“Surprised by Hope” by N.T. Wright

“If you died tonight, do you know where you would go?”

I hate that question. it has bothered me for a while. Is it a real question or a threat?

I guess the root of this frustration has been there for a while. I want to expose it.

I have a confession to make. The last two Easters have felt empty to me. Yes, as a senior pastor I felt empty about Easter. I guess it was because I had a ton of questions that modern Christianity wasn’t able to answer. Not the least of which was, “So what? What does Christ’s resurrection challenge me with today?” (For those of you that suffer through my teachings, you understand the questioning thing.) Through all the books and commentaries, the emphasis on the resurrection seemed lacking. The focus was, “See, he has risen from the grave, so it proves who Christ is.” Not that that is a bad thing, but I began to feel like the Gospels were just a long introduction to bring me to that fact. Sadly, it still left me frustrated. Not to mention all the “heaven bound, escape from this world” crap that I hear, not on TBN, but from the pew warmers.

I have been silent about these questions, mostly because I didn’t even know where to turn with them. I almost felt like I was betraying my faith in having those kinds of questions. But, then I ran across a blog of someone that was more honest than me about their frustration. I could sense that we were on the same page. The church had moved the emphasis of Jesus from resurrection to him dying “to pay the price for your sins and become your personal savior.” (Excuse me; I felt a little throw-up come up into my mouth.) It is a subtle shift, but when you really begin to look at it, it makes a world of a difference.

A book that helped him wrestle through this was “Surprised by Hope” by N.T. Wright. If you haven’t read him before, he is pretty challenging. This work begins to re-examine the resurrection and how it truly belongs at the center of the Gospel message and that Christ’s resurrection is the life force of our message of hope for today.

I will have to go back through it because a first reading just over whelmed me. But, I believe that it is the first step in reclaiming the power of Easter.