In moments of discouragement, my uncle would use the old saying, “First you’re born and then you die.” It struck me as a sad disconnection from any sense of purpose to the universe or humanity’s role in it. In recent years, however, having experienced the death and resurrection of his personal dreams, my uncle uses a new saying, more in keeping with an Easter faith: first you are dead, and then you come to life! That’s the implication of Easter in a nutshell, according to Paul today: humanity is as good as dead but, because of Christ’s resurrection, humans have new life.

Easter just isn’t one of those things that can be “explained.” Christ’s resurrection cannot be proven scientifically, with logical argument, dissection or slow-motion instant replay. I’ve never heard a plausible explanation of why Jesus’ resurrected body could go through locked doors and still show the nail and spear scars. Mel Gibson aside, the graphic wounds of the dying Christ will not convince us of the resurrection. Analysis won’t explain it. It takes the Church the seven weeks of Eastertide just to talk about the implication of Easter, let alone explain it, and we’ve been doing that for nearly 2,000 years. Easter is only something we can only live into. Thomas had to hear that from Jesus himself. Thomas the Twin. I’ve decided that Thomas is “the Twin,” not because of the circumstances of his birth, but because he was a “me too, me too, don’t forget me!” kind of guy. The irony of Thomas (of all people) missing out on the commissioning of the Church is the reason Jesus can reassure the disorganized disciples that the Church will have a future, even if their posterity wasn’t present to receive the commissioning and empowering breath. Jesus created the Church as he transformed his disciples and gave them the job of the single most important implication of the resurrection.

The job around which Jesus organizes the Church has been deeply misunderstood. The Church is to forgive and retain sins. The power of the confessional—priest absolving, the faithful buying get-out-of-purgatory-free cards to finance cathedrals! Excommunication and shunning—the ecclesiastical equivalent of firing those apprentices deemed sinful! In our broken humanity, we have been able to regularly subvert and divert Jesus’ commission to the Church. We have been able to misuse his words for the purposes of power.

This commission to “be the Church”—the body of Christ in the world—is not about “power.” It is about responsibility—the responsibility to help sinners become “the faithful” as they experience forgiveness through the Church. The Church, when it functions as the Risen Christ intended it to function, fulfills Christ’s commission by making grace concrete, by helping people feel forgiven. It’s a forgiveness that requires judgment and accepting the consequences of actions, then living through the implications of those actions. Forgiveness is not about making consequences OK, but helping people get through them. Jesus’ forgiveness gives us a way to get through those consequences. Courage to apologize, strength to grieve, grace to take responsibility, wisdom to not try to fix what can only heal. The power to be the church is the work of the Holy Spirit in community. Forgiving and retaining the sins of others by individuals is very, very dangerous. When the Church has taken this responsibility too seriously—used it as power—we’ve had things like the Inquisition and the Salem witch trials. When the Church has not taken this responsibility seriously, we’ve disenfranchised people to fester in their own sense of guilt or to avoid accountability in addictions. That’s why it is so critical that, along with empowering, the Church accept the rest of what Jesus does when he commissions in that closed and locked room. The breath of the Holy Spirit that continues to blow through us today must also be about transformation, both personal and institutional.

That is so Reformed, so predictable, coming from a school of theology that espouses “the church reformed, always being reformed.” But don’t forget the last part of that motto: “the church reformed, always being reformed—under the Word of God.” Unless we are transforming and being transformed under the authority of the gospel, we may as well chase every Two-Minute Manager and Purpose-Driven Life fad that comes along. Who moved my cheese? St Francis had a simple-minded rule for living. If it was in the gospel, he said, we ought to do it. Live like Jesus. The closer one is to living like Jesus, the better.

The trick is to live like Jesus in a way appropriate to our time and place. In our 21st-century America, especially out here in the rugged west, we aren’t just oriented to individualism, we are driven to it. We distrust government and taxation, hate institutions, and still bemoan the inability of certain generations to work for the good of the whole, while springing up all around are cyber friendships and internet chatrooms, which have institutionalized the illusion of relationship without the petty annoyances of responsibility and accountability.

If we are going to be transformed—and boy, I hope that is what is driving us—it will only be as a gospel-centered community. Churches—and this church in particular—need to base preaching, teaching, pastoral care on scripture. Otherwise, we are no different from the rest of the world. We will waver and wander with every fad that breezes through pop culture unless we base ourselves on the gospel of Jesus Christ. Transformation is not change for the sake of change or becoming more effective or more compassionate. Transformation is becoming more what God created us to be. It is called “redemption” and we can only receive it.

Transformation is an institutional imperative, but it has a personal dimension. The lives of individuals must also be informed by and based in scripture. If you are Biblically illiterate, if you have no idea whether scripture has something to say to you, you are not only going to be left out of the conversation about who we are as a church, you will jeopardize the health and vitality of this congregation’s faith. Biblical illiteracy is curable. It’s an acquired skill. It’s something that anyone can address, whether you like to read or not, whether you think you are holy or can pray aloud. Biblical illiteracy is not a permanent disability. The cure only takes showing up and paying attention. Something as small as reading the Guideposts we have on the back table. Or 10 minutes a day with the Mission Yearbook. Or coming to church an hour early on Sunday to see what’s up in Sunday School. Or joining a Bible study, of which we have several. Or asking an elder or me for help. It’s a small personal thing, but it will have a huge impact on the health and vitality of this whole congregation.

If Easter has no impact on your life, there may as well not have been a resurrection, as far as you are concerned. If you are not willing to take responsibility for faithful living more than an hour on Sunday morning, there was no point in Jesus blowing in his disciples’ faces and reassuring Thomas that there would be a body of the faithful in the future. It’s up to you whether Easter has any meaning. Easter meaning is not about more responsibilities and things to feel guilty about. Any time you receive the breath of Christ in your face, I guarantee you it will involve joy and creativity and energy. Receive the Holy Spirit today. Be the Church as Christ has intended!