Resurrection Sunday Reflection
by Rev. GEORGE CRUZ*
When I was a kid of about 9 years old growing up in Novaliches IEMELIF (Evangelical Methodist Church in the Philippines) Church where my Dad pastored, I heard a visiting pastor exclaim in his message, "When we get to heaven, all we will do there day in and day out is to sing praises to God!" I said to myself, "I don't like to go to heaven... I can't even stand 15 minutes of singing in church!"
Fast-forward to 38 years later... in 1985 my few first years at Fuller Theological Seminary my professor Dr. Arthur Glasser in his Theology of Mission class said, "We grew up with a caricature of heaven with us sitting on our own cloud strumming a harp..." and I could relate to that! Then, this eminent, world-renowned missiologist continued, "Of course, it's not going to be like that! God is a very creative God! Why would he give us unique abilities and an incorruptible body in the Second Coming if all we will do is to sit in a cloud!" Let me interpose that it is in that class that I had a major paradigm shift in my understanding of ministry... that the motif should be the Kingdom of God. I learned from The Navigators that the mandate we need to obey is the Great Commission... but Dr. Glasser (who himself was discipled by Navigator founder Dawson Trotman) asked, "How about the Great Commandment?" At that time Glasser called the Great Commission as the "redemptive mandate" and the Great Commandment as the "cultural mandate" and both combined as the mission of God -- the Missio Dei.
It is very important to clarify that with the Kingdom of God as the motif for ministry, a lot of common dichotomies will have to go... between sacred and secular... between lay and clergy... between spiritual and temporal... to name the key ones. More importantly, it is crucial to understand the two dimensions of the Kingdom of God: the present dimension and the future dimension. How we live in the present has to be shaped by the future! That's why my final question in my reflection "Why Did Jesus Have to Die on the Cross?" was, "for us with restored relationships with God how then shall we live?"
"To accomplish His purpose Jesus had to die on a cross which Paul described as a triumph over death. Man will still grow old, may suffer pain and illnesses and experience physical death... but the provision to restore that broken relationship with God is now available. A restored relationship results into possessing eternal life." - "Why Did Jesus Have to Die on the Cross", A Reflection by Pastor George Cruz
Now, going back to the Second Coming. We believe that in this great event the earth "will give up its dead" and we will get back our corruptible bodies... but in an instant God will turn our corruptible bodies into one that is incorruptible and immortal. Why will we need incorruptible bodies? What for? We also believe that when we die, the chemical part of us returns to dust from where we come... but the spiritual (soul, spirit, psyche) part of us returns to God. Since we already are with God why the need for an incorruptible body? This is the first major issue we need to resolve --why the need for an incorruptible body. The second related issue is where do Christians go after death. The common understanding is we go to heaven. Yes, heaven is the ultimate destination of the Christian dead... but the question is (like kids will always ask during a long trip), "Are we there yet?" The answer is no... we're not there yet. If not, where are the Christian dead now? They are with Jesus... wherever that is! We just heard one of the seven last words Jesus uttered to the repentant thief, "Today, you will be with me in Paradise." What a beautiful assurance? But where is Paradise? Did Jesus mean heaven? A study of the Scriptures says "no."
It is so enlightening to get hold of N.T.Wright's book "Surprised by Hope" (Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection and the Mission of the Church to gain greater information and perspective on this matter (Newsweek magazine calls Wright--an Anglican Bishop-- "The world's leading New Testament scholar"). First, Wright claims that the understanding of contemporary Christians about the resurrection has undergone "centuries of mutations" and is so vastly different from that of the early Christians. We have a very "fuzzy" understanding of where Christians go right after departing from this life... like the Filipino tradition of observing "tatlong gabi" (three nights) and "apatnapung gabi." (forty days/nights) While we dismiss it as a cultural thing only, yet we still do it. Wright says "... the early Christians hold firmly to a 2-step belief about the future. First, death and whatever lies immediately beyond; and second, a new bodily existence in a newly remade world." Their future hope centered firmly on resurrection. They did not simply believe in life after death; they virtually never spoke simply of going to heaven when they die. "When they speak of heaven as a postmortem destination, they seem to regard this heavenly life as a temporary state on the way to the eventual destination... paradise is, rather, the blissful garden where God's people rest prior to the resurrection."
Wright also posits that "When Jesus declares that there are many dwelling places in his father's house the word for dwelling place is 'mone' which denotes a temporary lodging." Going back to my earlier question why the need for an incorruptible body. Why did God plan it this way? Some years back, I spoke to the IEMELIF youth camp in Falcon Crest, Bulacan (Philippines) on the topic "Liberating the World from its Bondage to Decay" and I based the lecture on Romans chapter 8:18-23. The passage speaks of "...creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay..." But notice in vs 19 "... the sons of God to be revealed" and in vs 23 "... the redemption of our bodies." In short, God will give us incorruptible bodies because we will tend to this beautiful world that he created after he restores it to its pristine glory!
"the Christian hope is that God will restore, redeem, reconcile the whole created order to himself... and that we will tend to it, in our incorruptible bodies! "
The Christian hope is not simply that we will live after we die... of course we will... but the Christian hope is that God will restore, redeem, reconcile the whole created order to himself... and that we will tend to it, in our incorruptible bodies! N.T.Wright claims that "heaven will come down" and there will be a new heaven and a new earth... and we will inherit that. That is the Christian's great hope!
DEEend
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My biggest thanks to our Guest Contributor, Pastor GEORGE. He is a very dear family friend for decades and still is...
*Rev. GEORGE CRUZ of Monrovia, California is founder/president at Brother's Keepers Ministries, International. His disciple-making ministry focuses in what he calls "a new breed of disciples with a social conscience" -- meaning awareness and concern of social ills in the world today. You can connect with him through Facebook.
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