(From Sunday, April 24, 2011. Apostle Ainsworth and the musicians of the Rock.)
Prelude: "Christ" was not Yahshua's last name. It meant the anointing bearer or the anointed one. After His resurrection, when He was about to ascend to the Father, Yahweh, He told His disciples that it would be better for Him to go, because He was going to send them the Holy Spirit so that the Spirit that had been with them (through Him) would now dwell in them (just like it did in Him). Many anointing bearers are more powerful than one. Yahshua made the way for us to be sons of Yahweh, and His own brothers. In John 17, He prayed for us to be one with the Father just as He was, by the Spirit. So, it follows that the antichrist spirit we hear about is just that, anti-anointing-bearer. It tries to convince believers that we really cannot be one with the Father and that we really cannot have the power of His presence indwelling us the way Yahshua did. This accomplishes two things. In the life of anyone who believes this lie, it greatly diminishes the impact of Jesus' crucifixion and subsequent resurrection. And it renders believers powerless in the now, which is exactly where we're supposed to be powerful by His grace, by His spirit, as purchased by the blood of our Savior. We're supposed to be finishing the work He started, as His body, in the same way He did, by the Spirit, doing what the Father is doing, and saying what the Father is saying. For the church is "His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all" (Ephesians 1:23). Whoa. He fills all in all through His church. We are His fullness in the earth. No wonder the enemy would want us to feel like miserable, unworthy weaklings who must grovel at His feet, begging Him to come back soon and rescue us from this "evil" world (of course, it is no such thing). But that's just the prelude.
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On Easter morning, it was time to start service. Jed greeted the people, and we started the music. The band was fired up from our sound check, and we were excited about the service and about what might happen and how Yahweh would blow our minds again. But there seemed to be a sort of heaviness in the room, kind of like a weight of expectation that can never be met. It was not an expectation from the Father that brings passion and tenacity and digging deep into the spirit. It was oppressive, and it made us musicians get a sensation that I can only describe as musically equivalent to plodding through knee-high molasses.
It's interesting to be on the platform during worship, because you see what's going on with everyone. This morning, we were getting faces and visual feedback that let us know we weren't the only ones feeling the funkiness. So we all kept praising and declaring and celebrating until our apostle just came up to deal with it. It was awesome. He totally nailed it.
Dan is one of the faithful leaders in our house, and his family is incredible. He had approached our apostle while the music was still going on, and he said, "Man, have I done something wrong? Something is way off right now." Apostle teased that he obviously needed to repent, then said something along the lines of, "No, this is my life! Every Easter I have to deal with the same religious spirits that try to spook everybody out and get everybody all religious."
Apostle stood up and addressed that. The crux of it is this: What do we celebrate on the holiday we call Easter? We celebrate that Yahshua conquered sin and death and came to life again in resurrection power. The depth of what He was purchasing for us is what I explained in my prelude above. For many churches, though, the Easter holiday is such a huge deal, because it's like the one day when Christians feel that feeling of VICTORY!! But if we only exprience victory on one day, then we've missed the point. Moreover, for those of us who understand that we are to demonstrate Him in power today, we also know that we don't long for the past where Bible characters and Jesus did great things, and we don't long for the future where we expect Jesus to do more great things. This mentality conveniently excludes us from expecting great things in the present, because that's where the great things would be our responsibility, through His power. He is the I AM. His powerful presence is in the present. With us.
So in a spiritual house, an ekklesia like ours, it's no huge surprise, I guess, that some stupid religious spirits tried to water us down and get us to just go through the "Easter" motions and get spooky and talk about the great things Jesus did, past tense. Easter is just a tradition of man, one with pagan history, and one that is silly and fun. But honestly, we don't know the exact date that Yahshua died and was resurrected. What if we just celebrated it every day by tapping into what He wanted for us and shaking the earth for the sake of His Kingdom? :)
A sunset service is no more holy than a later one. A fancy dress is no more holy than a regular one. A lily is no more holy than another flower. And a wooden cross on a wall is no more holy than a tree in the woods. Of course, none of these things is a sin, but the minute we get all moved and spooky by all the periphery things, that's the minute we lose sight of the normal, every day power we should all expect.
My apostle said an awesome thing. He said we celebrate the resurrection every day by walking in the thing Yahshua purchased for us, and having victory, and gaining ground. He said, "Why don't we have names for the other days? This one's Easter. What should we call the Monday after? Did You Really Mean What You Said Yesterday Monday?" He and some of the rest of us came up with all sorts of silly names. But the idea was this: Are we as excited and serious about the resurrection every other day of the year as we are on Easter? Not by way of the religious traditions being forced into our schedule every day (fancy clothes and chocolate crosses every day or you don't believe it!), but by way of the resurrection flipping our lives right off the edge into the Kingdom and its exploits because Yahshua's death, burial, resurrection, and sending of the Holy Spirit has changed our lives.
After Apostle addressed the weird spirits hanging out, and the ones that try to hang out every Easter, we kept going with the music, and it went prophetic into songs we'd never sung before, demonstrating the resurrection and its impact in us today. It was absolutely incredible and super fun! The weight lifted, because there was a spiritual father in his place, ready to judge on our behalf, and because there were sons of God in our places, ready to go where we've never gone, wherever the Spirit wanted to lead us. Presently. In that moment. Yesterday is over. Tomorrow never comes (in that when you awaken in tomorrow, it's now today). We live in our succession of "todays." With the I AM.
He is indeed risen! And He passed the baton to His disciples who passed the baton to the next generation and so on throughout the generations to us. I won't live in the past and long for the days He walked the earth. He still walks the earth. He lives in me. I am part of His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.
"...he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father." -Yahshua, John 14:12
I hope your Easter holiday was awesome! We Finleys did some traditional things for the kids to enjoy, and they really loved it. But Easter's already over.
What now?
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