| Today's piece shows how Moltmann can offer poetic imagery while offering up good theological insights - more on the spirit and the flesh. The ancient and modern, religious and philosophical apocalyptists say, with T.W. Adorno: 'There is no true life in a life that is false.' But those who believer that in Christ the redeemer is already present, and those who sense in themselves the first signs of the life of God's Spirit, know that in fact true life does already exist in the midst of the life that is false. The future has already begun. The conflict between the rising sun and the departing shadows of the night is already being fought out. There is already a struggle for justice against injustice, and a protest of life against the forces of death. This conflict is experienced in every Christian existence as a conflict between a life ensouled by God's Spirit of life and a life which, faint-hearted and apathetic, bears the marks of the sickness unto death. Paul calls the first life 'spirit', and the second 'flesh'. In each case he means life as a whole, body, soul and spirit. Life 'according to the flesh' is a life that has miscarried, life that has strayed into contradiction with itself, life which suffers from the bacilli of death. Life 'in the Spirit', on the other hand, is true life, which is completely the wholly living, life in the divine power of the life, life which has found the broad space in the marvellous nearness of God. "The broad space in the marvelous nearness of God" - that is the everyday life of all who are within the realm of God's beloved grasp and embrace. It does not get any better than that. Today - this moment - the next look up from this computer and the next word typed - is that marvelous nearness of God. Oh we may not see like that most of the time. We may even want to be the ones to define what that will mean. And yet, that nearness is already in place. It is the gift that is able to sustain us even as we gripe and throw fits and want the world to revolve around us. This is not meant to be a rosy picture. It is more vital than that - it is a realistic picture - it is truth at hand. I don't like to paint things rosy because the paint peels off and the cracks reappear. Therefore, in the midst of a cracking and peeling world there is a promise to bring life into this wholly holy moment that is our lives - now. When we are open to seeing such a reality - in spite of the conditions abound us - we then have the opportunity to become a part of that holy life that not only become us - it become the building blocks of a new people, a new community, a new vision that opens up those times in our lives that appear to be leading to a dead end. Connection: We are being invited into hopefulness. Even when we are made sick by that which we see and hear within this day, we are invited into a new life - a promise - a beginning of joy. Come, Holy Spirit. Come and take us again into the broad space in the marvelous nearness of God. We are already there, but you O Spirit of Life, teach us to walk within its power and abiding presence. Amen. |
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