Thoughts and Questions About Today

This week, just finished, a fact, suddenly and forcefully exploded once again into my consciousness.  The fact, I'm thinking on today is that all of Christian history turns on the event I am celebrating today.  The empty tomb!   The abandoned burial wrappings! The startled eyewitnesses, out of breath, heralding the reversal of all that was expected!  A new day had dawned in more than the physical, presenting the reason for my celebration is the impetus for the entire Christian movement. On its significance, I think the apostle Paul was clear in 1 Corinthians 15:13-14: “But if there is no resurrection of the dead, not even Christ has been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is vain, your faith also is vain”. 

Noticing the immense social and religious advertising and promotion, I wonder as Christians emerge from the traditional, contemporary, modern, and postmodern worship services, where I trust they have looked back on the historical significance of the resurrection, are now going to be looking forward to the promise of life after death for an eternal future? I also wonder if there will be a tendency to miss the significance of Easter present?  Will most find the difference the resurrection of Jesus makes in their lives here and now? If the resurrection is only about life after death—going to heaven when I die—or if I am only celebrating something that happened long ago, there is the failure to do the necessary and creative work of what resurrection means for my life today. In addition, if the only significance of Easter is a spiritual metaphor for new life and re-birth, this message is just as easily told through colored eggs finds or rolls advertised on many a church marque this past week.

For we who are called Christians; to affirm the bodily resurrection of Jesus means, at the very least, that God had begun the work of new creation—what began in the bodily resurrection of Jesus—could now, and would now continue into the present time and place. Indeed, Paul writes in Romans 8 that “the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the children of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will, but because of the One who subjected it in hope that the creation itself also will be set free from slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now. And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as children, the redemption of our body” God’s new creation has begun with the bodily resurrection of Jesus. Now, my work in this world is the work of resurrection—bringing new life and re-creation as a follower of Jesus. My view is that as a follower of Jesus, I am entrusted with the task of raising dead people to life, helping the lost to find home, and healing those who are wounded and broken. 

My follow-ship at 72 years is the same as when I was 18.  The risen Jesus told his followers, “As the Father has sent me, I also send you” John 20:21. Jesus’s resurrection is not an evacuation strategy from this life nor is it the promise of a life free from trouble. Rather it commissions me as one who would remember his resurrection to be his ‘raising’ agent in the world. Jesus sends me, as His follower, out with the extraordinary news that the dead can be raised to new life for death and evil do not have the last word! And as I begin to live in light of the resurrection, I can gain insight into its significance for the practical realities of everyday life even as I anticipate the world to come, of which the resurrection is a sign. I like very much what  N.T. Wright has concluded in Surprised By Hope: “Jesus is raised, so he is the Messiah, and therefore he is the world’s true Lord; Jesus is raised, so God’s new creation has begun…  Jesus is raised, so we must act as his heralds, announcing his lordship to the entire world, making his kingdom come on earth as in heaven.”

Concluding the matter:  I remember the Risen Lord and hope for a future of resurrected life. But in between the past remembrance and the future reality, everything has changed!