11 Jan 2021
We continue to look at what the resurrection and ascension of Jesus mean to our lives and ministry.
A major implication is that we can trust that we and our ministries are accepted by God. We are accepted because embedded within the theology of the vicarious humanity of Christ – His humanity for us – is the invitation to trust that what Jesus did and does for us is adequate and worthy as He takes all that we are and do, and in His own name gives us to the Father. This is what it means that we are accepted in the beloved – our union with Christ in the Holy Spirit ensures that what Jesus did and does for us is truly acceptable before the Father. We are righteous in Him; we are adopted as God’s children in Him; our ministry in Him is received with gladness by the Father. we are vindicated and welcomed into the fellowship of the Trinity in Him!
Untold millions of people live and die miserable lives. The problem of evil – natural evil, when nature unleashes tremendous power for destruction and damage, and moral evil, the evil we visit upon ourselves and on one another because of sin and corruption – seems to be unsolvable. We know the list – cancer, plagues (like viral pandemics), war, storms, earthquakes, betrayal, hunger – all these seem so unrelenting in their ‘assault’. Moral improvements escape most of us even though we make resolutions in the beginning of the year. Nature remains violent and deadly. Our feeling of being trapped by evil is surely the delight of the evil one.
However, resurrection faith offers a life of theological resistance. We know that our resistance does not win the victory, but it bears witness to the One who does. Resurrection and Ascension of Jesus insist that evil does not have the last word because the first word and the last word, the Alpha and Omega, is Jesus! Faith confesses and lives in terms of a new future in Jesus. What is not easy is the maturity of faith that really believes and trusts that Jesus is the victory over the things that make for violence, meaninglessness and death, and that leads us to lives that make this faith concrete in action. This maturity is gained by the discipline of abiding in Jesus (John 15:1-11) rather than in the things of the world. This is a life choice, life orientation. It means life has a specific focus – everything else is brought into perspective in terms of accepting the Lord’s claim on my life. In outworking, the world is very much with us, compelling us to think and live on its terms, and much of the time, we are happy and willing to do so, seeing no harm in it. We mistakenly think we can live as Christians who are at home in the world, in this culture, even in this church. In many respects, we do not want to be converted by the renewing of our minds (Romans 12:2).
So abiding in Jesus means we have to place ourselves in a situation of real tension. The issue is how to live in such a manner that what increasingly shapes my living is Jesus. Remember, if Jesus is not shaping our lives, something else is. We should intentionally live our lives according to what our faith confesses. The theological resistance to evil is a life of active commitment to life on Jesus’ terms. We live here and now in terms of that which our hope has learned to expect at the end. Christian living must seek to bear witness to the truth that Jesus lives, and that Jesus living and reigning is the criterion of truth, not self-interest. Abiding in Jesus means going public with the truth that is in us as we bear witness in our lives to the confession and faith we hold on to.
Such a living entails also attending to the demand for discipleship. Our lives and ministries are rightly cast between the restoration to fellowship with the Father and the imperatives of obedience of discipleship. In other words, it involves working out of our lives and ministries between the condition for the gospel and the consequence of the gospel – lives and ministries have a Jesus shape to them, the result of union with Christ and also obedience to that Jesus shape. Just as the proclamation of forgiveness of sins calls forth repentance and change of life, likewise the proclamation of restoration to fellowship with the Father calls forth the commitment to discipleship by following Jesus in all things. And discipleship may mean suffering for and with Jesus; the Apostle Paul wrote that he may know Jesus and the power of His resurrection, and may share His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death that by any means possible, he may attain the resurrection from the dead (Philippians 3:10-11). Abiding in Jesus and following Jesus in all things also means the willingness to take the same path Jesus took in His earthly ministry – it is a path to the cross and crucifixion for the sake and welfare of others because of love. Paul looked ahead and anticipated the victory of the Lord Jesus when all that has pitted its might against God’s reign and even death itself, are defeated. Then Paul will know his own resurrection from death. Likewise, we labour in the context of a coming glory. We minister knowing that there is an end, a limit, to evil. We see through the current situation of suffering to a coming redemption as we anticipate a new heaven and a new earth.
Our lives and ministries understood as sharing in and following His resurrection and ascension place us in the unlikely relation between joy, suffering and hope. There is a joy because Jesus is alive. But suffering is no stranger to us because union with Christ ministry places us among the least of the brothers and sisters, there to bear witness to His love for them. And there is hope because Jesus’ final victory is anticipated. Ministry in the sharing of His resurrection is a ministry framed by joy and hope, even in the midst of sufferings.