Surprised By Hope

There are a few books that I can say have shaped my faith in dynamic ways. The Bible takes top rung easily (it had better, right?), but there are those other authors who have really helped put flesh on Jesus for me. N. T. Wright's latest book, "Surprised By Hope" is one of these books.

Wright aims to rethink Heaven, the resurrection, and what that means for the mission of the church. He simply unpacks te question, "What is going to happen when you die?"

"Now why would you want to do that?" you may ask, "Something so basic and foundational as heaven doesn't need to be rethought or revisited, right? Chrsitians is on the same page when it come to the resurrection and what will happen after death, right?" Wright answers no. He argues that Christians are all over the map in these matters.

This hit me hard. What do I truly believe about all this? Shouldn't a minister really have a firm grasp on all this? Well, yes and no. It's just solid enough and elusive enough for many interpretations. I don't buy into premilleniallism and I believe that we'll all be called to sit on clouds and play the harp "'neath the shade of the evergreen tree" for eternity. So, if I were to sit with a blank piece of paper and write out, based on scripture, what happens when someone dies, it would be a fairly clean sheet of paper!

I'll try to break these thoughts up over a few blogs, since there is so much information to unpack. But one thing that has stuck with me from "Surprised By hope" is the nature of Jesus' resurrection.

Jesus bodily resurrection is a foreshadowing of our own bodily resurrection. He is the first man to show us what our resurrection will look like. After Jesus was raised, they didn't recognize him at first. But after spending time with him, they saw him for who he was. He bore a resemblance to himself before his death, but was somehow transformed. He didn't need to eat, but it is recorded that he did when he was with his disciples at least once. The key word here is TRANSFORMED.

When we die, our fleshly bodies will NOT waste away and our soul (our spiritual body), will get this new form. As if we were a glowing, golden, shapeless form awaiting the resurrection to get this new form again. That's nowhere in scripture! He will use our earthly bodies and transform them! So, at the resurrection, God will take our fleshly bodies, whether you were cremated, had your legs amputated from a wreck, had hernia surgery, etc. and transform THAT into a new creation.

It brings a whole redemptive message into it, doesn't it? God will take ALL things and redeem them! We will find "Life AFTER life after death" in the resurrection.

So, I ask you this question. What do you believe happens when you die?