Lending God a hand, giving God a hand

"Don’t help God across the road, like a little old lady." Those words from U2’s latest album leapt out at me this morning.
It’s Easter. We’re supposed to be celebrating God’s utter power, expressed in love and experienced in the most down-to-earth way. God breaking through our stabilities, our securities, our certainties.
God is worshipped as the one who brings new life.
But I do still wonder how seriously God’s power is really taken, by churches as much as anyone else. Whether our church wants to be engaged in political struggles, or in strategies of church growth, the temptation can be simply to look at Jesus as someone who sets us a good example. And the resurrection just goes to prove that the story has a happy ending.
So we throw our energies into saving the world, and perhaps recruit God, or seek his advice, or ask him to wave a cosmic wand and grant our worthiest of desires. But really, deep down, we know it’s all up to us, all down to our effort. God’s part in daily life, no matter how much noise we make about it, can be pretty small. We do something great for him, and who knows, perhaps he’ll be grateful.
But the God revealed in Easter is too scary for many of us to celebrate. This is a God who pulls the rug from under our feat, who questions our deepest desires, our worthiest ambitions, even our most Christian hopes. This is a God who shows us that he is not bound by the apparent little victories or defeats that can bring joy or frustration. The resurrection of his Son shatters our stabilities, our securities, our assumptions. There is no new life without this shattering. No resurrection without this cross.
And a God who brings such radical, beautiful and disruption into our daily life? Who wants to celebrate that kind of God, honestly? How likely are we to be Sadducees in Christian clothes – too comfortable to take resurrection seriously, keeping God at a safe distance from daily life?
When we hear this week the words, "Christ is risen", who will have the guts to claim from the depths of their being, "he is risen indeed"?

Simon Perry (uploaded by Ruth)