So What?

As we are in the Easter season, it is fitting and proper to reflect on the true meaning of Christianity. I believe that there is progress, that today is better than yesterday, that there is one far off divine event to which the whole creation moves. I believe in the resurrection of the body, my body, as a result of the sacrifice of Jesus. His resurrection eliminates our death, our separation from God.

In his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul speaks at length about belief in the resurrection of Jesus as the core of Christianity. Scott Engle (St. Andrew UMC, Plano, TX) discusses why this is important:


'You’d think that after Paul brings his argument to its grand climax in v. 54-57, he would go on to talk about our glorious future with God in the restored and renewed cosmos, the new heavens and earth, but he does not. Instead, with the chorus, “Where, O death, is your victory?” still ringing in our ears, Paul writes, “Therefore . . . your labor is not in vain.” My work for Jesus is not a waste of time? That’s the big “so what” of Easter and resurrection?

In a word, yes. Too many Christians have this idea that we get through this life so we can get on to the next life, where we can leave all this behind and enjoy some sort of eternal, disembodied bliss. However, the biblical story is not about a world left behind, but a world put right. Easter doesn’t point us toward some faraway place we imagine to be “heaven,” but to the marriage
of heaven and earth in this place.'

The message from Paul is as relevant today as it was when he wrote it 2,000 years ago. The far off divine event is, in my view, spiritual peace here and now. It's closer than we think.