I read N.T. Wright’s Surprised by
Hope back in 2011 and decided
to come back to it this year as an Easter celebration over the 50 days of Easter, which run from Easter to Pentecost. This time I’m reading the book along with occasional glances at the Surprised
by Hope Participant’sGuide, where at page 26 Wright says:
The
resurrection of Jesus is more than a belief that his body was dead and came to
life again, though this is quite true. It is an awareness that there was a cosmic explosion when Jesus rose again, and the
power and repercussions of this reality echo through the ages to our day and
into eternity. From the earliest years of the church, followers of Jesus were
uniform in their affirmation and confidence that Jesus had raised, bodily, from
the dead. He had come through death, out the other side, and a new reality was
born. The tomb was empty! The risen Jesus had met with them, taught them,
shared meals, and instructed them. The one who had died on the cross was alive
again. Because Jesus has risen, we have more than confidence that our eternity
is secure. We have an invitation to become his ambassadors in the world today.
Through his church, Jesus wants to bring justice, lift up beauty, and lavish his gifts on the earth. And the
primary way he plans to do this is through you and me.
As to that last sentence, the kingdom of God is not going to come "through you and me." God will finish that work himself. But I get Wright's point. Believers are part of God's plan of redemption, as participants in Jesus' "new creation" or what he called at his last supper the "new covenant." I've been listening to 1 Cor. chapter 15 over and over during this Easter time, where Paul calls the resurrected Jesus the "first fruits" of this transformed world. He is alive today and he continues to work, to "bear fruit," through his people. That's the message of Surprised by Hope.
