Living in the Resurrection Now
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| JESUS MAFA. The Poor Invited to the Feast, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, Tenn. |
[Jesus said]: “But when you give a feast,
invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed,
because they cannot repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of
the just” (Luke 14:13-14).
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and
the Lord Jesus Christ!
On first reading, this text appears to be an
assortment of different, unconnected moments in the ministry of Jesus. We have
a healing (vv. 1-6), a parable (vv. 7-11), and then a teaching about regard for
the poor (vv. 12-14). When you look at the text more closely, however, you see
this all happens on one occasion. The text begins with a reference to a meal on
the Sabbath at the house of a ruler of the Pharisees and it is not until verse
25 that we leave this occasion.
Recognizing this unity encourages us to look
for the connection among these seemingly unrelated events. Like a friend
telling us what happened last night at dinner, Luke relates many of the details
of this occasion with something in mind. When you look at what Jesus is doing,
you will find the connection: Jesus is patiently revealing what the Resurrection
truly means.
What comes to mind when you think about the
Resurrection? For some, it might be all clouds and angels and souls taking
flight. For others, a reunion with loved ones. For the more Biblically minded,
it may even be the broken world suddenly and fully restored. In each of these
cases, however, notice how it is an event located in the future. Not something
we seriously consider as we choose whether or not to go out to lunch with a
transgendered co-worker.
For Jesus, the Resurrection is not just a
doctrinal teaching located in the future, or worse yet a line from the Creed
that we say and move on. No. It is something which shapes our lives now.
Consider the focused patience of Jesus. He uses
questions and healings and parable and direct address, all to bring about a
glimpse of His eternal Kingdom among those who are gathered.
The reading opens with Jesus celebrating the
restoration that occurs in His Kingdom. He heals the man who has dropsy and, by
a question, invites the Pharisees and lawyers to see how this is fitting for
the Sabbath, a time of rest in the reign and rule of God.
Receiving no reply to His question, Jesus tells
a parable that invites those gathered to see the great reversal happening in
the Kingdom of God. God works by grace and, therefore, those who exalt
themselves will be humbled but those who humble themselves will be exalted by
God.
When there is still no response, Jesus speaks
directly to His host, inviting him to live in the liberality of God. The last
line of the text seems odd: “For you will be repaid at the Resurrection of the
just” (Luke 14:14). But this one small phrase opens up for us what lies at the
heart of these various activities of Jesus.
Here, at a dinner, Jesus is offering a glimpse
of the grace that will prevail in His eternal kingdom. The sick will be healed.
The poor will be fed. The humble will be honored. The faithful will be
rewarded. Even the host can live now in the liberality of God. No need to think
of himself or his social obligations. He doesn’t need to look out for himself
because he knows that he will be taken care of. Such divine assurance means he
is free to extend God’s care to others.
The question this text poses for us today is,
“What does it mean to believe in the Resurrection?” Is the Resurrection only
about the future? Or, could it be possible, the Resurrection opens our life to
the present? If so, how do we go about living in the Resurrection now?
An ancient group of philosophers called the
Stoics believed it was important for everyone to remember death each day. Their
reasoning was, “You’re going to die. You don’t know when, but you know it will
happen.” Making people depressed was not the purpose of this, but rather
helping people actually savor life and not sleepwalk through it. They also
believed that if you remembered life’s impermanence, you would not be so quick
to take your loved ones and friends for granted. Who knows, after all, how long
you will have their company, and they yours? There is a good dose of common
sense in this perspective.
Yet stoicism doesn’t come anywhere close to
plumbing the reasons why Christians, from early times, have also frequently and
intentionally remembered death. Stoicism lacked framework to truly see death as
it is. To the Stoic, death was just a natural part of the cycle of life: you
are born, you grow old, and then you die. Death is just the concluding chapter
of life.
Christians, however, remember the beginning:
Genesis. We remember that death is not a “natural” part of the world because it
is not what God intended for His creation. We remember that the Creator’s gift
was life, a life in which all things were good.
“Death” was at first only a word in God’s new
creation, part of a warning attached to the fruit of a tree. It had no concrete
place in human existence until man wanted his way instead of God’s and let the
monster in and turned it loose. When Christians remember death, even
remembering it daily, we’re not merely recalling that there is an end to life
that comes at an unexpected time. We’re recalling that our first parents’ disobedience
let loose an enemy into the very fabric of creation and that it is even now at
work in our own bodies and souls.
Every Ash Wednesday, in countless congregations
around the world, Christians line up and come forward to receive a strange
mark, ashes smeared on their forehead, while hearing the words God spoke to
Adam and Eve on the day death entered the human body. “Remember, O man, that
you are dust and to dust you shall return.”
Yet on Ash Wednesday, the ashes are not placed
in a single blob, but in the shape of a cross. This remembrance, then, is not
only about being “dead men walking,” headed to the grave. Rather it is also a
remembrance that out of incomprehensible love, there came forth from the Father
His Only Son, into our flesh to know this death in His own body nailed to the
cross.
It was on the very night that His sufferings
began that Jesus spoke to His disciples some astounding words: “Let not your
hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in Me. In My Father’s house
are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a
place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and
will take you to Myself, that where I am you may be also. And you know the way
to where I am going” (John 14:1–4).
It sounded so good to the disciples; but Thomas
was confused. He said, “Lord, we do not know where You are going. How can we
know the way?” (John 14:5). Jesus’ answer is one of His most famous sayings: “I
am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except
through Me” (John 14:6).
Jesus not only provides the way to the home He
has prepared; He also is the way. How He does it is called “the blessed
exchange.” Jesus prepared a way for us to come home and stay there forever by becoming
man, like us in every way except without sin. He willingly entered into our
death—even death on a cross—to pour into it His own divine life, destroying
death from the inside out.
When the Christian thinks of death daily, he or
she also remembers this above all: that Jesus entered into death for us to open
the way back to the home God created for us at the beginning. Because this is
so, the Christian daily thinks of death in order to learn to think of it as a
defeated foe. If through Christ, the way home has already been opened, then
death itself has been truly robbed of its sting. Death is no longer seen as the
end, but a sound sleep from which Christ will one day awaken us with a word.
Have you ever noticed how most cemeteries are
oriented with the graves going east and west? The casket is placed with the head
to the west and the feet to the east? There’s a good reason for this custom—the
Resurrection. It is thought that on the Last Day when Christ returns to raise the
living and the dead, He will come from the east. So, for us Christians, we have
this wonderful image that when we arise from the sleep of death, the first
thing we will see is our Savior.
Such an unshakeable hope in the Resurrection affects
not just how we face death, but also how we live each day now. As Jesus
reveals, the Resurrection gives us courage to live each day in the radical
liberality of God. Christ is not concerned about social consequences in His kingdom.
Let the Pharisees talk—He receives sinners and eats with them (Luke 15:1). He
loves justice. He does mercy. He walks humbly with God. Regardless of the consequences.
Such living could get one killed, (which it does,) but God, His Father, raises
the dead and, through Him, establishes a kingdom where mercy reigns. Even now.
Imagine living in that kingdom now. Something
as mundane as inviting people over to dinner can be touched by the reality of
the Resurrection. Rather than living in a world governed by social stratification—a
world where there are those we invite into our homes and those we do not,
people we need to impress to secure our future, and love we need to give or
withhold depending upon who is watching—we live in God’s Kingdom governed by
His gracious promise of resurrection. No need to push in line or rush about or
always seek to be first. You literally have eternity to enjoy the moment. No
need to secure our place, that is already taken care of by Christ. Instead, we
are free to take care of others. Something as simple as whom we talk to or even
how we talk to that person can become an occasion when we confess our belief in
the Resurrection of the just.
God Himself is the model of one who invites all
classes of people to His great supper of salvation. In the Resurrection, there
will be people of all economic strata, including the poor, the crippled, the
lame, and the blind. We’ll be with them for eternity. How we treat other people
matters—because we are living in eternity and our days are expressions,
sometimes humble and other times courageous, of the certainty that God
ultimately rules over all things with love.
Living in the Resurrection now makes a difference!
When facing health challenges, you can pray for
healing, confident that God cares about you, He will be with you, and He
promises to work all things for your eternal good. You also have the further
assurance, that God will grant you healing—if not in this life, then in the
Resurrection.
Living in the Resurrection now makes a difference!
Mourning the death of a loved one, you have a
different perspective. You do “not grieve as others do who have no hope. For
since you believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God
will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep … the dead in Christ will rise
… Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in
the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord”
(1 Thessalonians 4:13-17).
Living in the Resurrection now makes a difference!
What you do or don’t do on the Sabbath is
changed when you are living in the Resurrection. Works of mercy, acts of loving
our neighbor are not forbidden, but rather encouraged. And living in the
Resurrection now, where will you be found each Lord’s Day? In the presence of
the Lord, hearing the Word of God. Receiving Christ’s very body and blood for
the forgiveness of your sins and the strengthening and preserving of your body
and soul unto life everlasting. Celebrating with your fellow Christians, with angels
and archangels and all the company of heaven, the glorious foretaste of the Marriage
Feast of the Lamb.
Yes, living in the Resurrection now makes a big
difference!
So, go in the grace of the Lord and serve your neighbor
with joy. You are living in the Resurrection now. You are forgiven for all your
sins.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of
the Holy Spirit. Amen
Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture
quotations are from the Holy Bible, English Standard Version, copyright © 2001
by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by
permission. All rights reserved.
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