The Christian hope is that our future resurrection will not just change our outward appearance; it will change the world around us and the inner reality of who we are and what we are. The ordering of our disordered desires. And that change is beginning even now. 

 The Christian faith is often reduced to “I will go to heaven when I die.” But this summary is more gnostic than Christian. It assumes that the material world must be escaped. The Christian hope, as Paul tells it, is embodied. Somehow our God will empty cemeteries and give us new bodies. 

In so many ways, followers of Jesus can be made to feel like our faith is unreasonable, clinging to faith in an event despite the obvious, clear, and overwhelming evidence against the Resurrection. But our faith isn’t unreasonable. It isn’t a blind leap into nonsensical belief. Trust in the bodily resurrection of Jesus is reasonable. Jesus appeared to many: disciples, family, skeptics, and outspoken opponents. These witnesses were so convinced by their encounter with the risen Jesus that many were unwilling to recant that belief even as they were executed for it.

Too often we settle for badly summarized Gospels; formulas that are less than compelling. Paul articulates the Gospel as the climax of the long story of Israel, the beautiful and compelling story of God’s activity to save the world.

For many the divinity of Jesus is easy to grasp, but Christian orthodoxy declares that Jesus is also human; and the humanity of Jesus is most on display the night he would be betrayed. In a Garden called Gethsamene, Jesus weeps, pleads, and experiences the whole range of human anxiety. It is in this short story that we begin to see the depths of God’s love for us that he would join us in our suffering.

For every generation, for every time, there are “what is this world coming to moments.” Since 2000, in just 24 short years, we have seen– 9/11, the housing crash of 2008, the war in Afghanistan, the Syrian crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the Ukraine-Russia conflict. in the crushing wave of the 24-hour news cycle, we are constantly aware of all the tragedy, all the violence, all the death; it feels like the end of the world all the time. But these moments are not new. Every generation has lived through these moments. As we look to the life of Jesus we find a startling practice that can help us navigate these “end of the world” moments– Lament.

There are times in our walk with God that feel more like a desert than an oasis. These seasons are dry, desolate, and lonely and we feel more of God’s absence than his presence. In these moments we need to be reminded we are not alone, God has not abandoned us, and there might be something to learn from the dry season. 

In a culture that is so grief adverse, in a country that openly admits they are tired of talking about the hard things, in a moment where people are so ready to move on, could our grief be something more? Through the story of Joseph and his grief, we learn something about our Savior; "a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief"

When suffering crashes into our lives all humans are prone to ask some of the same questions. Is God just? Does God run the world by His justice? Why is there evil? These are the same questions posed by the Book of Job. A tragic story that invites us to reconsider our search for easy answers even as we wrestle with God.

We live in a good world but also a world fractured by evil, both externally in the world and internally within oneself. Teachers of the Way of Jesus have long been warning of three enemies; the World, the Flesh, and the Devil. If we are to be disciples of Jesus committed to the healing of our world, then we must know the dangers; and that victory is possible in the power fo the Spirt.