by Chris Alexion, Copyright March 26, 2007, all rights reserved. 274 views
Spring is here, and Maryland is rending its white graveclothes and rolling away its stone. And as I think about that metaphor, it strikes me that resurrection really is a fit image for spring. Not only is this the time during which Christ the Victor is celebrated, but the season itself is an example of new life. Grass is once again green; naked limbs begin to shoot out buds; the earth is back from the dead.
As James Stewart points out, the resurrection was the triumphal core of the apostles' revolutionary message, and it's as though God stamped the idea of rebirth on the creation herself. The seasons reflect new life because Christ's resurrection really does renew the earth. Stewart explains just what this means:
In this cosmic event, as Paul saw and proclaimed, God was doing something comparable only with what He had done at the first creation. This was the beginning of a new era for the universe, the decisive turning-point for the human race. . . . The Resurrection meant that the world had died in the night and had been reborn. (A Faith to Proclaim, p. 106)
Paul says that the whole creation is groaning, waiting for this rebirth to take final effect. But how do we know it will happen? How do we know history will ever turn out right? How can we, witnessing the Holocaust and the atomic bomb, or living in our turbulent era of terrorism and statism, think that peace would ever dwell on this shattered planet? The resurrection is not only the promise. It's the proof. Again, Stewart:
It took the Resurrection to give the proof that human history could never give. But that proof the Resurrection once for all proclaimed: so that now, in civilization's darkest hours, we can still say, "The darkness is not dark with Thee, but the night is clear as the day." (p 125)
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