August 24, 2009

"If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men."
1 Corinthians 15:19 (NIV)

Jesus’ life is not only the picture of what it looks like to be fully human and fully alive, Jesus’ resurrection is also the picture of what will happen to us after death.

Actually, the truth is that you and I are being physically renewed day by day. Every seven to ten years every single cell in your body is replaced. You are literally not the same physical person you were ten years ago. The old died and fell away. The new came. Rather than a static physical being, each of us is more like the crest of a waterfall. Always looks roughly the same, but new water is continually replacing the old.

Each of us is something like that. There is a “you” which exists beyond your immediate physical body, yet your physical body is intertwined with, part and parcel of, inseparable from “you”. There is “a waterfall” despite it’s water begin continually replaced.

It is the “you” which is immediately “relocated” into “heaven”, which is an intermediate state of rest and refreshment and beauty and joy , all of which is more wonderful than our imaginations can handle. But that’s only the beginning. At the appointed time each of us will received a new body, of which our earthly body will have been the seed. Our new bodies will be the seed having sprouted into something mature and astounding, something, were you to see it now, you would be tempted to worship. And then you will be fully human and fully alive, just as Jesus was the consummate human (God in Christ), fully human and fully alive. And our domain will be God’s Kingdom on a resurrected, renewed, restored earth.

All of this is to say that God’s plan, from Genesis 12 through Revelation 22 is to restore all of creation including you. It CANNOT NOT HAPPEN. You and I find ourselves in a much bigger story than our little day to day worlds may lead us to think.

This life is analogous to kindergarten, or primary school, or boot camp or basic training. This life is not all there is. This life is not our ultimate destiny. And 1 Corinthians 15 captures the tragedy of believing that it is.