Resurgam

About 6 years ago I walked into Brecon library and there upon the "returns" trolley I spotted a very large paperback entitled "The Resurrection of the Son of God" by N.T Wright. I began the book with little hope of ever reading it through but quickly found myself engaged and very soon it became as absorbing as any page-turner I have ever read. It has been said of  Tom Wright that he has never written an uninteresting sentence and this book is testimony to that fact. Since that time I have read much of what Wright has written and while there are many points which find either difficult and often just don't agree with, yet there is so much in his enthusiastic scholarship which is both fresh and convincing that it has been a pleasure to listen and engage with his worldview.

I am in no way qualified to comment on some of the finer points of exegesis and theology which others (and I) have found difficulty with in Wright's writings but there is more to enthusiastically embrace than to shelve as dubious.

The resurrection of the Son of God is among the least controversial of his books as well as being the most eye-opening. Those who are not inclined to read through the vast amount of historical evidence that he presents will be well served by reading his more popular "Surprised by Hope" (written as Tom Wright) which contains most of the major conclusions of the larger work.

My overwhelming reaction to reading this book is to question, "Why have I never seen this before?" and "Why has such an important event as the resurrection been so neglected in the general teaching and preaching of the church?" Undoubtedly the major emphasis should and must be on the centrality of the Cross with all it has to say not only about personal salvation but also as the climax of the history of the world and in particular of Israel the people of God. But the resurrection is also climactic as the moment when God's kingdom is inaugurated and the promise of a future New Creation is sealed.

I am amazed to realise that the shift in emphasis away from the importance of the resurrection is a comparatively recent thing. It was common for gravestones prior to the mid 1800's to bear the single Latin word "Resurgam" which means, "I shall rise again". After all resurrection is the great future event which is promised to believers and it naturally predicates a physical body in a physical environment. So Wright's insistence that there is life after life after death is not just a smart aphorism. The fact that Revelation 21 describes the descent of the city of God to a renewed earth and the presence of God Himself dwelling with mankind is just so amazingly appropriate in the light of the whole overarching story of God's dealings with His Creation and mankind.

To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. Heaven is a reality but it is an interim and not the final destination. For when we read the New Testament carefully we realise that the return of the Lord which signals the resurrection of the blessed and the transformation of those who remain (1 Cor 15) will not be to join Him in heaven but to accompany Him to earth now in transformed physical bodies. "For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ,  who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body, according to the working by which He is able even to subdue all things to Himself." Philippians 3:20-21

We look around this world marred by sin and yet we often glimpse the wonder and glory of the Creator who saw the unmarred earth and declared it good. Just imagine what a wonder it will be to gaze upon the glory of the renewed heavens and earth "the home of righteousness" and the eternal dwelling place of God with His people.

Morse and Brahms

Watching a recent episode of Endeavour with the excellent Shaun Evans playing the young Inspector Morse) the haunting choral background music stirred echoes in in my mind. It sounded familiar but I could not place it and that really annoyed me to the point that I couldn't rest until I'd solved the mystery. It was choral, it was sad and it sounded German. Beethoven? No, I couldn't think of anything? Mendelsohn then - no. Eventually I got to Brahms Ein Deutches Requiem but a skim through on You Tube didn't immediately find it. I knew it had to be German because the first line contained the word "Alles". Eventually I found it. It was the Geman Requim after all - "Denn alles Fleisch ist wie Gras" from Isaiah 40 and other texts. here's a translation of the chorus

For all flesh is as grass,
and the glory of man
like flowers.
The grass withers
and the flower falls.

Therefore be patient, dear brothers,
for the coming of the Lord.
Behold, the husbandman waits
for the delicious fruits of the earth
and is patient for it, until he receives
the morning rain and evening rain.

But the word of the Lord endures for eternity.

The redeemed of the Lord will come again,
and come to Zion with a shout;
eternal joy shall be upon her head;
They shall take joy and gladness,
and sorrow and sighing must depart.

 

I was overjoyed - I hadn't heard this music for so long. But to discover the words that Brahms set to music was also a joy because while the chorus begins on an appropriately sorrowful note it is balanced by the other texts. The powerful declaration that the word of the Lord endures for eternity is followed by the joyful Isaiah 51:11

Therefore the redeemed of the Lord shall return, and come with singing unto Zion; and everlasting joy shall be upon their head: they shall obtain gladness and joy; and sorrow and mourning shall flee away.

And so sorrow is turned to joy at the glorious day of resurrection. Thank you Brahms, thank you Endeavour but above all Thank You God.

Easter Monday 2014

Busy but rewarding weekend the highlight of which was being at a baptismal service in the grounds of Derwen Fawr, the Swansea Bible College and now home to Liberty Church. Ten people young and older were baptised on confession of their faith. Many different backgrounds - some with dramatic testimonies of being set free from all sorts of addictions and circumstances and others who had simply grown in their faith to the point where they wanted to be baptised in obedience and as a testimony to their commitment. I was particularly moved by one young man who simply read a portion of Ecclesiastes 2 as a testimony of how he had come to faith.

Whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them.
I did not withhold my heart from any pleasure,
For my heart rejoiced in all my labour;
And this was my reward from all my labour.
¹¹ Then I looked on all the works that my hands had done
And on the labour in which I had toiled;
And indeed all was vanity and grasping for the wind.
There was no profit under the sun.

It reminded me powerfully of the months before I finally acknowledged my need of God and the salvation that He has offered freely through the death of His dear Son. That was some 35 years ago now but it is good to be reminded because the temptation to get my priorities wrong is still a powerful one - a temptation to which I have often given in along the way.