Remembering our Hope in the Resurrection

Today is Easter Monday.  Today is the day that the Lord was raised.

However there is a problem with our relationship to the resurrection of Jesus Christ:  Sitting so far away from it in history it is difficult for us to take it as fact.

We are doubtful that the resurrection ever happened because it happened so long ago.  Because it hasn't happened ever since.  Because we have no evidence to say that it ever happened at all.

As a result our belief in the resurrection has fallen on hard times.  Along with it the Christian faith.  We no longer take seriously the resurrection of Christ or what this means for our own life.  That resurrection is possible for us too.  That we are so special that we might receive such a destiny.

I believe that the solution to the problem of our having dismissed the resurrection is reconnecting to the time that came before.  To the time before Christ rose from the dead and Saint Paul proclaimed the mystery throughout the world.

In this time it was not belief in the resurrection that people had but hope.  There was no question of whether or not the resurrection should be believed but whether if we had hope in it.

Before Christ rose from the dead all that people could do is hope:  Hope that such an eventuality could come about.  Hope that all things are possible for God and that some of us deserve this ultimate sign of our worth.  (Life!)

But ever since the resurrection happened it's been about the belief.  There's no need to hope anymore because it has already happened.  God has already shown what God can do and humankind has been proven in its (potential) worth.

There is a shift from hope to belief.  From a time when only hope could be had to a time after it happens and what is called for is belief.

It itself this shift is not a bad thing.  The problem is that we have since lost the belief, and we have long since lost touch with the hope that came before the belief.

We have forgotten the time when all that we had was hope.  Because the resurrection is a hopeful thing.  Something that I desperately hope more than anything else.

So this Easter Monday let us remember not our belief in the resurrection but our hope.  Let us restore our hope that such a wonderful thing is possible whether it happened or not to the Lord.

Thanks be to Job.