If you were able to come to Riverside yesterday, you would have heard a sermon on Resurrection. We specifically looked at one of the fundamental Christian beliefs, namely the Resurrection of people. I know that some will immediately be turned-off to this post by the topic alone. I can understand why such a belief looks ridiculous outside of a worldview that holds to Christian Theism. For that matter, what we talked about yesterday may have been “hard to stomach” for those within such a worldview!
My point in this post is to say something I didn’t get to say yesterday. It deals with a “So What?” reality that every “preacher” must deal with when they speak. Sometimes this is easier to do than at other times, depending on the topic itself. Nevertheless, I would be remiss if I were to leave the impression that something as wonderful as Resurrection was not practical. Asked positively, “What’s the big deal anyway? What difference does it make that those who follow Jesus will one day rise to a bodily existence?”
While the implications of such a belief are vast and broad, I want to start with just one. I’ll ask the question, “Why do we do what we in life? What motivates us?” It seems to me that, more times than not, what motivates us is what happens at the end. Even at the most basic level for example, those of us who have jobs we may work—if for nothing else—just to have a paycheck. My assumption, here, is that we often do things in the present for the hope of what’s to come. [Just FYI, for the theology student who reads this, don’t hear what I’m not saying. I am not trying to communicate some sort of works-based salvation. That’s a topic for another post at another time.]
We spoke yesterday that orthodox Christianity has affirmed since the beginning that there would be a bodily resurrection (as opposed to a disembodied ghostly one); and, these remade, perfected bodies would live in a physical world (not like fat, angel babies floating on clouds, playing harps). I turn now to why this really matters and I do so by raising a point that somebody else raises. This pastor/scholar asserts an interesting historical reality that took place in England during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. He said that it was at this point in time that “English evangelicals gave up believing in the urgent imperative to improve society”. Do you know why? “They gave up believing robustly in [a bodily] resurrection and settled for a disembodied heaven.”
This is absolutely fascinating and it makes complete sense (at least to me)! Why would those who follow Jesus “give a rip” about the needs of people (which in some way could be justified to relieve immediate suffering) and the world in which they live if both (the people and the world) were headed to an end that was completely devoid of physicality? But, on the other hand, since the Christian Hope is not less than, but actually more, physical than what we experience now (read C.S. Lewis’ The Last Battle for helpful imagery here), then part of living Christian-ly is to affirm the goodness of physicality in the here and now. But, Jesus himself won’t let us stop at mere affirmation; He always call us into participation. In other words, Christians are called to live in this world in such a way that it mimics the world to come. In some “mysterious” way—I don’t quite have this all worked out yet—when we “improve society” (to steal Wright’s term) with this sort of motivation, is to participate in the business of Heaven itself! That’s staggering to me.
What are your thoughts on this? How would we live differently since these things are true? Thanks for your thoughts.
–Ryan
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