Between Sundays

It was now about the sixth hour, and darkness came over the whole land until the ninth hour, for the sun stopped shining. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two. Jesus called out with a loud voice, "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit." When he had said this, he breathed his last.

For Jesus’ disciples, confusion and hopelessness had set in. Surely throughout the trials and crucifixion they wondered why he didn’t bring himself down, and now, he was gone. And from a phrase we’ve heard so often, it was Friday, their darkest moment, but little did they know Sunday was coming. However, Sunday came, and news of Jesus’ resurrection spread, news that ought to bring them back to the times when they walked alongside Jesus as they served together. It was news that should have excited and inspired them to carry on this mission; it should have restored their hope for Jesus had defeated death and conquered evil as promised. He was the true Messiah, but instead, Peter went fishing. Friday was over, Sunday had come, and Peter went fishing. I sometimes wonder today, as Sunday has now come and gone, though the news of Jesus’ resurrection has spread, have we too gone fishing. Do we understand what the resurrection of Christ means for us today?

Scripture tells us that, because of Jesus’ victory over death, we too may share in that victory. In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul writes that if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ was raised.

But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.

As the firstfruit, Jesus is the first of all to receive the fully transformed and imperishable resurrection body (spoken of later in 1 Corinthians 15). Through his resurrection, we have been granted the same gift.

Since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man.

It has been said, “He became like us so that we may become like him.” This is our gift of salvation, our hope. Though Sunday has come and gone, we’re promised a second Sunday, but still, what does this mean for us today?

In this week between the Sundays how should we live? Scripture speaks to this as well; in fact, this was Jesus’ ministry. It wasn’t a teaching about a far away land “somewhere beyond the azure blue” known as heaven. It wasn’t about “doing good” today so that, when Jesus returns to destroy the Earth, he will take us to this place floating in the clouds. N.T. Wright says, “Heaven is important, but it’s not the end of the world.”

Jesus’ ministry taught others how to live today in the coming kingdom. We see examples of this in his prayer, “Your kingdom come, your will be done on Earth as it is in heaven.” Paul writes to the Philippians that their citizenship is in heaven, and it is from there that we await our savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. He also urges them to exercise their citizenship. Gordon Fee writes that they are to “…live out their heavenly citizenship in Philippi in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ.” Our kingdom citizenship has already begun, and today we must participate in the gospel wherever we are and in whatever situation we find ourselves, joining together alongside the early disciples, alongside Paul, and once again alongside Jesus, continuing to bring about God’s will and God’s kingdom on Earth as in heaven. At the cross, the kingdom was ushered in, and we must do our part today through the work of the Spirit to spread this kingdom until Christ returns to fully bring about the kingdom, restoring, renewing, and transforming all of creation to its original intent and purpose.

Jesus’ life and death show us how, and it is through our sharing in his death, humbling ourselves to become slaves, that we do so. As we share in his death, he promises to share with us his resurrection, life.

In his new book, Virtue Reborn, Wright discusses the idea of Christian virtue, what it looks like to live in the kingdom today. He says that, though it is tedious, through much focused study and faithful practice of the tedious, virtue becomes second nature. Though we have turned the world upside down with evil, through Christ’s death and resurrection and now, through his Spirit working in his people, he is turning the world to rights. Over the coming weeks, we will discuss several of these virtues and how we can transform our lives so that we may participate in transforming the world.

Though Peter first went fishing, after witnessing the resurrected Lord, he laid his nets aside and picked up the cross. Let us be a witness to the resurrected Christ today and take up the cross.

Grace to you,
Matt

Seven Stanzas at Easter by John Updike

Make no mistake: if He rose at all
it was as His body;
if the cells' dissolution did not reverse, the molecules
reknit, the amino acids rekindle,
the Church will fall.

It was not as the flowers, each soft Spring recurrent;
it was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddled
eyes of the eleven apostles;
it was as His Flesh: ours.

The same hinged thumbs and toes,
the same valved heart
that — pierced — died, withered, paused, and then
regathered out of enduring Might
new strength to enclose.

Let us not mock God with metaphor,
analogy, sidestepping transcendence;
making of the event a parable, a sign painted in the
faded credulity of earlier ages:
let us walk through the door.

The stone is rolled back, not papier-mache,
not a stone in a story,
but the vast rock of materiality that in the slow
grinding of time will eclipse for each of us
the wide light of day.

And if we will have an angel at the tomb,
make it a real angel,
weighty with Max Planck's quanta, vivid with hair,
opaque in the dawn light, robed in real linen
spun on a definite loom.

Let us not seek to make it less monstrous,
for our own convenience, our own sense of beauty,
lest, awakened in one unthinkable hour, we are
embarrassed by the miracle,
and crushed by remonstrance.

Telephone Poles and Other Poems © 1961 by John Updike
as reprinted at http://www.edow.org/spirituality/updike.html

Grace to you,
Matt