The Resurrecting One
“Bright Hope for Tomorrow” — Chapter 7 Reflection
Longing for Something Better
For those of you who are reading through our Spring Resource, I am sure this week’s topic on the book was an encouragement to you—I know it was for me.
This year, I am turning forty, and I am already feeling it (I can sense the eyes-rolling already as you think, “Wait until you hit my age”). At some point in your life, you get past that age where you feel immortal. And you begin to feel the weight of the fall in your body.
But even beyond this inescapable life experience, what we also feel is loss of loved ones. We see the pain and struggle of others. And internally, we feel what the apostle Paul described—and the author of this book pointed out—as a groaning inside of us. A groaning over the pain and struggle we feel and a groaning for something better.
A Hope Fulfilled
But even beyond this inescapable life experience, what we also feel is loss of loved ones. We see the pain and struggle of others. And internally, we feel what the apostle Paul described—and the author of this book pointed out—as a groaning inside of us. A groaning over the pain and struggle we feel and a groaning for something better.
This is where the good news of The Resurrecting One gives hope!
Because Jesus rose from the grave, there is hope that death and decay are not the final word, but glory and life are. Furthermore, this current struggle is moving us from one degree of glory to the next. In other words, God is using these circumstances that cause us to groan to make us more like Jesus. Which gives us hope, not merely for the future resurrected life, but present hope in the struggle.
But what this truth does for me particularly, is that it helps me to remember that this life isn’t the best there is. Certainly, I can enjoy the blessings I have now even as I struggle—this is the encouragement in the book of Ecclesiastes—but it also helps me to not put too much weight or value into this life, but in the life that is to come.
It is the Resurrection of Jesus that gives us confidence in our faith in the midst of our personal struggles and in the struggles we observe in the world.
