Resurrection Sunday in Modern-Day America

Dear Pastors and Church Leaders,

As I fight my way through crowds this Resurrection Sunday, I implore you to remember us– the Church, the Bride of Christ. As you focus to be seeker-friendly with food trucks, helicopter egg drops, petting zoos, and egg hunts, my body is physically, emotionally, and spiritually aching for a touch from the Master’s hand. How hard is it to be healed amongst a sick crowd who does not know they are unwell, who is rather distracted with all the modern-day garb the American church is attempting to put on to be accepted (Galatians 1:10) – complacency, acceptance, tolerance and the like?

I feel like the woman who bled for twelve years, just trying to push through the crowd to touch the edge of Jesus’ robe. There is supreme power even at the edge of His robe, but I have to push through a crowd of chaos to reach Him– a chaos you have created. The irony here is that the crowd that was surrounding Jesus in the story of Mark 5 was simply trying to get near Him, not near our faulty programs. I tire of reading of how the American church is falling away during this cultural downward spiral; the Church is not falling away but the corporate church is failing. The corporate church is failing the Bride of Christ while it performs for the lost– a bad performance at that, with inauthentic characters and unbelievable performances.

I hate the position this cultural woe has put me in. Instead of being one of the members of the masses trying to push through, I’ve become James Gordon Bennett’s character critiquing the modern-day church on the sidelines and its great pastoral head and collective like-minded leaders, as did Mr. Bennett with P.T. Barnum’s character. It mimics the headship of many supposed godly households in many ways- chastising, masculine leadership missing the mark while asking the belittled bride to rise. Matt Walsh recently equally missed the mark as he chastised the disrespecting bride of her earthly husband while overlooking any offenses of the husband. A cultural oversight that is happening much more than I care to admit. Likewise, the corporate church misses the bride as the modern-day church of America has become her greatest stumbling block. The bride is tired, so tired. She is unwilling to rise to inauthentic, performance-driven and fake leadership. The bride knows her husband, but she can’t find him here in the modern-day church of America, but she is desperately seeking, looking, hungering for His presence and Truth. She finds him in the pages of the Old and New Testaments, and in her prayer closet, and in biblical community, but He is hard to find in the church where consumeristic tables are being turned over in hidden places.

So, from one child of God to another, this Easter, would you consider just telling me the story of a God who overcame death? Who rose from the dead after He carried that heavy, heavy cross? Who took on my sin so that I could be free from the bondage of it? Who paved a way for me to be with Him forever outside of this shame-filled, temporal life? Would you consider telling my children and me of Him without all the smoke and lights and eggs and bunnies? Would you consider not distracting me by trying to reach all five of my senses and just let me come to Him by hearing (Romans 10:17)? As a bride, I am begging, begging for a touch from His robe. Will you please help me push through the crowd to see Him, or are you just another stumbling block in my attempt to reach Him?

Signed,

Your Discouraged Bride