Resurrection
Luke 24:5b
Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen.
In one of his last works, "A Grief Observed", C. S. Lewis takes us real-time through his grief over the death of his wife Joy, whom he anonymously refers to as "H". Knowing that Lewis is a profound Christian apologist makes the reading all the more difficult. Just as Christ cried out on the cross, "My God, why have you forsaken me?", so Lewis spends the first half of the book walking through Hell in utter despair.
It was St. Augustine who said, "Better to have loved and lost, than to have never loved at all." One reads the bitterness Lewis records and wonders. It is the nature of being human that we can savor our joy of life while holding the bitter end in our mind like a bomb in a closet. Jesus tells us that we should let today's troubles be sufficient for today, but we cannot entirely look away from the forecast of tomorrow's weather. God created us with a heart for eternity and with a knowledge of mortality; it is what differentiates us from His other creatures. Do not worry? How?
In a previous post, I wrote:
Smoker's smoke because they delude themselves into believing that they will avoid cancer. Overweight people continue to eat or not exercise because they think that they might avoid heart disease. Or maybe the reason is even more disturbing. Maybe human beings are fatalistic at the core. We recognize that we have three scores and ten (give or take a few years) so why does it matter?
Human beings are not only fatalistic, they are purposefully self deluded. We ignore the broken trestle because if we didn't, we wouldn't be able to simply enjoy the ride. This is why secularists hate Christians, because they don't want to be reminded of the approaching train wreck. It is so much simpler and so much more practical to bracket our lives between our personal Alpha and Omega.
Most people are pragmatic. They will attempt to make the most whatever time they have, regardless of the quantity or quality. Almost everyone would do almost anything to extend that time. We agree with St. Augustine implicitly, almost without thinking, and only the most morose or depressed person would think otherwise. Of course it is better to savor even a few moments of delight or joy, rather than never experience at all.
Long ago I came up with an insipid mathematical way of measuring the quality of life. If we could somehow plot satisfaction versus time, then the total quality of life could be measured by integrating the area under the satisfaction curve. In other words, a short but highly satisfying life has the same quality as a long but modestly satisfying life. This seems ridiculous when one puts it into words, but it is our calculus nevertheless. We make our life decisions based on this calculus. We completely ignore the "treasure in the field" when it comes to the practicalities of maximizing the quality of life.
So what does this have to do with the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Well, the most obvious answer is that the area under the curve is infinite for those who are resurrected. If we live forever, then the quality of our life is infinite as well. I forgot to mention that suffering counts as negative satisfaction, so the area under the curve could be negative, or in the case of Hell, infinitely negative.
Yes it sounds stupid, but this is how we think. Lewis' journal of grief is an account of his personal death and resurrection. He descends into the Hell of doubt, despair, confusion and blinding misery. He finds the door to God locked tight. He questions God's motivations and bitterly ponders God's sovereignty. Then, as if born again, he awakens to find that God did not abandon him, and that life, memory, joy, and peace remain beyond death. His demeanor changes so dramatically that one wonders if this is the same author. From Joseph to Job to Jesus, the promise of the Resurrection renders our calculus useless.
My own spiritual life is a seemingly neverending cycle of death and resurrection. When the darkness falls, all hope and faith diminish until there is nothing left except a single point of light, but the light never fails and I rise again because God pulls me out of the pit. I want to believe that it is nothing more than psychochemical, but I know better. I would also like to wear it like a badge, but it feels more like a curse. It is the Valley of the Shadow, the anticipation of the end. As the Preacher says in Ecclesiastes 1:17
And I applied my mind to know wisdom and to know madness and folly. I perceived that this also is but a chasing after wind.
Long ago two women went to visit a grave, to give honor to a pile of dead flesh and bones. Their lives were probably hard in a hard land, oppressed by tyranny, holding out for a mythical King to come and free their people. Then a man came who was more than a man, and He told them about how God had come to live among them, and that the Kingdom of Heaven was here and now, and their lives were filled with joy they had never known.
Then He was murdered and all was lost, and maybe it would have been better if He had never come.
But He came back.
Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen.
In one of his last works, "A Grief Observed", C. S. Lewis takes us real-time through his grief over the death of his wife Joy, whom he anonymously refers to as "H". Knowing that Lewis is a profound Christian apologist makes the reading all the more difficult. Just as Christ cried out on the cross, "My God, why have you forsaken me?", so Lewis spends the first half of the book walking through Hell in utter despair.
It was St. Augustine who said, "Better to have loved and lost, than to have never loved at all." One reads the bitterness Lewis records and wonders. It is the nature of being human that we can savor our joy of life while holding the bitter end in our mind like a bomb in a closet. Jesus tells us that we should let today's troubles be sufficient for today, but we cannot entirely look away from the forecast of tomorrow's weather. God created us with a heart for eternity and with a knowledge of mortality; it is what differentiates us from His other creatures. Do not worry? How?
In a previous post, I wrote:
Smoker's smoke because they delude themselves into believing that they will avoid cancer. Overweight people continue to eat or not exercise because they think that they might avoid heart disease. Or maybe the reason is even more disturbing. Maybe human beings are fatalistic at the core. We recognize that we have three scores and ten (give or take a few years) so why does it matter?
Human beings are not only fatalistic, they are purposefully self deluded. We ignore the broken trestle because if we didn't, we wouldn't be able to simply enjoy the ride. This is why secularists hate Christians, because they don't want to be reminded of the approaching train wreck. It is so much simpler and so much more practical to bracket our lives between our personal Alpha and Omega.
Most people are pragmatic. They will attempt to make the most whatever time they have, regardless of the quantity or quality. Almost everyone would do almost anything to extend that time. We agree with St. Augustine implicitly, almost without thinking, and only the most morose or depressed person would think otherwise. Of course it is better to savor even a few moments of delight or joy, rather than never experience at all.
Long ago I came up with an insipid mathematical way of measuring the quality of life. If we could somehow plot satisfaction versus time, then the total quality of life could be measured by integrating the area under the satisfaction curve. In other words, a short but highly satisfying life has the same quality as a long but modestly satisfying life. This seems ridiculous when one puts it into words, but it is our calculus nevertheless. We make our life decisions based on this calculus. We completely ignore the "treasure in the field" when it comes to the practicalities of maximizing the quality of life.
So what does this have to do with the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Well, the most obvious answer is that the area under the curve is infinite for those who are resurrected. If we live forever, then the quality of our life is infinite as well. I forgot to mention that suffering counts as negative satisfaction, so the area under the curve could be negative, or in the case of Hell, infinitely negative.
Yes it sounds stupid, but this is how we think. Lewis' journal of grief is an account of his personal death and resurrection. He descends into the Hell of doubt, despair, confusion and blinding misery. He finds the door to God locked tight. He questions God's motivations and bitterly ponders God's sovereignty. Then, as if born again, he awakens to find that God did not abandon him, and that life, memory, joy, and peace remain beyond death. His demeanor changes so dramatically that one wonders if this is the same author. From Joseph to Job to Jesus, the promise of the Resurrection renders our calculus useless.
My own spiritual life is a seemingly neverending cycle of death and resurrection. When the darkness falls, all hope and faith diminish until there is nothing left except a single point of light, but the light never fails and I rise again because God pulls me out of the pit. I want to believe that it is nothing more than psychochemical, but I know better. I would also like to wear it like a badge, but it feels more like a curse. It is the Valley of the Shadow, the anticipation of the end. As the Preacher says in Ecclesiastes 1:17
And I applied my mind to know wisdom and to know madness and folly. I perceived that this also is but a chasing after wind.
Long ago two women went to visit a grave, to give honor to a pile of dead flesh and bones. Their lives were probably hard in a hard land, oppressed by tyranny, holding out for a mythical King to come and free their people. Then a man came who was more than a man, and He told them about how God had come to live among them, and that the Kingdom of Heaven was here and now, and their lives were filled with joy they had never known.
Then He was murdered and all was lost, and maybe it would have been better if He had never come.
But He came back.
posted by moleses | 6:29 PM
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