1 Peter 1:3-4
What a God we have and how fortunate we are! Because Jesus was raised from the dead, we’ve been given a brand-new life and have everything to live for, including a future forever with God—and that future starts now!
This is week Six in our “Imagine a World with More ...” series and today we are imagining a world with more Resurrection. It is also the last of the series as it was presented to us through the Disciples national office (but we’ll talk more about that later.)
The Good News that God’s love is more powerful than death is the core—the whole point of the Christian story. Without the resurrection Jesus would have been seen as merely another teacher or miracle worker who was removed by his enemies and then, most likely, gradually disappeared from memory.
But Jesus did not disappear, he remained with his people—and he remains with us still—living in us and through us...and we are given new life through his resurrection.
If you want to ask me if I believe in a physical resurrection of the body.....my answer is “I don’t know.” BUT, what I do believe is that when I die–when any of us die—I [we] will be with God. With God and in God—and that can only be good, whatever it means, and I’m content with that answer. That’s as honest as I can be here.
Resurrection, however, applies to so much more than a physical body. There are many deaths we suffer in this life. We can be broken and lifeless in so many ways and for so many reasons.
Do you remember all those sayings I had on ‘post-it’ notes on my computer desk a few months ago? Well, I used them all up when I gave that sermon series back then, and lately I’ve been rebuilding my collection with some new stock. Two of my favorites at this time are from the same person and happen to be on this same topic.
The person is Fr. Richard Rohr—a priest, a Franciscan, and a prolific writer on the spiritual life. I have followed him for most of my adult life because he can say more in a handful of words than others can in an entire book. The first of these two quotes reads like this:
The second goes this way:
The first of these two sayings is wonderful on its own: God’s one and only job description is to turn death into life. It’s the second one, however, that speaks to me most profoundly: God will turn all our human crucifixions into resurrection.
What might our human crucifixions be? The possibilities unfortunately are endless: death of loved ones; failure; betrayal; broken plans; gratuitous cruelty; broken hearts and more; and any one of these could happen in so many different ways. Betrayal, for instance. We can be betrayed by a loved one, our country, our church, even by our own bodies.
Remember, our theme for this current series is “Imagine a World with More...” We hardly need to imagine a world with more brokenness, but can we start to imagine a world with more life, more resurrection? More being lifted up into life again and rising beyond broken hearts, beyond loss or failure??
What would resurrection look like in these cases? Are there things we have been clutching to us—pain, anger, blame, fear to try again—that we need to let go of? What would our immediate world look like if we could release those things and allow resurrection to happen in us? Could we release others then to their resurrection if we release them from our resentments and hatreds?
It seems that the further we’ve traveled in this series, the more I’ve come to simply asking questions. And the less I have been able to present even a short thesis in the length of one sermon. If we’re serious about this it’s going to take more than one short discussion to get somewhere. This imagining a better world—not just for ourselves, but for everyone—is hard work—lots of thought, lots of prayer, lots of honesty. And, as with most things, it has to start with ourselves.
So I have two more questions, and these pertain to all six of our topics--Compassion, Community, Hope, Justice, Beauty, and now, Resurrection. Our world needs all of them. So here are the questions: 1) Do we see this hard work as worth it? and 2) Are we willing to do it?
Addendum:
Think about it and let me know. God certainly loves this creation and wants it to be healed and whole. How can we help?
The Good News that God’s love is more powerful than death is the core—the whole point of the Christian story. Without the resurrection Jesus would have been seen as merely another teacher or miracle worker who was removed by his enemies and then, most likely, gradually disappeared from memory.
But Jesus did not disappear, he remained with his people—and he remains with us still—living in us and through us...and we are given new life through his resurrection.
If you want to ask me if I believe in a physical resurrection of the body.....my answer is “I don’t know.” BUT, what I do believe is that when I die–when any of us die—I [we] will be with God. With God and in God—and that can only be good, whatever it means, and I’m content with that answer. That’s as honest as I can be here.
Resurrection, however, applies to so much more than a physical body. There are many deaths we suffer in this life. We can be broken and lifeless in so many ways and for so many reasons.
Do you remember all those sayings I had on ‘post-it’ notes on my computer desk a few months ago? Well, I used them all up when I gave that sermon series back then, and lately I’ve been rebuilding my collection with some new stock. Two of my favorites at this time are from the same person and happen to be on this same topic.
The person is Fr. Richard Rohr—a priest, a Franciscan, and a prolific writer on the spiritual life. I have followed him for most of my adult life because he can say more in a handful of words than others can in an entire book. The first of these two quotes reads like this:
- God’s one and only job description is to turn death into life. That’s what God does with every new springtime, every new life, every new season, every new anything.
The second goes this way:
- The true meaning of the raising of Jesus is that God will turn all our human crucifixions into resurrection. (Let me read that again...)
The first of these two sayings is wonderful on its own: God’s one and only job description is to turn death into life. It’s the second one, however, that speaks to me most profoundly: God will turn all our human crucifixions into resurrection.
What might our human crucifixions be? The possibilities unfortunately are endless: death of loved ones; failure; betrayal; broken plans; gratuitous cruelty; broken hearts and more; and any one of these could happen in so many different ways. Betrayal, for instance. We can be betrayed by a loved one, our country, our church, even by our own bodies.
Remember, our theme for this current series is “Imagine a World with More...” We hardly need to imagine a world with more brokenness, but can we start to imagine a world with more life, more resurrection? More being lifted up into life again and rising beyond broken hearts, beyond loss or failure??
What would resurrection look like in these cases? Are there things we have been clutching to us—pain, anger, blame, fear to try again—that we need to let go of? What would our immediate world look like if we could release those things and allow resurrection to happen in us? Could we release others then to their resurrection if we release them from our resentments and hatreds?
It seems that the further we’ve traveled in this series, the more I’ve come to simply asking questions. And the less I have been able to present even a short thesis in the length of one sermon. If we’re serious about this it’s going to take more than one short discussion to get somewhere. This imagining a better world—not just for ourselves, but for everyone—is hard work—lots of thought, lots of prayer, lots of honesty. And, as with most things, it has to start with ourselves.
So I have two more questions, and these pertain to all six of our topics--Compassion, Community, Hope, Justice, Beauty, and now, Resurrection. Our world needs all of them. So here are the questions: 1) Do we see this hard work as worth it? and 2) Are we willing to do it?
Addendum:
- Have you enjoyed this series?
- Have you gained anything from it?
- We clearly haven’t come up with too many answers, have we left anything hanging that you’d like to do a little deeper digging?
- Do you have any other topics you can think of that you’d like to discuss in this same vein? What else might you like to imagine a world with more of?
Think about it and let me know. God certainly loves this creation and wants it to be healed and whole. How can we help?
RSS Feed