"Resuscitation.................."

A friend of mine recently turned my thoughts to an old movie wherein Jodie Foster’s character was impassioned with a desire to make “Contact” with any other intelligent life possibly existing in the universe. The film remains a favorite of mine, not so much because of the plot, as it played out, its version of “Heaven” dismissing all mention of Christ, indeed God, Himself, not even seen as part of the picture, but the curiosity that drove the young woman’s inner being, the hunger she held for touching that which lies “beyond the veil”. I did not find my Bible rebuked, just avoided. In no way was my faith contaminated. To be truthful, it seems to me that we, as believers, are often too easily offended, ready to “make war” over anything that doesn’t fit our chapter and verse image of how we have determined the mystery to be. Ravi Zacharias wrote a book entitled “Recapturing the Wonder”. It just could be he “hit the nail on the head” When everything is all wrapped up in a box, what’s inside I more religion than it is God. When you go to church and know what to expect before you get there, what you’ve got is a program, not a worship service. The Holy Ghost needs to be “blowing in the wind”, somewhere in the pews whispering to a surrendered vessel, coming forth as He determines, not by our command. He is with us, in us, ready to surprise us, and yet always more than we can subdue. We have lost much of that with my particular bunch. From where I sit, it seems the ecclesiastical community, in general, has misplaced the reality of an encounter, our gathering merely a format for what we have come to expect, our relationship with divinity yet possibly intact, but without knowledge of resurrection in our midst other than in the form that we, ourselves, have determined it to be…….