Eugene Peterson, surveying the religious landscape of his day came to this conclusion: "The word 'christian' means different things to different people. To one person it means a stiff, upright, inflexible way of life, colorless and unbending. To another it means a risky, surprised-filled adventure, lived tiptoe at the edge of expectation...If we get our information from the biblical material, there is no doubt that the Christian life is a dancing, leaping, daring life.” (Eugene Peterson, Traveling Light).
I suspect most of us have seen this same thing. We have seen religious communities that reflect a joyless existence mainly committed to what they are against. Those communities have little draw to them and certainly are not telling a better story. Yet, sometimes we see people and communities that don’t take themselves so seriously and dare to risk, entering the fray of life in all its complexities and pitfalls. It takes a lot more courage to do the later.
Paul writes about living in the power of the resurrection and I confess, it is a challenge. This week we will look at this in some detail. Because Jesus is the firstfruits of the resurrection of the dead, it means at his coming we will be resurrected as well. For most of us, the resurrection is merely a point of comfort against the day we die. For Paul it was the engine that drove him from one daring feat to the next. It was the power of another world that animated his existence and kept him going courageously from one beating to the next, one shipwreck to the next, and pushing the gospel to the ends of the world. Paul lived! Like Jesus in dying he lived.
I dare say, his life was heroic. Armed with the gospel and in the resurrection power he rarely thought of safety, comfort or security. What makes this even more ironic is he was a rabbinic scholar, not someone setting out for adventure for it’s on sake or because he was bored. Can we do that? Does the gospel give us the same resources? Well, we will talk about it this Sunday. I hope to see you there!