That Jesus was really dead, because he really became a man as we are, a son of Adam, and that therefore, despite what one can sometimes read in certain theological works, he did not use the so-called ‘brief’ time of his death for all manner of ‘activities’ in the world beyond - this is the first point we must consider. In that same way that, upon earth, he was in solidarity with the living, so, in the tomb, he is in solidarity with the dead. One must allow to this ‘solidarity’ an amplitude and an ambiguity, even, which seems precisely to exclude a communication on his part as a subject. Each human being lies in his own tomb. And with his condition, seen here from the viewpoint of the separated body, Jesus is at first truly solidary.
That Jesus was really dead, because he really became a man as we are, a son of Adam, and that therefore, despite what one can sometimes read in certain theological works, he did not use the so-called ‘brief’ time of his death for all manner of ‘activities’ in the world beyond - this is the first point we must consider. In that same way that, upon earth, he was in solidarity with the living, so, in the tomb, he is in solidarity with the dead. One must allow to this ‘solidarity’ an amplitude and an ambiguity, even, which seems precisely to exclude a communication on his part as a subject. Each human being lies in his own tomb. And with his condition, seen here from the viewpoint of the separated body, Jesus is at first truly solidary.
The preciousness of our lives does not depend upon whether we live them for an hour or a hundred years, but upon the one who gives that life to us. All our work is as transient as our days, and only if the Lord establishes it will it remain until the end. But it is enough for us to say, “This is the day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice, and be glad in it,” for all that the Lord makes is good. We should embrace G.K. Chesterton’s childlike wonder and take so much joy at the sun’s rising that we eagerly say, “Do it again!” But we will also work, not because we may die this day, but because our diligence is the grateful response to the recognition that our lives and time are not our own. And because as George MacDonald put it, “Those who are diligent will soon be cheerful.”
The contemplation of our mortality as Christians is not a morbid practice, where we muck about depressed at the thought of oblivion or feverishly strive to leave behind a legacy. Like the cross, it is a path to discovering hope, of learning to pray amidst the darkness, Come, Lord Jesus! We look at death not in isolation, but from the standpoint of the resurrection, knowing that while we must walk through the fires, they can no longer harm us. And yet we must learn to look, for only through considering our mortality will we learn the song of joy that the Apostle Paul could not keep in: “Oh death, where is thy victory? Oh grave, where is thy sting?”
Jesus Christ is a particular man making possible a particular way of life that is an alternative to the world’s fear of one like Jesus. Christians have no fantasy that we may get out of life alive. Instead we have a savior who was in every way like us yet also fully God. Jesus is not fifty percent God and fifty percent man. He is one hundred percent God and one hundred percent man. He is the incarnation making possible a way to live that constitutes an alternative to all politics, which are little less than conspiracies to deny death.
True worship is the pattern of lives lived over time, lives which are inhabited stories of leaving the world of principalities and powers, and gradually, over time, giving witness to the true God in the midst of the world by living as if death were not, and thus in a way which is unmoved by death and all the cultural forces which lead to death and depend on death.
Divine Sorrow, NT Wright (from The Work of the People) (via miketodd07)
You can pretend the Bible tells you what happens to people after they die, but you wouldn’t be fooling even yourself. Paul enjoins us to give up childish things, and you can’t get more childish than pretending the Bible is a magical window that lets you see beyond life. It isn’t. It doesn’t. You can’t. Trying to use the Bible as proof of what happens after we die is like trying to use a telescope to row a canoe. Wrong instrument. Wrong purpose. Only results in you still haplessly floating about.
Try to live now in such a manner that at the moment of death you may be glad rather than fearful. Learn to die to the world now, that then you may begin to live with Jesus Christ. Learn to spurn all things now, that then you may freely go to Him.
Thomas a Kempis, The Imitation of Christ (from I, 23)
… one of the most powerful chapters in the Imitation, worth reading in its entirety
(via fathershane)
The New Testament calls the covenant community of God’s people into participation in the cross of Christ in such a way that the death and resurrection of Jesus becomes a paradigm for their common life as harbingers of God’s new creation.
If the Lord is indeed our shepherd, then everything goes topsy-turvy. Losing becomes finding and crying becomes laughing. The last become first and the weak become strong. Instead of life being done in by death in the end as we have always supposed, death is done in finally by life in the end. If the Lord is our host at the great feast, then the sky is the limit.
