The Hope of Glory: Do We Want It?

Last Sunday, Fr. Wayne mentioned the trial of the ointment bearing women as they traveled to the tomb of Christ for what they thought would be a service of love performed for a dead master. These women went to the tomb without any means of removing the great stone that stood in the entrance, and were, in fact, fretting about this quite practical concern as they neared the place where Christ had been laid to rest.

I cannot help but be struck by the conspicuousness of this practical worry. I cannot help but feel that it stands for a far greater sign of a pitiably human spiritual struggle. As Fr. Wayne points out, the hope of the Christian rests entirely on the power of Christ to move the unmovable and to set Himself (and us, by extension) free from the dark bonds of death and prison. But how many of us can actually and eagerly bear to hope for such a hope?

As I sat and listened to this sermon, I thought to myself "what would I do if Christ actually broke from the tomb where I have buried Him, out of pious devotion, in my heart, and started demanding that I take up my cross and follow Him into fullness of life?" Would it be a joy to see Christ rise, or a terror?! Would I be exultant at the resurrection, or would I be struck down in fear like the soldiers at the tomb (or hide myself in the rocks like the poor wretches in the Revelation of John). It is an easy thing to bring oil and spices to anoint the body of a dead lord... after all, there is nothing scary or demanding about something dead. How many of us go day after day to church, bringing our simple (if costly) gifts of prayer, time, money and service, comforting ourselves with the thought "oh well... of course we will never be able to remove the stone... but God could never expect that of us, could He? We will bring our little gifts and come back next week, and even if we are a little sad that He is dead, at least we know what we have to do now! There is nothing simpler or more straightforward than our duty to the dead... we must bring our spices and mourn our loss and comfort ourselves with the hope of the distant resurrection at the end of time... but there is certainly nothing eminent to be demanded of us - nothing to disturb our daily routine! God is here... he is shut inside this tomb, and I am free to go about my business as I please and, when I miss Him, to go and seek Him, for I always know exactly where He will be and what He will require me to do."

But oh... a risen God?! What may He require of us?! What if it is more than we have?! What if it is everything?! Where may He take us?! What if it is somewhere we do not want to go?! What if it is through martyrdom to the presence of angels and before the face of God (whom all in history have fallen down before as though dead and fainted in fear of being "undone")?! What if He wants to make us stay there!? What if He wants to give us more life than we would like to have? What if He will put us through any pain - any denial of pleasure or lack of rest - that is necessary to make us fit for such a life? And what if He wants to start now...

Does this prospect not strike terror into your soul? Would we not do anything... settle for anything... to have our little comforts and conveniences back, and to live a safe and uneventful life? Would we not try to convince ourselves of the great advantage of our current way of living, and cling to our sorrows and disappointments as sweet in comparison to such a monumental ordeal? When Christ rose from the dead, what He gave us was something that we were certainly not looking for... and something that we almost certainly did not want! To have God rise in the future is safe hope of future bliss, but God did not give us safety.

The capacity that we have for apathy is astounding!!! We are so desperately afraid of that which lies outside of our own experience... and we are so wickedly content with our self-centered, fallen lives on this earth. Though we are convinced that we desire fullness of life in Christ, really we have never even thought about the reality of this idea. It is one of those ideas that we are able to embrace only because we have put it off into a vague kind of "other-world" - an idea that is comfortable because it is not "here"- and have not considered the prospect of facing the trial today, in our present state! We are like the pompous knights of the old fairy tales, going about in our shiny armour and boasting about what we would do if we ever encountered a dragon... never really thinking of what fighting a dragon would be like! But what if our commission involves giving everything to this transformation now... this from this very hour? I think that we all too quickly speak of "adoring His third day resurrection".

If this resurrection (and our participation with Christ through baptism) is an actual event that takes place in our hearts as well as in history, and requires the resurrection of our whole being, then it is not a comfortable religious remembrance or a fond story that gives us a comfortable hope! It is a radical break from all things natural, normal, weak and fallen... and it is a call that leads us up into the terrible presence of God, where we will have to be made fit to be sons, and not slaves. If God can raise humanity from the grave and join us to Himself through Christ, then what may He not require of us? A slave can complain that, after all, he is only a slave... and the master cannot expect too much of weak laborers. "The stone is too big," we say, "and He cannot possibly expect us to move it. We will do what we can." But the man Jesus Christ removed the stone. Is any task too difficult for us through the power of Christ's resurrection? What is the measure of the riches that are given to us in the partaking of the Lord's Supper, and what will be our excuse on the Last Day when the Lord finds us feeding at the trough with the pigs, and not yet acting like sons?