The Resurrection Driven Life

The following is a newsletter article I wrote some time ago following Easter. I post it now in relation to this Sunday’s Gospel lesson from the Historic One-Year Lectionary, Luke 7:11-17 – The Raising of the Widow’s Son. +JME

If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. –Colossians 3:1-3Dear Redeemed in the Blood of the Lamb,

“He is risen! He is risen indeed, alleluia!” – Then why do so many of us live our lives like “death warmed over”? We drearily trudge through our lives, week after week, grumbling, moaning, and complaining, caught up in the endless pursuit of riches and the possessions that we think will make us truly happy, but, in reality, only further bind us in debt and the fear of “losing it all”. Daily, we give ourselves over to the desires of the flesh – food and drink, comfort, sex – leaving our bodies, temporarily satisfied, but, lastingly, bloated and abused. We begrudge our spouses and our children for selfishly wasting or stealing our precious time, as they no doubt do, even as we ourselves will barely lift a finger to help out, to show interest in our children’s activities, never mind actually setting aside our own self-interest to be concerned about the needs of our family.

What was it that we celebrated just a few days ago? What happened nearly 2,000 years ago that was so special? What does Jesus’ resurrection mean for me? These are good questions, and they deserve solid answers. Most Christians believe correctly that Jesus’ resurrection from the dead is the sign and promise assuring their own bodily resurrection when Christ comes again in judgment. That’s good! But many Christians fail to understand and to believe, and, therefore, to confess, that Jesus’ resurrection has impact and meaning in their every day lives. We celebrate with joy, one day a year, that Jesus will raise our bodies when He reappears in His glorified body at the Judgment, but we do not live resurrected lives the other 364 days a year, if even on Easter Sunday!

So many of us live our lives in the manner of what I like to call a “hamster run” (imagine a hamster in a cage running, endlessly – heart beating furiously – in his wheel, never getting anywhere at all). Is it any wonder at all that one of the bestselling books of the past couple years is titled The Purpose Driven Life? Many well-meaning Christians, and non-Christians, have found a foot-hold for their lives though the practical wisdom and counsel presented in this book. But it is a shaky and unstable foothold at best, shifting sand, for the “purpose” which is given to our lives in this book is not Christ-centered – that is, forgiveness-centered; resurrection-centered – but is, ultimately, man-centered, and thus, self-centered. The “purpose” offered may give some psychological and emotional fortitude for the “short-haul” (imagine our hamster friend hooked up to an intravenous food and water supply, but still running in his wheel, trapped in his cage, going nowhere), but it does not provide an eternal perspective – a transcendent, or heavenly, perspective – which gives purpose and relevance to our lives (outside the cage). What we need is a resurrection in our daily lives!

What we need is a “Resurrection Driven Life.” If what “drives” you does not come from the Words & Wounds of our resurrected Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, then you are being “driven” (in a manner of speaking) down the highway to hell. The author of The Purpose Driven Life begins by stating “It’s not about you,” but then goes on throughout the rest of the book to explain how “It’s all about you” – how God values you and has some “purpose” for you which you must discover. But … it’s not about you; it’s about Christ. Christ, alone, is our purpose – St. Paul wrote: “You have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.” But “you have been raised with Christ,” writes Paul, therefore, “seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.”

In the passage from Colossians printed above, St. Paul follows these statements about our resurrection with Christ with a long list of things about “you” that you are to “put to death”: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry,…anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth, …etc.” It’s not about you; it’s about Christ.

In Holy Baptism you died and were buried with Christ, and a new (spiritual) man arose (resurrected from the dead) to live in Christ (Rom 6:3-4). Therefore Paul also writes, “you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.” In baptism your old self was drowned, your original sin was forgiven, and a new man arose from that watery grave by the power of the Holy Spirit through the Word of God and the water. Each and every day, then, is an Easter Day of Resurrection as you “put off [again and again] the old self with its practices,” through repentance and forgiveness, being returned to baptismal purity, which is the work of the Holy Spirit, “being renewed in knowledge after the image of [your] creator” – The Resurrection Driven Life!

Not just a resurrection from the dead when Christ comes again, but a resurrected life now is the fruit and promise of Christ’s resurrection. You have been raised up out of the mundane, earthly (the very word mundane comes from the Latin word mundi, meaning, earth) routine of purposeless existence to “set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.” At times, for everyone, the ‘worldliness’ of our lives gets us down. Do not despair – “set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.” “He is risen! He is risen indeed, alleluia!” – AND SO ARE YOU!

“You have been raised with Christ,” “your life is in Him”; do not put yourself back in the grave. Discover your purpose in this resurrected life, in the Words and the Wounds of your resurrected Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. “You have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator,” feed it, on “things that are above” – heavenly Word, Water, Body and Blood. “He is risen! He is risen indeed, alleluia!” – AND SO ARE YOU!