Emphasis Preaching Journal

"If he had just stayed dead!" someone once exclaimed about Jesus in a moment of frustration amidst the rigors of following him. It would all be so much simpler if Jesus had stayed dead. Resurrection is perhaps more scary than death. John Updike wrote about this in A Month of Sundays: "For the living, how acceptable the death of the dead, how quickly the place seals over where they were, how slyly grateful we are for the little extra space they bequeath us! "We should abhor them were they to return.