Living Resurrection
II Corinthians 4:13-5:1
But just as we have the same spirit of faith that is in accordance with scripture—“I believed, and so I spoke”—we also believe, and therefore we also speak, because we know that the one who raised Jesus will also raise us with Jesus and will present us with you in his presence. Indeed, everything is for your sake, so that grace, when it has extended to more and more people, may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God. So we do not lose heart. Even though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day. For our slight, momentary affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all measure, because we look not at what can be seen but at what cannot be seen, for what can be seen is temporary, but what cannot be seen is eternal. For we know that, if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.
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On my lunch break, I often go out for a walk with my camera to shoot wildlife and landscape photos. If I'm lucky, I'll spot a Great Blue Heron or an Osprey flying down the Hudson River, but there are days when it seems like nothing is out and about for me to capture on my camera. Though nature is full of surprises, and on a day when I wasn't spotting anything, a beautiful two-tailed swallowtail landed right in front of me. Do you know what's so fascinating about this butterfly? After going through all the effort of growing from a caterpillar to a chrysalis and then an adult, this beautiful part of creation only lives for six to fourteen days after going through this radical transformation.
Talk about outer nature wasting away. The butterfly emerges for a brief and fleeting moment, only to exist for a minuscule period. In today's text, Paul addresses the church in Corinth as they wrestle with disunity and fear. He reassures them everything will be okay and tells them not to lose heart. Yet the Corinthians are still troubled; they are troubled by the dichotomy (the contrast) between their present turmoil and the unseen promises of God. The Corinthians struggle to see beyond their immediate concerns; they do not comprehend the mystery of the resurrection, the new life that springs forth from God. There is a missed opportunity by the church to hear Paul's message that the resurrection is a lived experience that mysteriously holds suffering and glory together.
We, too, are not immune from the Corinthians struggles. Personal health issues, financial woes, broken relationships, natural disasters, and global crises make it challenging to experience the resurrection in our daily lives. We constantly encounter reminders of our mortality and frailty and feel as though nothing can change the expected outcome. Jumping from one thing to the next, we become weary, and like the ancient church in Corinth, we mistakenly forget what it means to be a member of the body of Christ. Yet, regardless of our weary state, God invites us to confront these things head-on; God invites us to sit with the beautifully mysterious thing we call the resurrection and to make it manifest in our lives. Doing so means that the eternal promises of God are not limited to some distant time but can be made real here and now. We only need to free our hearts from hate and fear.
Today's challenge is to live resurrection. That means letting go of the things that are out of our control and putting them into God's hands. The truth is that the butterfly, with its short life, will lay eggs that birth a new cycle of life and possibilities. There are things in us that will pass away, but that only means that there is room for God to bring about a new thing in us, to bring about life focused on sharing the foretaste of life in the kingdom of God. We will stumble along the way, but there is grace enough to hold all our doubts, fears, and mishaps.
What is it that Paul says, "So we do not lose heart. Even though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day." God is at work with resurrection grace. This grace is not merely a distant hope but a present and active reality. God is constantly at work within us, renewing our spirits daily, even as our physical bodies overcome life's hurdles. The promise of a "house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens" reassures us that our current state of affairs is not the end of our story. God's grace is more than enough, and resurrection living is perfected in our weaknesses. This assurance of God's continuous and future grace gives us a firm foundation to co-labor with God.
In what ways do you experience the gift of resurrection and grace that Paul highlights in his letter to the Corinthians? The Spirit's work of renewal sustains us as we navigate the complexities of life. God bestows grace so we might recall that our lives are works in progress filled with moments of death and rebirth. This grace compels us to act, to be vessels of hope and encouragement to those around us, reflecting the eternal glory promised to us. And it is grace that reminds us that the kingdom of the Lord is near and invites us to be a part of breathing new life into creation. The time is at hand for us to live as people touched by the transformative power of God's Spirit, to live in the hope of this promise, and to share it with a world in desperate need of the power of the resurrection.