Faith
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Thinking the Faith, Praying the Faith, Living the Faith is written by the PC(USA) Office of Theology and Worship.
Thinking, praying, and living the faith is at the core of ministry in the Office of Theology and Worship. In the following videos, learn more about what thinking, praying, and living the faith means to the leadership of the Office of Theology and Worship. Discover why it matters and what difference it makes in our lives, work, and worship.
Charles Wiley
Barry Ensign-George
David Gambrell
Christine Hong
Karen Russell
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I Believe in the Resurrection
Lots of changes are happening around here. Our illustrious leader has retired, and we had our first staff meeting without him yesterday. Though we are in good hands, and it was quite good, it was just . . . . different. We missed our colleague, our beloved friend.
Of course, with the sudden early death of my husband my own life has been radically altered as well. In the post-Christmas reset of the New Year, the Rev. Dr. Robin Abel preached a sermon at Iroquois Presbyterian Church here in Louisville about how God is always at work making all things new through the changes of our lives. It was a fine sermon, but I petulantly realized somewhere about halfway through that I didn’t want radical newness in my life, thank you very much, dear God. I wanted my old life back, the one that was steadily being renewed in Christ; the life with my husband that was growing into something new; the one with more financial security and stability; the life where I was more in control and things more or less made sense.
And suddenly I understood the absolutely radical nature of the Resurrection I was being called to live within in ways I haven’t fully appreciated before. Resurrection isn’t about the old growing steadily into the new, like spring bulbs planted in Advent awaiting Easter’s bloom. Indeed, resurrection happens after the trauma of our Lord’s crucifixion where everything we had assumed about God and life is wrenched from us in heinous death-dealing torture.
Sooner or later, this trauma will happen to us all, when life as we know it dies right before our eyes and we are prostrate with grief. “In a dark time,” though, as Theodore Roethke writes, “the eye begins to see.” We cannot fully appreciate the wondrous gift of light without the plunge into absolute darkness. We cannot truly understand the Christian life without experiencing death. Indeed, there’s a sense in which living well in Christ is simultaneously learning how to embrace death well.
The Biblical readings for Epiphany are honest about this, for Epiphany’s silent light dawns against the backdrop of the tortured screams of Herodian darkness. The manifestation of the Messiah to the world occurs through his being hidden away in Egypt—the place of historical oppression. (See Matt. 2:1-18.) This is not to say that Christianity valorizes suffering, death, or oppression, just that the Bible is honest about the effects of sin. What does seem to be clear, though, is that our earthly life in Christ is oxymoronic, containing both darkness and light, death and life.
But in times of topsy-turvy turmoil, we have to remember that death and darkness and chaos and trauma and torture do not have the last word. Resurrection does.
No matter the change, death, or destruction that happens, God’s Life reasserts itself. But it doesn’t look like the old life because it isn’t the old life. “The old is finished, gone!” as Paul says (II Cor. 5:17). What we have instead is new creation, something altogether new—creation ex nihilo. Out of the torture of trauma’s chaos, the glory of the Lord rises upon us with something beyond our comprehension. And it is good. Altogether different, but good nonetheless.
This is an articulation of my/our eternal hope: I believe in the Resurrection. But I’m curious: what is the hope that gets you through dark times? What is the eternal hope to which you cling that you think will help the church through all its current changes and even deaths?
- Posted at 10:36 p.m.
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