It Takes A Church...

The Same But Different...Creation and New Creation.

In Surprised by Hope, N.T. Wright says, in the first century, “resurrection meant bodies.” (p. 36)

While this was not considered unusual for most of human recorded history (especially those who didn’t believe in resurrection), it seems to be for many of us today (especially for those of us who claim most passionately to believe in resurrection).

For most the last 2000 years, Christians collected relics, protected bones and worried whether God could sufficiently re-created someone out of ashes burned in cremation.  Today, our problem tends to be the opposite.

We think that everlasting life is simply about souls.  Some kind of spiritual stuff that exists eternally (really only the Greeks, eastern religion and Mormons believe that officially) and is injected into bodies who someday will “shuffle off this mortal coil” (But for an interesting take on that phrase from Hamlet, and how most of us confuse what it means, see this  vs. this)

But much of this confusion is actually alleviated when we reconsider the scriptures.  In the scriptures, the ultimate hope of Christians is not that we are going to have our souls sent to heaven when we die to live there eternally, but that “if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.”  (Romans 6:5)

And many, many times, we can read passage like this and come to exactly the wrong conclusion.

To use a different example to make the same point: The old beautiful King James Version of the Bible says in John 3:16, “whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  The him, of course, is Jesus and the good news we are told is that our life will be “everlasting.”  But think about that for a second.  Is that really good news?

Quite frankly, an eternity of the life that most of us lead is not offering much.  Would you want most of the parts of this life to be everlasting?

Everlasting taxes and traffic
Everlasting debt and disappointments,
Everlasting pimples and problems,
Everlasting insecurities and inhibitions,
Everlasting war and worry?
(Would you even want ever-lasting sermons and worship services?)

If life simply lasts forever and it is not changed, then what value is that?

But the Greek word behind the KJV’s everlasting is far more than "never-ending”. The word denotes more of a unique, imperishable, quality.  The everlasting life of God is not only life that lasts forever, but life of a different kind which is available now and lasts forever.  In short, it is this life…transformed and made new.  It is created life, re-created  (2 Corinthians 5:17, Romans 8:18-24).

This is what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:42-53, as he describes the new resurrected life, concluding this part of the argument in v. 50-52: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Listen, I will tell you a mystery! We will not all die, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For this perishable body must put on imperishability, and this mortal body must put on immortality.

And when that happens, Paul writes, death will be defeated.  Not the triumph of the soul, but the transformation of the whole of a human into a being who now lives in the new creation.  (“We are saved not as souls, but as wholes,” Wright says, p. 199).  A being that is like the being-Jesus after he was raised from the dead, “Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we will also bear the image of the man of heaven” (1 Corinthians 15:49).

This leads us to better understand that resurrection is not resuscitation.  It is not just a continuation of this life.  To be resurrected is not to be revived after flat lining.  So Lazarus, who had been dead for three days wasn’t literally resurrected in John 11.  He was resuscitated.  He was given back his current life.

When Jesus was resurrected, he was given a new, fully eternal life that was both consistent with who he had been, but was also different.  His body bore the scars of his crucifixion, he could eat fish and touch his disciples, but he also could appear in locked rooms, was unrecognizable without faith, and disappeared at a moment’s notice.

It was the same body, but different.  Like a seed is both same and different than the plant that it produces (1 Cor 15:37).  And like the way that we humans change out every physical bit of us, every atom and molecule over a period of seven years or so.  As Wright writes, “I am physically a totally different person now from the person I was ten years ago.  And yet I am still me” (p. 157).

And that “still but transformed me” in the “still but transformed world” is what the hope of the resurrection and promise of the new creation is all about.

(For more on this see, Wright, Surprised by Hope, pages 159-163: “Rethinking Resurrection Today: Who, Where, What, Why, When and How”)

Eastertide, Resurrection and Mission

In one of his recent books, Bishop Tom Wright bemoans the one-day celebration of Easter. After such a long Lent, he says, we need days of "morning prayers and champagne" to celebrate the magnitude of the Resurrection. Mark D. Roberts agrees (though I have never heard him suggest the champagne) when he writes about recapturing of the liturgical tradition of Eastertide.

And both of these friends have convinced me to spend some time lingering in the wonder of the Resurrection.

Eastertide, the 50 days following Easter until Pentecost is the perfect time of the year to linger in the wonder of the empty tomb.  During this time, we can sing the Resurrection hymns that we couldn't quite fit into the Easter services.  We can ask some hard questions without worrying about putting a damper on Easter dinner.  Like, what does the resurrection mean? 

Jesus is risen, therefore, there is life after death?
Jesus is risen metaphorically in our hearts but we all know not literally, therefore, the world is fresh with possibilities?
Jesus is risen, historically, and factually, therefore we know he is God?
Jesus is risen, therefore...we should go to church once or twice a year?

And even more significantly, we can plumb the most important theological question about the resurrection: "So, what?"

    If Jesus is risen, then what does that have to do with me?  Is it only something about Jesus or about the "afterlife"?  Or does the resurrection mean something that has to do with this world and this life?

In Surprised by Hope, Wright (who argues persuasively and in scholarly depth for a literal, historical, bodily resurrection of Jesus) asserts that the bodily resurrection when clearly understood leads inexorably to the church's mission.  Indeed, the mission of the church is to implement the victory Christ won on the cross and revealed in the resurrection.  But until we understand what resurrection meant to the first Christians, we'll never understand what it is supposed to mean, for present-day Christians, and through us, the world whole world. "Once we get resurrection straight, we can and must get mission straight." (p.193).

So, for this Eastertide, I want to spend some time lingering in the wonder and hope of the resurrection, so that I might better understand the call and hope of the church's mission.

Note: At SCPC, starting tomorrow evening, I will offer a four-week discussion of Surprised by Hope on Wednesday evenings in the Sanctuary, at 6:30.  On Sunday, the theme of our Worship services will be "Easter Faith"  and we will celebrate receiving 25 junior highers' confirmation of faith and entering into membership.  Then, starting on the first Sunday of April, I will begin a four-week series on 1 Corithians 15, called "Wholly Saved", which will take us through Eastertide.  I'll blog along with those themes here. 

And what did the first Christians mean by "resurrection" anyway? 
 

Kingdom, Cross and Resurrection: The Hope of All

Readers to this blog and members of my church know that I have been reading and recommending, N.T. Wright's newest book Surprised by Hope. On Wednesday evening, I will be starting a four-week discussion of the book at SCPC as a way of providing a kind of tutorial for those who would like to read it and discuss it.  Surprised by Hope is challenging, provocative, and really, really helpful for those of who truly want to understand the practical relevance of our Christian hope. Like all books by Wright, it is a thoroughly biblical treatise.  But it also demonstrates a pastoral sensitivity and a prophetic urgency for those of us who have relegated the resurrection to nothing more than a guarantee for believers to gain heaven when we die. (For an excellent article by Wright that introduces these themes see this.)

Recently, I was fortunate enough to spend a couple of hours with Bishop Tom and confessed to him, that I have struggled through the years with figuring out what the atonement has to do with the Kingdom of heaven.  As I told him, " A few years ago it dawned on me that I can preach the kingdom right through the gospels, but when I get to Good Friday and Easter, but then I lose sight of the Kingdom in the cross and then empty tomb."  I told him that a good deal of my reading of his material has been to try to solve this problem. Thankfully this book and the scholarly book behind it (The Resurrection and the Son of God) have helped me bring Kingdom, Cross and Resurrection together. 

And my Easter sermon this year, is my first real attempt at doing so, publicly.  In the weeks ahead, I will be blogging on these themes as I lead my church through a long "Eastertide" reflection on "The Resurrection, the Kingdom and the Hope of All."

 
Easter Sermon given at San Clemente Presbyterian Church, 2008
I must confess to you that I am not ready for Easter this year.  It has completely and utterly snuck up on me.  If you don’t believe me, drive by my house after the services and you will notice that my Christmas lights are still up. 

Thankfully, I don’t live in Marblehead or I am sure I would be the topic of many a Homeowners Association Meetings.  Some may think that I am making some statement about the Christmas spirit lasting all year. But my neighbors know better.  They commiserate with Beth about her lazy husband who isn’t very handy around the house.  Poor girl.  If you see her and mention this to her, be kind.  She probably hates that I am pointing this out, but it’s true.  I am not ready for Easter at all.

We turned the clocks ahead for Daylight Savings Time a month early this year and I have been sleepy ever since.  The schools are not even at Spring Break yet and I still have a lot more skiing I want to get in this year.  I am not ready for Spring, I am not ready for Easter and all week long, I have been feeling kind of guilty about it, actually. You see Easter is a big deal in our business.  In fact, it’s the biggest deal.  Heck, I even wear a tie. 

But I just haven’t been ready.  It kind of snuck up on me.  Then I got an email recently that at least helped me realize that I am not the problem…All this time, I thought this was about my lack of spirituality, or my mismanagement of my life.  But now I know that I am the VICTIM here.  Easter is the problem.  Easter showed up early. 

Did you see this email, too? Easter this year is the earliest that it has been since 1913, over 95 years ago.  Anybody here 95?  (Ok, you should have been ready, you’ve been through this before!)  But because of the way Easter falls on the calendar, it hasn’t been this early in almost a century and won’t be this early again until 220 years from now.  So most of us don’t have to worry about that, do we?  No one alive today has ever or will ever see it earlier than it is this year. 

So we can relax.  We can take down the Christmas lights tomorrow (I promise, honey, really!).  We can feel good about ourselves and blame Easter for barging in on our St. Patrick’s day party’s like guest that shows up when you are still in the shower.

This year Easter is the problem.  Except…

This is exactly the same as the FIRST Easter.  The first Easter came early, too.