No Greater Saying!

By Pastor J. Clifford Davis, Jr. (April 2001 Messenger)

Our world is full of sayings.  From "old wives tales" to the quote of the week to fortune cookie "wisdom," sayings are everywhere.  Some, with varying degrees of success, are attempts at wit.  Like the veterinarian who hung a sign in the waiting room which read:  "Be with you in a  minute.  Sit! Stay!"  Others, like the sign in the window at the podiatrist's office, play upon the wisdom of the ages:  "Time wounds all heels."  And still others we must be very careful how we interpret.  Reportedly there hangs a sign in a plastic surgeon's office with the saying, "Hello.  May we pick your nose?"

But there is one saying that has been, is now, and will continue to be as straightforward as when it was penned two thousand years ago.  Some people have batted this saying around, trying to make it out to say something it doesn't.  But the sheer simplicity of the saying has always proven too precise for them.  Some, who don't want to submit to God's truth, have trampled the saying under their feet of callous resistance.  But the saying lives on.  They only show their own folly, like people boxing the air, who press their arguments against this saying.

But there have been others, literally countless millions, down through the centuries, for whom this saying has been a source of hope and courage and persistence in doing good.  Even those who love this saying find its truth profound.  The greatest minds among them can't answer how it could be.  But the evidence is massive.  "The proof is in the pudding," they say, and there is enough proof surrounding this saying to make it worthy to stand even in today's courts of law.  We look back upon the potency of this saying.  We look forward to the fruit it will bear in our lives.

It is not human wisdom this saying promotes.  It is the wisdom of God.  It is not of human labor, but of the work of God.  It neither speaks of human faith nor philosophy but rather of what God has done.  The implications of this saying -- like every other aspect of the work of God -- must be allowed to permeate to the core of our being where God wants to live.  This saying is not only what Easter is all about.  It is what all of the Christian life is all about.  To wrestle and come to grips with the reality of this saying is what it means to be a Christian.  For how can a person live the implications of this saying and not be completely and continually renewed in spirit?  There is all the earth no greater saying to be found than this:  "But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead . . . ."  (1 Corinthians 15:20)  Let it sink into and let it flow out through your life.

Have a blessed Resurrection Day and Forever.