They found the body

Yesterday, Christians all over the world celebrated Easter, the commemoration of the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ. I'm sure most of you reading this are well-versed in the story of the Passion. Still, the significance of this annually recognized event (weekly for many churches through the communion ritual) may be going largely unnoticed. Jesus Christ arose. Do we really grasp what this means for us?

First as Paul lays out in his epistles, the resurrection is the linchpin of the faith. Everything depends on His rising from the dead. If Jesus body was stolen, like many in the first century claimed, or if this was all some sort of elaborate hoax, then where is our hope. Jesus merely becomes another Socrates or Aristotle: a great teacher whose ideas, in the end, went to the grave with him.

No Jesus resurrected, in bodily form. Not just as spirit, as was claimed by the Gnostics, but in a tangible form; tangible enough that Thomas was able to actually touch His nail-pierced hands. After appearing to the disciples, he then ascended into heaven to sit at the right hand of His Father. But as we are instructed, He left His body behind. That's us.

I'm in the middle of reading "unChristian," a book written by Barna group president David Kinnamon and Gabe Lyons. The Barna group is well-known in Christendom for their market research work for churches. They are the "Gallup" of the Christian world. The quality of their research has been recognized now for decades. What Kinnamon has found and recorded in this book is this: the Body of Christ is still here, but it's vital signs are weak. In the eyes of the emerging generations, the Body is viewed as being critically ill.

Kinnamon's research mirrors many of my experiences in the Church. He finds, among other things, that the prevailing attitudes toward Christianity by the emerging generations (defined roughly as 18-39 year-olds) are almost uniformly negative. What this generation sees in the Body of Christ is not Christ, but legalism, hypocrisy, judgmental attitudes, extreme politicization, a lack of compassion, and perhaps most alarmingly, a distinct unwillingness to extend the love of Christ to "outsiders." He does address some of the mitigating factors concerning these attitudes, but a sobering and disappointing conclusion still remains: an overwhelming majority of young people today do not see Christ in the Body of Christ. They have found the body, and it's vitality is in question.

This information should be a wake-up call for all of us who wear the name of Christ. Jesus' resurrection continues to be the linchpin for our faith. But the event not only assures us of our hope in Him, it provides the foundation for His continued influence among those who do not yet know Him. I know, more than once, I've found myself sincerely singing "Lord come quickly, Alleluia" during worship. The pains of this world can be great and it is tempting to merely focus on the reward to come rather than on the work yet to be done. Do we truly understand that if our hope was realized today, if Christ returned to take us home, that many of our friends, neighbors, and loved ones would be on the outside looking in? Are we content with that fact? If we are, then I'd submit the Body of Christ has lost its heart.

There is undeniable truth in Kinnamon's findings. The Body of Christ has been found...and it's not doing well.