Glory 30 - In the Meantime

I was so blessed to make my way through Kaitlin Curtice’s book, *Glory Happening*, during Lent this year. It was not a sacrifice but instead a discipline to be intent on looking for the evidence of God’s glory all around throughout this season. In what was a very different type of Lent for me this year, I am so grateful for the many ways that Curtice’s reflections intersected with what I was experiencing these last several weeks. The most recent came with her final reflection - In the Meantime...while she wrote about the mystery of faith, the focus was more on the places in between the mystery - the “in the meantime.” There’s much we can focus on in the mystery of God and God’s ways, but in doing so we cannot lose what’s happening “in the meantime.”

One way that this has been reflected for me is in how I have heard a similar message in several different places since yesterday morning. In the Easter worship service yesterday, the sermon (based on Mark 16 - my favorite of the Resurrection stories) had one point that made me pull out my phone and write down the words, “When people say that Christ died for me, I respond by telling them that many people have died for me, but only ONE has been resurrected for me.” Shifts the focus from just the sacrifice, the “making us right with God” to how this leads us to something new and different.

The second came in the hymn we sang as we closed the service, Christ is Alive. Author Brian Wren wrote the following about it, “It was written for Easter Sunday, two weeks after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. I could not let Easter go by without speaking of this tragic event which was on all our minds. . . . The hymn tries to see God's love winning over tragedy and suffering in the world. . . . There is tension and tragedy in these words, not just Easter rejoicing.” Again, this points us not to the tragedy of the death but the hope and the power that comes in the resurrection.

Finally, on my way to my guitar lesson today, Rob Bell’s latest podcast had a similar message - Resurrection isn’t just about getting us out of this awful, sinful, etc life but instead pointing us toward living the new creation here and now. At one point he said that if the resurrection is just about forgiveness, that’s nice but is that it? Shouldn’t it be more than that - yes forgiveness absolutely, but forgiveness that leads us to...what? Living out the new creation that we are in Christ.

So, in the meantime that we live in each and every day...we celebrate the glory that is the resurrection and the call it has for us to live this faith out day by day. Amen. Glory to the resurrected Christ!