Boundless

Matthew 28:6

The angelic announcement of resurrection proclaims the fullness of the Gospel. It gives us a means to grace—there are a few simple observations to keep in mind as we enter the presence of God—

God is unbound

God overwhelms creation as it is

This is nothing new

God invites us to participate in God’s overwhelming power

God wants us to grasp what that participation means for all people

God overwhelming creation is sometimes hard for us to accept because we hear that as a negative, when, in fact, it is a good. It is a good because it means that no matter what happens to us within the created order, God is vaster still and is fully able to redeem whatever it is that confronts us, including our own self-will that so often leads to destruction.

We can all think of times we wish we could rewind and reset, avoiding the pitfalls, the missed communication, the conflict, etc. that led to suffering. Our gospel proclaims that God can. It will not be a literal reset, but it will be a redemptive moment. It will be some assurance that suffering is temporary and that we will heal and move forward into something better.

Because God is not trapped, neither are we.

That is the joy of justification by faith—as we believe in God—or, biblically, on God—God joins us to himself, freeing us as God is free. But we need to fully understand what belief means in terms of God. If I set my shoes in the closet, I believe they are still there when I leave the house. Ergo, I believe God to be present even when I have no real evidence that it is so—I read the Bible, I hear the Church’s teaching and proclamation, and I believe God is here, God lives, and God knows us all. But more than that, I trust that what the biblical message tells us about God is sure, true, and certain. It is that trust that brings us hope in the midst of absolute darkness. It is that trust that allows me to proclaim with a straight face that as news pours from Nepal, devastated by an earthquake, that even the dead are well in God. They did not die in vain. They are in the embrace of God even now. More, it is that trust that allows me pray for those who enter to help with the recovery.  Their effort is not fruitless. There can be real and actual recovery. 

The simple statement here is resurrection—no circumstance we experience is final. There is more to come.

The key is to continually build and rebuild our ability to trust God to be God, to trust the story to be true, and to trust that we are part of that story.

How does that happen?

Trusting God to be God is to take God as God, realizing the cues to the power of God all around us all of the time. This ability comes when we slow ourselves down enough to truly see what is before us as we experience it. For instance, watching a group of children playing on the playground, we can easily celebrate the presence of God in children of God—there is no question that these are lambs of God’s fold, made by and in love. Now, facing a grizzled, world-weary adult at a soup kitchen who may not smell so great, may be grumpy and ungracious, just wanting to get through the line, do you see that you are face to face with the same child as on the playground? Being able to stop, take in who is there, and accept that God is present leads to knowing that God is God, everywhere, all the time. God made all of us, God is present with all of us, and so God with us can be trusted as true.

Trusting the story means learning how to actually read the Bible, taking scripture on its own terms, rather than trying to force it to fit within the mindset of our time and place. This move is NOT literalism—literalism is simply another form of materialism that seeks to confine God just like those Romans tried to confine Christ in a sealed tomb. The Word lives as God lives—it always and forever invites interpretation to meet the times, meet the people present, and offer them meaning, hope, and grace. Allow the Word the freedom to interpret our time, our place, and our lives, renewing the promises of God.

Trusting that we are in that story is the same as when we insert our lives into the stories of other communities and communions as we make our way through life. This move is one we make all the time without realizing we do so. When we join an office staff, we are placing ourselves in the narrative of that office. We have to learn the patterns, the history, and the relationships within that place. And we are joining our narrative to that narrative. We are inserting a new presence, a new story, and a new person (with all that implies) into the mix. The same is to be true as we join the narrative of faith. We join a story already being told. We join a story already full of experiences and connections and people. We have to learn all those things, learn all those patterns, and learn all those dynamics. Then, we insert all of our pieces into that mix. We realize that our words, actions, and presence are adding to the narrative. The story now rises from the page into the world. Remember this truth as you prepare for your next encounter with another person. The story is about to get another few paragraphs—what are you about to compose? Does that fit? Does that progress the narrative? What does it say?

As we get more adept at practicing these forms of trust, we begin to see and to experience resurrection as here and now, not simply a holy relic preserved in church. 

And that is the full acceptance of the Living God, something the angel proclaimed on the first Easter. The witnesses to the empty tomb could not base their proclamation on what was, but rather, they needed a new idiom of what is and what will be. And that begins by fully accepting the five simple revelations of the angel’s message—

God is unbound

God overwhelms all that is

God has always done so

God wants us included in this astounding presence

God wants us to take it in and share it