Tuesday, June 10, 2008

What does the future hold?

We are obsessed with the future. What will happen to us? But we feel powerless to do anything about it. Paul has shown that without the resurrection our faith and our future are meaningless. Without the resurrection there is no hope. The resurrection is central to what it means to be a follower of Jesus. The resurrection is not just good news for each individual Christian. The resurrection is good news for the entire Universe.

How do we live in light of the resurrection? What impact does this reversal and defeat of death by one man have on the way you and I live life? Here's some points reflecting on 1 Cor 15:20-34.

Death
When I was 10 years old I died. I had an to have my adenoids removed because I kept getting ear infections and whilst under the anaesthetic my body shut down, my heart stopped and I refused to breath. For 20 seconds I was gone. The doctors brought me back by pounding on my chest and forcing air into my small lungs. The only evidence of my near permanent fatal experience were the bruises on my chest. I was resuscitated. 

One day I will die and I believe I will be resurrected.

When I was about 18 one of my best friend’s Dad died. Bob was a wonderful man. He taught me a lot about what it means to follow Jesus. He was generous and kind. He was godly and loving. And then he was dead. And my friend had lost her Daddy.

I couldn’t believe how God would let that happen. That was my first experience of how awful and horrible and painful death was.

Recently, I saw this photo:

We can decorate coffins and it may go some way to help those grieving their loss, remember the good things about when that person and what they gave to this world. But it doesn’t change the fact that they are dead. Death is still awful and death is still our enemy.

Death is not just our last enemy. It is God’s enemy as well.

His universe, which he pronounced good. His universe has been marred by the horrible spectacle of death. Death is the unmaking of God’s creation. Resurrection is the remaking of God’s Creation. It is God’s new creation and that is our hope.

The resurrection does not make death less bad. It still awful. But it is a defeated enemy. By raising Jesus from the dead God set in motion the final defeat of death itself. The Christian hope is not some vague form of wishful thinking.

For Paul: “It's resurrection, resurrection, always resurrection, that undergirds what I do and say, the way I live.” (vs. 30-33. The Message)

If there's no resurrection, "We eat, we drink, the next day we die," and that's all there is to it. Paul is saying, ”don't fool yourselves”. Don't let yourselves be poisoned by this anti-resurrection talk.

Let the resurrection shape your future.

What will happen when I finish my degree and have to get a proper job? What will it be like when I’m married to this person and share my life with them? Will I do well in my new job? If I can just get this promotion then things will be different? Why do I do this every day? What will it be like to have this new baby in the family? How can I be a good parent to my children? How can I speak to my teenage daughter? Will I have to look after my poorly mother? Will my children have to look after me?

In vs 32 Paul talks about human hopes, wishful thinking, I think what he has in mind are those who were gladiators, the night before they faced wild beasts, enjoying there last moments of existence. In the face of despair people try to numb the pain with stuff.

"Let’s eat and drink, for tomorrow we die."

To numb the pain and the despair people will turn to things which make them feel alive. What makes you feel alive?

Drinking. Eating. Sex. Shopping. Playing on the Wii. Exercise. TV. Shoplifting. Self-harming. Driving fast.

For Paul, what makes you really live life is the resurrection.

The future is what counts. You cannot change the past. What’s done is done. What was said was said. Stop living in the past. And stop living just in the now. Live in such a way to change your future. How will you affect your future? How will you live tomorrow? What choices will you make to live this life? Live in such a way to affect the future of others? Don’t let your past haunt you and don’t be afraid of the future.

If you live tomorrow, how will you live? What plans for living do you have?

What is the big deal with the resurrection?

Paul has in mind the story of creation as he talks about resurrection. Creation was good, but it always had a future aspect. God didn’t look at creation and say that “it’s perfect” something perfect cannot be improved upon. God said it was good. Now something good can be made even more good, but you need someone who has the same intention and character as God, someone who has the creative flair of the father someone made in his image.

God appoints good stewards humans to oversee and care for the creation. To work in the garden and bring the future into the present.

“Instead of humans being God’s wise vice-regents over creation, they ignore the creator and try to worship something less demanding, something which will give them a short-term fix of power or pleasure” Tom Wright.

Us human always want to reach for something fleeting to give us the high of feeling alive. The result is death. Death was always part of the living process but now it has a spiritual significance. The controlling image of death in most of the bible is found in the language of exile. The first humans are exiled from the garden.

God’s plan of restoration is to bring people out of exile and back into relationship. That is the Kingdom of God’ it’s what God wants to happen. God’s desire is that you and I would be back in relationship with him and back in relationship with the people and the world around us.

What has been accomplished by his death and resurrection?

For Paul, it’s all about the Kingdom of God.

Like all Jews, Paul would have grown up longing for the Kingdom of God to come. Most Jewish people expected that God would become king again over the whole world, restoring Israel and defeating those who were oppressing them, and after this people would live in peace again with God.

Now Paul is saying that it had started to happen but it wasn’t going to be how people imagined. Paul is saying this resurrection of the dead has now started. One man has risen from the dead. The coming of God’s kingdom was going to happen in two phases. It’s the now and the not yet. We pray “your Kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”

Paul uses a Greek poet called Meander to make an ironic point in 1 Cor 15:33-34. The Corinthians were allowing the surrounding culture to influence the way they viewed life and their values for living. Their future was being shaped by their circumstances rather than their relationship with God.

Who is influencing your future? Does God hold your future? Is your future shaped by God and his Kingdom?

When you go into work tomorrow what will influence the way that day pans out? How will you work this week as a follower of Jesus? How will you let the kingdom of God break into where you work and affect your future and the future of others.

The point of Paul’s letter to the Corinthians is that this present life is not meaningless just because you and I will die. The point is that God will raise your life into new life. To quote T Wright again:

What you do in the present – by painting, preaching, singing, sewing, praying, teaching, building hospitals, digging wells, campaigning for justice, writing poems, caring for the needy, loving your neighbour as yourself – all these things will last into God’s future.

We don’t do these things to make life a bit nicer for everyone. We do these things to build God’s future kingdom in the present.

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