Robert Kolb (PhD, University of Wisconsin) is mission professor of systematic theology emeritus at Concordia Seminary in St. Louis. He is the author or coauthor of numerous books and articles.
Countdowns bring with them a certain amount of suspense, but we usually do not start counting days or minutes or seconds until we are quite sure that the goal is in sight. We usually think of Advent as the church’s time of expectation. But Easter has also opened up a certain expectation that has changed the way we live our lives. For Christ’s bursting open his tomb set the clock ticking on the tombs we shall someday occupy. The baptismal promise that we will share his resurrection sets us free to live a life dedicated to him. That makes our lives truly human lives as we trust in God’s counting the days till we join him in life that will never end.
We once thought of heaven as the sweet by and by, somewhere, a distant shore, a land far away, somewhen, off in the future, a nice place to contemplate but not yet connected to daily life. In fact, the continuity between Jesus’ bursting out of his tomb, my baptism, and life as it unfolds today runs in an unbroken stream, driven by the fresh breeze (Hebrew Ruach) which puts the wind (Hebrew Rauch) at my back. In fact, following Jesus as he went forth from his tomb was the Holy Spirit (Hebrew Ruach), who now propels the people who have been incorporated into Jesus’ resurrection through life as we wake up, walk, and ride the bus. A recent conversation with a friend who was about to go under the surgeon’s knife ran something like this: “I hope that when I wake up from the operation, everything will be better. And if I don’t wake up …” I interrupted him at that point with, “then they will be even better.
He lives by the hope that illumines each day, the hope of life, as good as often gets on this earth, as bad as it can become as we traverse this world, the hope of life with Jesus that never ends.
So, something as common as the spinning of tires can remind us of the stone that rolled and scared the livin’ daylights out of the poor soldiers, who had never encountered an incident like that which took place at Christ’s tomb. That was not a normal, usual morning. But that unusual morning has flowed into our normal, usual mornings as we wake up and walk. Since our baptisms we have carried with us our baptismal promise of resurrection with our Lord, and our Lord’s resurrection, as promised, carries us through the day.
We do not need to count the days before or after this day since our God is doing that. He has the whole world and all of time in his hands. But as time moves along and we travel from one place to another in our earthly sojourn, we know that the Lord’s resurrection and our baptismal sharing in it make us immovable and unshakeable, even as our bus wheels roll ever faster, because Christ has rooted our lives in his death and resurrection. The Holy Spirit is accompanying us as we risk what God has given to demonstrate his love to others because we know that he is supplying us with more than we need to do the work he has us doing in carrying his love to those within our reach.
The Apostle Paul set forth a hermeneutic for life, a user’s guide to life, in 1 Corinthians 1 and 2. There he reminds us that God’s wisdom appears to be foolishness to those who do not realize that God has changed the framework of our life by going to the cross. Paul tells us that God’s power exhibits itself in what appears to us to be weakness, that God’s power perfects itself in our weakness (2 Cor. 12:9).
Therefore, we see beauty in the ugliness of a corpse, bloodied and broken, being taken down from a cross, and we see beauty in the twisted body of a baby malformed in the womb, knowing that through its baptism it, too, will rise. We see power in the beggars and the beaten when they radiate the love of Christ that went to the cross and came out of the tomb for his people. We see light that illumes our darkest moments because it shines from the other end of Jesus’ tomb, with its entryway into heaven. We see that in the broken parts of our lives the perfection that the resurrection of our Lord foreshadows. As we stand at the bedside of the dying and at the grave of the deceased, we smell in the fresh air driven by the breeze of the Holy Spirit, the aroma of hope, the fragrance of life that never ends. We tell the stories of those who have been liberated as God liberated his chosen people from Egypt with his strong arm and mighty hand, as he preserved them in their wanderings in Sinai, as he blessed them with entry into the promised land. And we recognize in Israel’s story the storyline that runs through this time and our places on its way to fulfillment at the return of our risen Lord.
Therefore, the last breath of a loved one does not produce despair in us, despite the overwhelming sorrow that engulfs us at such moments. The last breath (Ruach again) of those whom Christ has claimed is accompanied by the Holy Spirit (yes, Ruach) as he breathes eternal life into the body that enjoys fellowship with the risen Jesus. Every hour, every day, as God counts the moments until we enter the activities of eternal rest hinted at in Revelation 5:9. Then our rejoicing will acclaim our God and the Lamb worthy of our hallelujahs, for then we will know, as we sense today only partially, what it means to be alive as we were meant to enjoy God’s gift of life.