I know the last few posts have been somewhat different from the way we usually blog, but I think it is extremely important to express why we, as fortunate representatives of the Body of Christ, are here in Sierra Leone doing what we are doing. The following paragraphs have been taken from N.T. Wright’s book, Simply Christian:
Despite what many people think, within the Christian family and outside it, the point of Christianity isn’t “to go to heaven when you die.” The New Testament picks up from the old the theme that God intends, in the end, to put the whole creation to rights. Earth and heaven were made to overlap with one another, not fitfully, mysteriously, and partially as they do at the moment, but completely, gloriously, and utterly. “The earth shall be filled with the glory of God as the waters cover the sea.” That’s the promise that resonates throughout the Bible story, from Isaiah (and behind him, by implication, from Genesis itself) all the way through to Paul’s greatest visionary moments and the final chapters of the book of Revelation. The great drama will end, not with “saved souls” being snatched up into heaven, away from the wicked earth and the mortal bodies which have dragged them down into sin, but with the New Jerusalem coming down from heaven to earth, so that “the dwelling of God is with humans” (Revelation 21:3).
A little over a hundred years ago, an American pastor in upstate New York celebrated in a great hymn both the beauty of creation and the presence of the creator God within it. His name was Malthie Babcock, and his hymn “This Is My Father’s World” points beyond the present beauty of creation, through the mess and tragedy which it has been infected, to the ultimate resolution. There are different versions of the relevant stanza, but this one is the clearest:
“This is my Father’s world; O let me ne’er forget
That though the wrong seems oft so strong,
God is the ruler yet.
This is my Father’s world; the battle is not done;
Jesus, who died, shall be satisfied,
And earth and heaven be one.”
And earth and heaven be one: that is the note that should sound like a clear, sweet bell through all Christian living, summoning us to live in the present as people called to that future, people called to live in the present in the light of the future. The two themes—the overlap of heaven and earth and the overlap of God’s future with our present time—come together as we look at what it means for believing and baptized members of God’s people to live under the lordship of Jesus within the present world. Paul and John, Jesus himself, and pretty well all the great Christian teachers of the first two centuries stressed their belief in resurrection. “Resurrection” doesn’t mean “going to heaven when you die.” It isn’t about “life after death.” It’s about “life after life after death.” After you die, you go to be “with Christ”, but your body remains dead. Describing where and what you are in that interim period is difficult, and for the most part the New Testament writers don’t try. Call it “heaven” if you like, but don’t imagine that it’s the end of all things. What is promised after that interim period is a new bodily life within God’s new world (“life after life after death”).
Many contemporary Christians find this confusing. It was second nature to the early church and to many subsequent Christian generations. It was what they believed and taught. If we have grown up believing and teaching something else, it’s time we rubbed our eyes and read our texts again. God’s plan is not to abandon this world, the world which he said was “very good.” Rather, he intends to remake it. And when he does, he will raise all his people to new bodily life to live in it. That is the promise of the Christian gospel.
To live in it, yes; and also to rule over it. There is a mystery here which few today have even begun to ponder. Both Paul and Revelation stress that in God’s new world those who belong to the Messiah will be placed in charge. The first creation was put into care of God’s image-bearing creatures. The new creation will be put into the wise, healing stewardship of those who have been “renewed according to the image of the creator,” as Paul puts it (Colossians 3:10). In God’s new world Jesus himself will of course be the central figure. That’s why from the very beginning the church has always spoken of his “second coming,” though in terms of the overlap of heaven and earth it would be more appropriate to speak, as some early Christians also did, of the “reappearing” of Jesus. He is, at the moment, present with us, but hidden behind that invisible veil which keeps heaven and earth apart, and which we pierce in those moments, such as prayer, the sacraments, the reading of scripture, and our work with the poor, when the veil seems particularly thin. But one day the veil will be lifted; earth and heaven will be one; Jesus will be personally present, and every knee shall bow at his name; creation will be renewed; the dead will be raised; and God’s new world will at last be in place, full of new prospects and possibilities. This is what the Christian vision of salvation is all about. But if that is the road we’re going, what road must we take to get there?
Living Between Heaven and Earth
Our vision of the road from here to there, from creation to new creation—in other words, the way we are called to live in the present—will vary not according to what we conceive to be the final destination, but also according to the whole way we understand God and the world.
"Christianity, in its purest form… sees God and the world as different from one another, but not far apart. There were and are ways in which, moments at which, and events through which heaven and earth overlap and interlock. For the devout first-century Jew, the Torah wasn’t the arbitrary decree of a distant God, but the covenant charter which bound Israel to YHWH. It was the pathway along which one might discover what genuine humanness was all about. If all Israel managed to keep the Torah for a single day, declared some Jewish teachers, the Age to Come would begin. The Torah was the road into God’s future. Of course it was; because, like the Temple, it was a place where heaven and earth overlapped, where you might glimpse what it would be like when they became completely one. The same was true for Wisdom, the blueprint for creation and also the blueprint for genuine human living."
"Yes, replied the early Christians: and Temple, Torah, and Wisdom have come together in and as Jesus of Nazareth, Israel’s Messiah, God’s second self, his “Son” in that full sense. And, with that, God’s future has arrived in the present, has arrived in the person of Jesus. In arriving, it has confronted and defeated the forces of evil and opened the way for God’s new world, for heaven and earth to be joined forever. And not only heaven and earth, but also future and present, overlap and interlock. And the way that interlocking becomes real, not just imaginary, is through the powerful work of God’s Spirit."
"This is the launchpad for the specifically Christian way of life. That way of life isn’t a matter simply of getting in touch with our inner depths. It is certainly not about keeping the commands of a distant God. Rather, it is the new way of being human, the Jesus-shaped way of being human, the cross-and-resurrection way of life, the Spirit-led pathway. It is the way which anticipates, in the present, the full, rich, glad human existence which will one day be ours when God makes all things new. Christian ethics is not a matter of discovering what’s going on in the world and getting in tune with it. It isn’t a matter of doing things to earn God’s favor. It is not about trying to obey dusty rulebooks from long ago or far away. It is about practicing, in the present, the tunes we shall sing in God’s new world… "
Tunes that resonate through us when we respond to the faithfulness of Christ in faith, hope, love, justice, peace, and mercy. Where things in the world are not right, we are, as God’s true Israel, responsible to do all we can, through God’s power, to change and transform them the way our loving Father intended things to be, with anticipation and hope that God will one day, ultimately, bring all wrongs to right. This is the reason we worship, the reason we pray, the reason we do mission, the reason we live. We are the body of Christ!
With Thanksgiving and Love,
Chelsea and Mike
Despite what many people think, within the Christian family and outside it, the point of Christianity isn’t “to go to heaven when you die.” The New Testament picks up from the old the theme that God intends, in the end, to put the whole creation to rights. Earth and heaven were made to overlap with one another, not fitfully, mysteriously, and partially as they do at the moment, but completely, gloriously, and utterly. “The earth shall be filled with the glory of God as the waters cover the sea.” That’s the promise that resonates throughout the Bible story, from Isaiah (and behind him, by implication, from Genesis itself) all the way through to Paul’s greatest visionary moments and the final chapters of the book of Revelation. The great drama will end, not with “saved souls” being snatched up into heaven, away from the wicked earth and the mortal bodies which have dragged them down into sin, but with the New Jerusalem coming down from heaven to earth, so that “the dwelling of God is with humans” (Revelation 21:3).
A little over a hundred years ago, an American pastor in upstate New York celebrated in a great hymn both the beauty of creation and the presence of the creator God within it. His name was Malthie Babcock, and his hymn “This Is My Father’s World” points beyond the present beauty of creation, through the mess and tragedy which it has been infected, to the ultimate resolution. There are different versions of the relevant stanza, but this one is the clearest:
“This is my Father’s world; O let me ne’er forget
That though the wrong seems oft so strong,
God is the ruler yet.
This is my Father’s world; the battle is not done;
Jesus, who died, shall be satisfied,
And earth and heaven be one.”
And earth and heaven be one: that is the note that should sound like a clear, sweet bell through all Christian living, summoning us to live in the present as people called to that future, people called to live in the present in the light of the future. The two themes—the overlap of heaven and earth and the overlap of God’s future with our present time—come together as we look at what it means for believing and baptized members of God’s people to live under the lordship of Jesus within the present world. Paul and John, Jesus himself, and pretty well all the great Christian teachers of the first two centuries stressed their belief in resurrection. “Resurrection” doesn’t mean “going to heaven when you die.” It isn’t about “life after death.” It’s about “life after life after death.” After you die, you go to be “with Christ”, but your body remains dead. Describing where and what you are in that interim period is difficult, and for the most part the New Testament writers don’t try. Call it “heaven” if you like, but don’t imagine that it’s the end of all things. What is promised after that interim period is a new bodily life within God’s new world (“life after life after death”).
Many contemporary Christians find this confusing. It was second nature to the early church and to many subsequent Christian generations. It was what they believed and taught. If we have grown up believing and teaching something else, it’s time we rubbed our eyes and read our texts again. God’s plan is not to abandon this world, the world which he said was “very good.” Rather, he intends to remake it. And when he does, he will raise all his people to new bodily life to live in it. That is the promise of the Christian gospel.
To live in it, yes; and also to rule over it. There is a mystery here which few today have even begun to ponder. Both Paul and Revelation stress that in God’s new world those who belong to the Messiah will be placed in charge. The first creation was put into care of God’s image-bearing creatures. The new creation will be put into the wise, healing stewardship of those who have been “renewed according to the image of the creator,” as Paul puts it (Colossians 3:10). In God’s new world Jesus himself will of course be the central figure. That’s why from the very beginning the church has always spoken of his “second coming,” though in terms of the overlap of heaven and earth it would be more appropriate to speak, as some early Christians also did, of the “reappearing” of Jesus. He is, at the moment, present with us, but hidden behind that invisible veil which keeps heaven and earth apart, and which we pierce in those moments, such as prayer, the sacraments, the reading of scripture, and our work with the poor, when the veil seems particularly thin. But one day the veil will be lifted; earth and heaven will be one; Jesus will be personally present, and every knee shall bow at his name; creation will be renewed; the dead will be raised; and God’s new world will at last be in place, full of new prospects and possibilities. This is what the Christian vision of salvation is all about. But if that is the road we’re going, what road must we take to get there?
Living Between Heaven and Earth
Our vision of the road from here to there, from creation to new creation—in other words, the way we are called to live in the present—will vary not according to what we conceive to be the final destination, but also according to the whole way we understand God and the world.
"Christianity, in its purest form… sees God and the world as different from one another, but not far apart. There were and are ways in which, moments at which, and events through which heaven and earth overlap and interlock. For the devout first-century Jew, the Torah wasn’t the arbitrary decree of a distant God, but the covenant charter which bound Israel to YHWH. It was the pathway along which one might discover what genuine humanness was all about. If all Israel managed to keep the Torah for a single day, declared some Jewish teachers, the Age to Come would begin. The Torah was the road into God’s future. Of course it was; because, like the Temple, it was a place where heaven and earth overlapped, where you might glimpse what it would be like when they became completely one. The same was true for Wisdom, the blueprint for creation and also the blueprint for genuine human living."
"Yes, replied the early Christians: and Temple, Torah, and Wisdom have come together in and as Jesus of Nazareth, Israel’s Messiah, God’s second self, his “Son” in that full sense. And, with that, God’s future has arrived in the present, has arrived in the person of Jesus. In arriving, it has confronted and defeated the forces of evil and opened the way for God’s new world, for heaven and earth to be joined forever. And not only heaven and earth, but also future and present, overlap and interlock. And the way that interlocking becomes real, not just imaginary, is through the powerful work of God’s Spirit."
"This is the launchpad for the specifically Christian way of life. That way of life isn’t a matter simply of getting in touch with our inner depths. It is certainly not about keeping the commands of a distant God. Rather, it is the new way of being human, the Jesus-shaped way of being human, the cross-and-resurrection way of life, the Spirit-led pathway. It is the way which anticipates, in the present, the full, rich, glad human existence which will one day be ours when God makes all things new. Christian ethics is not a matter of discovering what’s going on in the world and getting in tune with it. It isn’t a matter of doing things to earn God’s favor. It is not about trying to obey dusty rulebooks from long ago or far away. It is about practicing, in the present, the tunes we shall sing in God’s new world… "
Tunes that resonate through us when we respond to the faithfulness of Christ in faith, hope, love, justice, peace, and mercy. Where things in the world are not right, we are, as God’s true Israel, responsible to do all we can, through God’s power, to change and transform them the way our loving Father intended things to be, with anticipation and hope that God will one day, ultimately, bring all wrongs to right. This is the reason we worship, the reason we pray, the reason we do mission, the reason we live. We are the body of Christ!
With Thanksgiving and Love,
Chelsea and Mike
1 comment:
I really do need to read an NT Wright book!
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