The Monday Morning Quarterback

In yesterday's sermon I focused on the "time-bending" dimensions of the resurrection. Not only did the resurrection of Jesus vindicate his life, teaching, and passion, but through it the future was ushered in. The way things are meant to be and will be when God puts all things to rights, broke into the present in the resurrection of Jesus. We are to live "from" the future, in the light of what God has done and completed in Jesus.

The theological term for this understanding is eschatology and comes from the Greek word meaning "last things." The church is an eschatological body, a body that lives from the future. In a way the church is to be a colony of sojourners from the future who are living the life that God intends for all people to live and will live at the Last Judgment when God makes all things new.

The future has broken into the present, but not in its fullness, so that theologians talk about living "between the times." By God's grace we live the kingdom life now even though it has not come in its fullness and the world rejects the kingdom life.