Today I will be using some of Moltmann's writing on "the spirit" and "the flesh." Paul uses these two terms, spirit and flesh, to describe the conflicts which are evoked through Christian experience in this world; but he means something quite different by them from what spontaneously occurs to us when we use the words. 'Spirit' has nothing to do with the brain, and 'flesh' has nothing to do with the muscles of our body. Essentially the apostle was an apocalyptist, and he thinks about world history in terms of two great world aeons. Here we have the transitory world-time of sin and death; there we shall see the new world-time of righteousness, justice and eternal life. When God sent the Messiah Jesus into this world, and raised him 'from the dead', the time of the new world already dawned in the midst of the time of this old one. 'The night is far gone, the day is at hand' (Romans 13:12): that describes the Christian sense of time. 'The time of the new world already dawned.' This is not talk about a physical world verses one that is not physical. Here and now we walk in the midst of all of it - the brokenness and the corruption - the creative wind of life and resurrection. What have with Jesus is the way of being resurrection power in the midst of all the same-old, same-old stuff of our everyday life. That - will mean a transformation of life even as life does not want to be transformed. So, I suppose, our days are filled with wrestling with all that life brings our way. Wrestling with God as we wrestle with the experiences that make up the day. Wrestling with the life of resurrection and trying to get a handle on what is means for how all things are seen and all things are experienced. Wrestling with vision and hope in times that seems blind and hopeless. Connection: Don't run to easy answers when we are meant to be wrestlers whose whole lives are thrown into a day that is mixed up and full of adventure. Lord of Life, shake us up and open our eyes. Guide us so that we are not only able to see what is in front of us. Keep us open to the life of promise that is also very at hand and real. Amen. |
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