Living With Faith in the Shadow of Easter

It was like a tidal wave, smashing down on all Creation. Instead of bringing death and destruction, though, the Bible claims that Jesus' Resurrection transformed and gave new life to everything it touched. For now, the victory achieved by Jesus through his crucifixion and Resurrection can be difficult for us to perceive, but upon his return, the ushering in of God's New Creation that was inaugurated by those events will be complete. 

Much of what we know about the world will change as a result, specifically its transitory nature. We will have bodies restored to us, both similar and dissimilar to the ones we have now, with the key difference that they will be like Jesus', impervious to sickness, injury, and death. To complement our new corporeality there will be a renewed Earth, no longer under its own slavery to decay. Although not addressed by the New Testament writers explicitly, it can safely be assumed that the effects of the Second Coming will even extend beyond our planet to the universe as a whole. All of this will be for God's glory, and to allow us to finally be faithful and loving stewards over His work. 

This vision of the future, comprised of life in a New Heavens and New Earth rather than a non-material eternity, can and should radically change our perception of God, as well as what it means to be His followers. I believe in a god who affirmed the goodness of His Creation rather than gave up on it; a god whose purpose in sending Jesus wasn't to secure our souls spots in Heaven to play harps on clouds, but to rescue and reclaim the physical world (including us) from eventual destruction; and who, instead of sending us into the world solely to do door-to-door evangelizing and save people from a Hell of eternal torment, desires that we declare Jesus' Kingship of Earth as much as of Heaven. He wants us to be agents of His New Creation, and with the help of the Holy Spirit, to attempt to bring bits of His glorious future into the present with the use of the gifts and resources He has given us. 

That god sent the tidal wave of the Resurrection to come crashing down over me two years ago. And it was the grandness of His aims and actions that He displayed on the first Easter morning that brought me to Him. Or, perhaps just as accurate a statement, it was several articles and sermons by Anglican scholar NT Wright that opened my eyes to these incredibly rich aspects of Christian theology. I quickly came to see them, not as heady theories or doctrines detached from everyday life, but as truths revealing a Lord that I could fully have faith in, devote my life to, and love. I felt myself being grasped and pulled in by the story the Bible was telling me; I believed deep down that I was living inside that story and that I could contribute to it in my own tiny way. 

For probably the first time, I was at peace not only with God, but with my perception of Him. Since Easter of 2012, my Resurrection-centered faith has deepened my relationship with the Lord, given me new motivations to go out into the world to do His work, and fostered a growing fascination for the Bible as an object of study. For me, everything hinges on Easter. 

Considering this fact, the question of whether the Resurrection actually happened naturally arises in my mind fairly frequently. It's a concern that is usually quickly assuaged by reminding myself of the theological and historical arguments that led me to be convinced of it in the first place, as well as by prayer and the emotional intuition that tells me it's true. But for the last several months, I've been afraid that the very teachings that brought me to belief, i.e. those regarding the enormity of what God has done and will do in and through Jesus, may ultimately lead me to a state of doubt. The form that these doubts have taken, as well as what I plan on doing about them, will be the topics of my next few posts. 

Against Heaven and Against God: Romans 8 and the Persistence of Love

“I'm my own worst enemy.” We've all heard people use this expression. Perhaps we've even said it ourselves. (I know I have, at least.) We all act against our own best interests sometimes, doing things that we know will be harmful to our mental or physical well-being or that of others. How often do we seek happiness and contentment in things that we know from experience will never really satisfy us? How many of our interpersonal relationships have we attempted to sabotage out of fear and insecurity, sometimes subconsciously? Even the “best” of us occasionally take advantage of the people who love us dearly. We turn away from God, or become angry with Him when our lives don't go the way we planned. On top of all this, we often feel the need to punish ourselves for the mistakes we've made. We put up a barrier against self-forgiveness and mercy, a wall so strong and high that it feels like God couldn't even break through it. 

In his letter to the Romans, the Apostle Paul expresses his frustration at his moral failings very simply:  “For the good that I want to do, I do not do; but the evil I do not want to do, that I practice.” (7:19) This is not to say that we are incapable of doing anything good in the course of our lives. Nonetheless, I can sympathize with Paul here. Our flaws and weaknesses can sometimes make us feel like we are beyond the reach of God. It seems like a desperate, unsolvable situation. 

The Angel Michael and a demon

But what is impossible with man is possible with God. In the very next chapter of Romans, Paul outlines the glory we have with Christ as children of God and the awesome power of the Spirit that dwells within us. “If God is for us,” he asks, “who can be against us?” (8:31) His answer:  no one, since Jesus Christ, our risen Lord, intercedes for us with God the Father. And what about God's love? Surely, he can't love us all the time. How can he love us when we've made so many stupid mistakes, when we know we've failed Him and hurt other people? Paul's response is what makes the Gospel so incredibly beautiful. Nothing at all in His creation, Paul concludes, “can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (8:39) Not tribulation, distress, poverty, war. Not death, angels, things in the present, things to come. And not our mistakes, our regrets, our cruelty and resentment. As many times as we fall to a point where we think we'll never be able to be reconciled to God, He will be running to embrace us with His mercy. 

This is a love that makes no human sense. We can hardly forgive ourselves for the things we've done. Why would God, the ultimate source of Good, reach out to us? What did we do to deserve someone like Him in our lives? Nothing, really, and that's part of the point. He loves us in spite of our faults and sins, sending us His Son so that we can live with Him forever. God wants us to follow the example of Jesus' compassionate and self-sacrificial life, to be conformed to the image of His Son rather than give in to our desires and weaknesses. But when we inevitably stumble and fall, we should know somewhere deep inside us that God's forgiveness is always there for us. Our Father's back is never turned away from us in shame. He's waiting for us to shed our regret and self-directed anger, poised to throw his arms around us and welcome us back into the love that we were made for. The walls that we construct to keep out His mercy don't stand a chance against Him. 

"Home:" A Story of Forgiveness

Suddenly, in the middle of attending a concert, my mind was barraged with dozens of memories. The dark auditorium, the many people standing around me, even some of the loud rock music, faded away as I went somewhere, and somewhen, else. I was experiencing it all over again:  the nervousness while telling her how I felt about her, our first kiss, her extremely frequent laughter (It was a unique laugh, an acquired taste for me but a sound that I came to love.), trips to Princeton for awesome chicken parm sandwiches on Nassau Street, and countless other great moments that we shared in the short six months we were together.

But I had to brace myself for what I knew would come next. The positive memories became darker, eclipsed by the mistakes I made in the last few months of our relationship. I felt again the guilt, the emotional numbness, the overwhelming regret as I discovered that there are some things that can't be undone. I remembered the times she cried, and the look of helplessness in her eyes because of the pain and confusion I had caused. For several years after I graduated from the College of New Jersey, I replayed these scenes over and over, partly to punish myself and partly in a futile attempt to figure out how things had gone so wrong. Eventually, I realized how little good that was doing and made my best effort to forget them. But now, the memories had come flooding back, and they were every bit as vivid as they were seven years ago.

It was the closest I've come to time travel. Instead of a DeLorean, though, it was the smell of her perfume that brought me back that night. Psychologists and brain researchers have long known that the sense of smell can trigger memories more strongly than any other sense. The physiological reason for this is that the olfactory nerve is located next to two areas of the brain associated with the making and retaining of memories:  the hippocampus and the amygdala, which is also part of the brain that registers how we experience emotion. Because it was so dark (and I thought it'd be weird to start randomly sniffing people), it was hard to tell where the smell was coming from. What I do know is that it remained for the duration of one song that the band The Dear Hunter was performing.

The smell of Steph's perfume forced me to relive both the good and the bad of our relationship. Set alongside the hopeful lyrics and music of the performance of "Home," though, the memories soon created a sensation other than the usual remorse and regret. I believe they became an instrument for carrying a simple message:  You are forgiven. Before that night, I had known this on a superficial level. It had taken years, but I had come to terms with how Steph and I ended and had decided to get on with my life. I knew that God was loving and figured that He had forgiven me. As convinced as I was of these ideas, they were realities in my head only. Part of me had continued to withhold true forgiveness from myself, hoping that in this way I could continue to be punished, if only a little. Part of me was afraid to let all of that regret go, as if to do so would mean hurting Steph all over again by forgetting about her. But I didn't have to forget, only to forgive. God had done this years before in His own heart, and had looked on sadly while I stubbornly refused to forgive what I had done, and rejected the offer of peace and comfort that He so badly wanted me to accept. That night at the concert, I was finally able to put it all behind me, and to know that it was okay to do so. 

When the song "Home" ended, the smell disappeared as suddenly as it had come. What remained was hope, and the conviction that life doesn't consist of a series of injuries we inflict on or receive from other people. At the root of life is love. No matter the size of our guilt or pain, life is bigger. Life offers forgiveness and the assurance that all is not lost. The only thing we have to do is accept the gift, and try to keep it at the center of our minds and our hearts.