From the Director - Life before death
01.01.1970
Recently I read Bishop Tom Wright's book Surprised by Hope. It is a powerful book about what it means to believe in Jesus' resurrection. He makes the telling point that the purpose of Easter is not to prove the existence of life after death but rather life before death. Salvation is not primarily about my personal relationship with God or about my eventually leaving this vale of tears and going home to God and finding peace. Naturally we all hope for this but it isn't the primary meaning of Easter. The resurrection was a much more this worldly event than that.
The early Christians understood Jesus' resurrection as his vindication. Through his death and resurrection Jesus had conquered the ultimate evil, death. His life had been a struggle against the powers of evil and now they were beaten and the New Creation was beginning. We Christians have been raised to a new life in the New Creation and we are to implement Jesus' achievement and work with him in transforming the present. All powers, even death, are now subject to Jesus. The New Creation has begun, there is no going back, but is not yet complete. We Christians are to work towards that day when all the forces of rebellion have been defeated and all the cosmos will be open to and filled with God.
In the New Testament heaven and earth are not too radically different places but interlocking spheres and the early Christians saw heaven breaking into the earthly sphere. The Book of Revelation talks not of our going to heaven but of heaven . . . coming down to earth.
Wright also suggests that what you think about death and the life beyond is the key to understanding what you think about everything serious in this life. Marx criticised religion as the "opium of the people." Others have claimed that Christians are "so heavenly minded they are no earthly good."
But this is not the true meaning of the resurrection. The Christian's resurrection hope is not for heaven but for new heavens and a new earth. The resurrection gives us the kind of love and hope that is only possible when we believe that a different world is possible, that history is going somewhere under God and that the future has begun. We believe in life before death.
Fr Noel Connolly
director@columban.org.au
