Dear Everyone,

This past week, I read Chapters 7-8 of NT Wright’s book, “Surprised by Hope.” In these chapters, Wright focuses on the implications of the Christian doctrine of the bodily resurrection. He points out that since Christ is raised bodily, his Ascension is also bodily. And since all human beings will be raised at the general resurrection, the doctrine of heaven needs to reflect this embodied reality. Wright states, “The method of the kingdom will match the message of the kingdom. The kingdom will come as the church.”

The idea of Jesus ascending to heaven physically and thus, being absent from us physically, is captured in Wright’s discussion of “Parousia.” God is with us now spiritually, but Jesus will return to us bodily. And in the renewal of the cosmos after the general resurrection, Jesus will continue to be physically present.

Wright’s discussion of parousia reminded me of the later passages in Dante’s “La Vita Nuova.” After Beatrice’s death, Dante explains how bereft he is to be separated from her. Then, at the very end of the poem, he speaks of studying so he can be worthy of writing a fitting tribute to her. Dante experiences the absence of Beatrice, and he longs to be reunited with her. In his writing of “The Divine Comedy,” he sees her again. But as he explains in the poem, he needed to undergo a conversion in which his love for Beatrice was replaced with a higher love – the love for God. His longing for Beatrice becomes replaced by a longing for union with God, “The love that moves the sun and the other stars.”

I think Dante is using Beatrice as a metaphor for Christ. Dante is conscious of Beatrice’s physical absence even though he can interact with her through his writings. But he longs to be reunited with her. Wright speaks of how the Church is conscious of Christ’s physical absence and longs to be reunited with him, while simultaneously experiencing his spiritual presence.

Wright closes Chapter Eight with these words, ” There will come a time … when, in the great renewal of the world that Easter itself foreshadowed, Jesus himself will be personally present and will be the agent and model of the transformation that will happen both to the whole world and also to believers. This expectation and hope, expressed so clearly in the New Testament, continues undiminished in the second and subsequent centuries.”

Expectation and hope. These are thought-provoking subjects to reflect on.

This week, I’ll be reading Chapters 9 and 10 in Wright’s book. Also, I hope to schedule a chat next Sunday, April 10th on these Lenten Themes. Stay tuned.

Peace be with you,

SR

www.sylvainreynard.com

Dear Everyone,

This week I read chapters 5-6 of NT Wright’s book, “Surprised by Hope.” Wright is the author of several different books, many of which focus on St. Paul and the Pauline Epistles. This background informs his writing and he quotes a number of Scripture passages in Chapter 6. I encourage you to look them up and read them for yourself. Scripture reading can be daunting, because one might not know how to find the relevant passages. But the Bible Gateway site is very helpful. It has many different translations and editions of Scripture, in several different languages. They even have an App in the App store. You can enter the passage you are looking for in the search box, and the site will find it for you.

In this week’s reading, Wright continues to stress that the good news of the Resurrection is for all humanity. The Resurrection of Christ sets the stage for the general resurrection of all human beings at the last day. Wright quotes Colossions 1:15-20, which I will also quote here:

“He [Jesus] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; 16 for in[h] him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him. 17 He himself is before all things, and in[i] him all things hold together. 18 He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything. 19 For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, 20 and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.”

As this passage teaches, the hope of the Resurrection isn’t just for human beings. The Resurrection is emblematic of God’s redemption of the entire cosmos – of all creation. Through the Resurrection of Christ, God reconciles himself to all things. Through his redemptive work, God will make all things new. The old heaven and earth will become new – but not through destruction, through redemption.

Although Wright doesn’t make this point explicit, I want to affirm that the redemption of the cosmos includes not only our planet, but also our animals, and our forests and plants. I’m not sure exactly how that will come about in the future, but I believe that it will. And certainly, St. Francis of Assisi has taught us that animals are very much a part of God’s kingdom. It makes sense that they will also be redeemed.

So there is much for us to hope for, especially those of us who have lost our country, our city, our family and friends, our forests, our pets and animals. Some day God will reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven. Indeed, as Wright puts it in Chapter 6, ” What creation needs is neither abandonment nor evolution but rather redemption and renewal; and this is both promised and guaranteed by the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. This is what the world world is waiting for.”

This week, I will read Chapters 7-9. Please join me.

Peace be with you,

SR

www.sylvainreynard.com

Dear Everyone,

This week, I read Chapters 3-4 of NT Wright’s book, “Surprised by Hope.” In these chapters, Wright continues to disambiguate the Christian doctrine of the general resurrection from Greek and Roman views of the afterlife.

Consider Book XI of Homer’s “Odyssey,” in which Odysseus converses with the spirits of the dead in the Underworld. The spirit of Odysseus’ friend Elepenor comes forward and he explains to Odysseus that when he died, his soul went down to Hades. He beseeches Odysseus to give his body a proper burial.

Consider also Book VI of Virgil’s “Aeneid,” in which Aeneas is guided by the Cumaean Sybil down into Hades, so he can speak with the shade of his father,

“The chief unsheath’d his shining steel, prepar’d, 
Tho’ seiz’d with sudden fear, to force the guard, 
Off’ring his brandish’d weapon at their face; 
Had not the Sibyl stopp’d his eager pace, 
And told him what those empty phantoms were: 
Forms without bodies, and impassive air. ”

In Homer and in Virgil, the souls of the dead descend into Hades. The souls are, as Virgil describes, phantoms or forms without bodies. Indeed, Dante offers a similar description in the “Inferno,” when he refers to Virgil and others as “shades.” In the Italian original, Dante uses the word “ombra” or “shadow.”

But as Wright points out, the word “resurrection,” as used by the early Christian writers, refers to “a new bodily life after whatever sort of life after death there might be.” So Dante’s description of the shades in Inferno should not be taken to be their final state of being. They, like all of us, will experience a resurrection of the physical body on the last day, and their souls will be rejoined with their resurrected bodies.

As Wright points out, this is why the doctrine of the resurrection is so central to Christianity. The resurrection of Jesus changes the day of worship from Saturday to Sunday, and establishes the celebration of Easter. As he writes, “Death is the last weapon of the tyrant, and the point of the resurrection, despite much misunderstanding, is that death has been defeated. Resurrection is not the redescription of death; it is its overthrow, and, with that, the overthrow of those whose power depends on it.”

To this I would add that none of us will spend eternity in the shadows or as shades of our former selves. Rather, we will all be resurrected. This is part of the good news of the Gospel and it is the basis for hope, as he points out in the closing paragraphs of Chapter 4:

“Hope is what you get when you suddenly realize that a different worldview is possible, a worldview in which the rich, the powerful, and the unscrupulous do not after all have the last word. The same worldview shift that is demanded by the resurrection of Jesus is the shift that will enable us to transform the world.”

I’ll be continuing my reading this week with Chapters 5-6. I invite you to join me. Feel free to participate by posting comments and questions. Please feel free to invite others to join our conversation.

Peace be with you all, and peace be with the world,

SR.

www.sylvainreynard.com