We started with the resurrection of Jesus early Sunday morning. This was a “dawning” from the darkness of death and the tomb to the light of eternal life. When Jesus returns there will be a dawning: from the judgment and Armageddon to Jesus’ reign in righteousness and peace. There is also a dawning in our hearts. We don’t think we are talking about the day we go to be with Christ, although that sounds like a dawning. We think Peter is talking about a dawning in our hearts, one that is related to the presence of the Word of God in our lives.
Isn’t Rom. 8:11 speaking of this event: But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you. This “resurrection” takes place in our “mortal bodies,” the body in which we live on this earth, the body which contained the irrepressible urge to sin, and the body which as believers in Christ we now present to Him as a living sacrifice. This “life” we have is, of course, the life of Christ, the risen Christ, the One who defeated death.
Today’s passage also speaks of this “dawning,” in my view. We are being transformed into the image of Christ, “from glory to glory.” Christ is the source of the light, the energy that enlightens us. This is all God’s work. God, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. And again, this is not talking about a future in heaven or our future bodily resurrection. We have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us!
Return to Mark 16 for one more thought. It’s in a word, a place: Galilee (16:7). At the Passover meal Jesus had told His disciples they would stumble and be scattered that night. But immediately He added: But after I have been raised, I will go before you to Galilee (Mt. 26:31-32). Don’t get discouraged by your failures, He said. After the “dawning” of the third day we will need to gather again.
Jesus appeared to the disciples on the two Sunday evenings after He was raised. There were other appearances. But Galilee was out there, a planned meeting, and Matthew tells us this meeting happened (28:16). It would be fascinating to know how the “impromptu” meeting in John 21, where Jesus restored Peter, fits into the schedule. It almost certainly happened before the planned meeting, with the plan to go fishing, and with Jesus helping Peter get past the denials/stumbling/scattering.
We get the basics in Mt. 28:18-20. First, All authority has been given to Me. Then, as you are going through your lives, make disciples of all nations, baptizing them … teaching them … and lo, I am with you always, even until the end of the age. There is a purpose for the light that is growing in brightness in these men, and in us, the followers of Christ. It is that we might be “the light of the world” wherever we go in this life, wherever our “earthen vessels” take us. May our personal “Morning Star” shine brighter so that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us.
No comments:
Post a Comment