Toward the end of my high school junior year, there was a concert at Kansas City’s Arrowhead stadium called Summer Jam ’80. It was two days of non-stop-rock-n-roll. Bands like Ted Nugent, Kenny Loggins, Journey, Black Oak Arkansas, Peter Frampton, Fleetwood Mac, the Doobie Brothers and more all did sets that weekend. It was the best concert experience any seventeen year old, future rock star, could imagine! The problem was, I didn’t get to go. My friends did.
The next Monday at school, my friends would tell stories about the concert. They would tell me about Ted Nugent playing so loud your ears hurt! (Rock on Ted!) They would tell me about Black Oak Arkansas coming on stage riding horses or my idol Peter Frampton playing “Do you feel like I do?” just like it sounds on “Frampton Comes Alive”, only better! I kicked myself for not trying harder to go with them. I regretted not trying to talk my parents into letting me go. I missed Frampton and Nugent in the same day!
I would not miss it the next year!
Like most stories that get told over and over in a rock-induced haze, I kind of doubted some of them. (A recent Google search did confirm that Black Oak did come out on horses for that concert!)
A couple thousand years ago, a man named Didymus missed one of the most significant events in history. He was scared. His best friend had just been killed and now they were out to kill him and the rest of his friends. He didn’t want to be seen with them. One day he shows up at the house where his friends are. It seems that his best friend, the one who was killed, is now alive and visited the house! Didymus couldn’t believe it. In fact, he actually doubted their stories. He wasn’t going to believe them until he saw his friend himself. (He didn’t have Google) A few days later, he was with his friends again and sure enough, his best friend did come and talk to him. He even told him to touch him to make sure! Finally Thomas (also called Didymus) saw the resurrected Jesus and believed!
Fortunately for Thomas, he got a second chance. Jesus came back to talk to him one more time. I wonder what Thomas would have thought if Jesus never came back a second time. Do you think his life would have been different?
There wasn’t a Summer Jam ’81.