A New Creation
Easter Sunday, April 20
Today's Reading
Romans 8:22-25
"We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope, we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently."
Hallelujah, Jesus is risen! He is the firstfruits of all who fall asleep in Christ and is the hope of our future resurrection. He drank death, but it could not defeat Him. He triumphed over it and rose again to glory. The New Adam has restored the path of life for fallen humanity, the way of ascension and reunion with the Father of all who believe, and with Him a groaning creation, too.
Jesus continued to appear for 40 days after his resurrection, proclaiming the good news before ascending back to the Father and ten days later sending the promised Holy Spirit upon commissioned believers at Pentecost. The Spirit is the deposit and guarantee of the new age to come, of a renewed earth, a paradise regained—the hope of a new creation free of death’s curse.
Some ancient Christians not only shifted the regular weekly celebration of worship to the first day of the week (Sunday), but they also considered resurrection Sunday to mark the “eighth day” of creation. The original creation of seven days was marred by human rebellion, ushering in a disconnection of humans from perfect union with God and the earth’s perfect union with heaven.
Throughout the Old Testament, the union of heaven and earth was more confined and limited to the sanctuary of the Tabernacle and later Temple, but the veil had been split apart on Good Friday, and the veil between heaven and earth had opened first to faith (Hebrews 6:19-20), witnessed in the transformed community of the faithful, but pointing toward the future time when the rending of the veil would be opened to sight in the transformation of the new heavens and the new earth. What we have believed dimly with the eyes of faith will at last become a dazzling sight (Revelation 21).
Resurrection Sunday was not just a day to celebrate our guarantee of individual bodily life after this age but the inauguration of a new beginning, a new creation. The first creation was spoken from chaos and formlessness into life by the Word of God (Genesis 1:2-3). The second creation became a reality when the Word of God made flesh and brought life from death.
Death still hangs over our world. Its sting has been removed for those who are in Christ and who have the hope of following where He is (John 14:3-6), but while in this world, we still experience the effects of the curse. There is still injustice. There is still slavery. There is still hatred, abuse, and violence. Death hurts and separates loved ones. But if you are in Christ while you grieve, you do not lose hope because Christ was triumphant and will, by grace, give us back even more than death could ever take from us.
The new creation is not for mankind to build. Human efforts to build a utopia (the word literally means “nowhere”) through pride of scientific knowledge, political power, or technological achievements will not rebuild Eden nor the New Jerusalem, but new Babylons. The hope of the new creation for which we all desperately long to be free of death in anxiety, hatred, evil, suffering, and sorrow was won only by the miracle of Christ’s journey through life, death, and back to life again. It is not in the fallible plans and strategies of human pretension and devising, which are little more than misty vapors, but in God’s future cosmic resurrection miracle that Christ’s followers place their enduring hope for a perfect world.