Vol 5 No 13 - Insurance?

As we continue the journey through Lent, the long journey of reflection and introspection, I am struck this morning by how transformational Lent can be if we are truly of the mind that God can change us and if we are truly intentional about letting God change us.

Our Sunday/Tuesday study groups are spending the Lenten season reflection on The Challenge of Easter (N.T. Wright), and this week's lesson deals with what is our true understanding of resurrection.  Journeying through Lent, and spending time in dialog with Bishop Wright and the apostle Paul in I Corinthians 15, I have come to the conclusion that so many of us miss the joy of Lent because we look at resurrection in an incomplete way.

Think about it - every Sunday, through the affirmation of faith, we profess to believe in the resurrection of the dead.  And that is a good thing, for if we do not believe in the resurrection of the dead, we cannot, by definition, be Christian.  Where we get in trouble is when we think of resurrection in terms of just getting back up and resuming life as it was before we died.  The gospel narratives dealing with the resurrection point to a Christ that had been transformed, and transformed in such a way as to not be recognizable to those who had known him well.

By crawling through the waters of baptism, we profess to a life where we have died to ourselves and risen in Christ.  The question we must face, and the one the annual observance of the Lenten discipline demands we answer, is:  Have we truly been transformed by rising from death in sin to life in Christ?  Do we truly believe that when Christ brings to us new life by water and the Spirit that we are transformed?  Do we truly believe that when Christ comes again in glory and we are raised from the dead that we will be transformed?

Or is this Christianity business simply an exercise in 'fire insurance'?

See you Sunday!

Lamar

P.S.  Our first Lenten Luncheon will be tomorrow at 12:10.  I hope and pray you will make the effort to be here and be fed not only by the food provided but by the words of our speaker.