proof in our own lives and yet we still venture out unprotected. We still treat what we should have the good sense to know as true as mere conjecture, some idea we still haven’t been convinced of yet. And when the wheels fall off or we can’t explain things with our own meandering experience we either wonder what in the heck happened or we smack our palm to our forehead and Homer Simpson-like exclaim, “DOH!” Thank God for showing grace to a schlub like me.

The Everday Question: What do you find yourself repeatedly not getting, understanding or remembering?

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