Reneixament
The bitter orange trees that line our street now fill our house with the sweet fragrance of blossoming. The winter wind that makes mild temperatures feel colder is warming. And trees once bare as the buildings around now bear buds, fresh and green. Spring has come. The season of renewing, reviving, resurrection. The season of rebirth. “Reneixament” in Catalan. This spring the Lord has me thinking more about the rebirth that we are promised as His people; the resurrection that we believe, as followers of Jesus, began with Him and continues in us, but that we probably don’t think or talk about enough, if we’re honest. But in a world and a time where bad news seems unceasing, spring has sprung and speaks of greater things yet to come.
It’s easy to forget sometimes how insane this proposition is, how unnatural it is to believe in resurrection. It goes against all we “know”. It goes against the “natural order”. But if there is no resurrection to come, there is no hope. There is no point to any of the things we do, especially missions. For “what do I gain if, humanly speaking, I fought with beasts at Ephesus? If the dead are not raised, ‘Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.’” But despite this seeming insanity, you and I are all called to be people of resurrection, not only to receive it now and after our death, but to bring it through our daily lives. These are crazy ideas with infinite implications. But if we do not bear this banner of resurrection, we have nothing to give to a world with no hope of it.
But we do have this crazy hope, and we live advancing it. It is radical. It is rebirth. It is the revolution of the deepest, truest kind. The one that every neighbor, every co-worker, every family member, every person you and I know yearns for and needs, whether they know it or not. It is the revolution of resurrection. We now live under the declaration that death and brokenness no longer rule on the earth, though they now remain. They will not endure. And all creation plays on repeat the reality that after our long winter of waiting, new life is coming. Let us be people who live and bring revolution and resurrection in every corner of our every day lives. Lord let your kingdom come and your will be done, wherever we are, as in heaven. Amen!
““Death is swallowed up in victory.”
“O death, where is your victory?
O death, where is your sting?””