Are you just dealing with your IBT?

By now you have had probably had your fill of hollow chocolate bunnies and Reese cups in the shape of eggs. Easter Sunday was a few days ago, and this is the pinnacle story for the human race. It points us to the purpose, the meaning, the focus, of what God wants to do in the lives of each human being and it leads us to the real hope in life, found in the resurrection of Jesus. The freedom that we are searching for can only be found in Jesus.

But this is important: It was a 3 day deal. Friday Jesus died. Sunday the tomb is empty. Saturday night is only mentioned once in the Bible (in Mark) as a day that some women had bought the burial spices that they would take Sunday morning to properly anoint Jesus’ body, other than that the Bible seems to say this was a day of total silence. To appreciate Easter you have to understand the totality of the story.

When Jesus showed up on the scene there were people who had been expecting him for a long time. It’s not he just showed up one day and started telling some neat stories and telling people to follow him so they did. The real followers of Jesus has been anticipating the arrival of a messiah since they were a child. This carpenter’s son, this teacher, rabbi, he was different than anyone who had ever lived. He talked about the kingdom of heaven being “out there” but also “in here” inside of us. He talked about God in a loving relationship and he spoke of freedom and healing. So people decided to follow, drop everything, left jobs and families, and walked with him day after day for about three years. They saw the healings, and people’s sins forgiven, and weights lifted off of them as they are set free.

Then there was a special meal, then a prayer in the garden, a betrayal, an arrest, and then a death on a cross.

Jesus told these followers all this would happen, but they didn’t really hear him. They had dreams of how their life would go, and they watched these dreams get nailed to a cross, and watched these dreams get laid dead in a borrowed tomb.

Saturday was the in between day. An IBT, not an IBS, but it can feel like it.

Dead rabbis had a tendency to stay dead, they were in the in between time of Saturday. The in between times are between despair and hope, the IBT are between life and darkeness, the IBT are between failure and freedom.

The IBT is the place where most people actually live.

It is the time between the diagnosis and the final outcome, the divorce and fresh start, between the pain and the healing, between the failure and the success, between death and an actual life out there somewhere. That’s where the struggle is, in the IBT. That’s where the regret is, guilt, anxiety, frustration, loss and emptiness, loneliness.

There are some options for living with the IBT:

1. Face up: Just face up to the fact that’s just the way its gonna be, I wasn’t created for positive stuff in my life. I was never meant to have anything special. I am just ordinary. I can’t be anything, I don’t matter. This doesn’t work for long.
2. Clean up: Jus get your act together. Go to church, read your Bible, try to live a good life, and maybe things will be better. This doesn’t work either. But there is a third option.
3. Give up: Not give up hope, but give up trying to be in control, being you own savior, give up bitterness, anger, failure, shortcoming, loneliness, depression, the pride…and the reason you give up is because of Easter.

The old you got nailed to the cross with Jesus. The old you got put in a borrowed tomb with Jesus, And when Jesus stepped out of the tomb on Easter Sunday he stared death straight in the face and death ran away, and what means is that we have a chance to get up today and actually be free!

               But it all depends on how you choose to live with your IBT. Let’s take this week after Easter and really give it up, really let go and let God, realize that God is good all the time, and live into the life that we were created to live.