Resurrection in Real Life is not the kind of teaching series that lends itself to three easy application steps to better relationships or how to overcome a bad day.  You know, practical stuff.  But then, if you have been around Wellspring for any length of time, you know that we seldom do that kind of teaching.  It's not that we are "above that" kind of approach to Sunday fare.  It's just that our conviction is that real change, real life-giving transformations are always built upon foundational truths.  We seldom go after three easy steps to anything.  We are pursuing long-view perspectives that will re-shape and re-frame how we approach life and go after what it means to be followers of Jesus, the Risen Lord.

So--what about resurrection in real life?  What are we going for?

As mentioned above, it is long-term perspective change that leads to transformation.

And that perspective is quite radical, actually.  Radical in that it is different from what the church has traditionally thought and radical in that it goes to the core or foundation of our faith.  Jesus taught us to pray that God's heaven would come to earth.  It is central to the prayer he taught his disciples to pray.  I think he intends to answer this prayer.

So the direction is not going from earth to heaven, but heaven coming to earth and intersecting earth, supplanting and overturning what already reigns here.

Revelation 21:1 speaks of the great climax of redemption being a "new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and first earth had passed away."  Verse two speaks of "the new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God" and the next verse declares that "now the dwelling place of God is with men and he will live with them."

I don't profess to know what this all means.  Honestly, I don't.  Except I do think that there is something here analogous to Jesus' new resurrection body after he came out of the tomb.  It was a real body--he was not just a spirit.  But the new body had capacities that would make any comic book super hero jealous.  It was a body, but way more than any body we have ever seen or known.  So the new earth is a resurrected earth. It will have some continuity with this earth, but without sin, without pain, without conflict, without evil, without lack, without death.

So, what about application to real life now?  Well, that is not so easy to work out either.  Except to say that Jesus and the New Testament seem to think it is pretty important that we get this.  God wants to release his Kingdom into our world.  He wants to overturn the reign of sin and deception and injustice and division and disease and death.  Ultimately this will be accomplished in the "new earth."  But up until the end, we are called to access this end or goal by faith and faith-inspired actions to see the Kingdom come increasingly into the now of this very real and important earth that needs the salvation of the Risen Lord and his Kingdom.