Maundy Thursday (March 28). Alive in Christ

Prepare to Listen.  Even so in Christ shall all be made alive.
 
Prayerfully Read I Corinthians 15:20-23
20But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died.  21For since death came through a human being, the resurrection of the dead has also come through a human being; 22for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ.  23But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. 
 
Prayerfully Wonder and Reflect
What tugged at your heart strings as you read these verses?
 
But in fact….  Another of Paul’s significant buts, a response to those who deny the resurrection (vv. 12-19).  It demands that we sit up and attend.  Paul confidently states, “But in fact Christ has been raised.”  He insists “that a whole new age has dawned with the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.”[1]  The “new age” is now, ours to be experienced because we’ve been raised with Christ and made brand new.  Death no longer has us in its grip.
 
Paul labors this truth in v. 21, one of my favorite choruses in Handel’s Messiah.  The choir begins in a soft, slow, depressing tone, “Since by man came death.”  Suddenly the sombre mood changes to a loud burst of joyous praise, “by man came also the resurrection of the dead.”  The joyous music emphasizes the hope we have as members of Christ’s body—resurrection, not heaven when I die.  Christian hope “is not wishful thinking or mere blind optimism.  It is a mode of knowing, a mode within which new things are possible, options are not shut down, new creation can happen.”[2] 
 
I’ll confess that I don’t fully understand resurrection hope that changes the past, supports us in the present and promises a glorious future.  I grew up repeatedly hearing that the Christian hope is heaven when I die.  But that’s a hope only for the future.  I need a hope for the now.  Resurrection is that hope.  If we died in Adam, we’re made alive in Christ, alive to live as people who know and experience newness.  We are, after all, a new creation.
 
How can you live today alive in Christ?
 
Prayerfully Respond
Lord, help me grasp more fully the hope of the resurrection for the now, so that I live into the new possibilities you make available.  Amen.
 
Live obediently.  Alive in Christ.
[1] Prior, David.  The Message of 1 Corinthians.  Downers Grove, IL: Inter-Varsity Press.  1985, p. 266.
[2] Wright, N. T. Surprised by Hope.  HarperOne.  2008, p. 72.