Except for This2 min read

Life is daunting. M.S. Peck famously began his book, The Road Less Traveled, with this line, “Life is difficult.” You will find the same theme in Psalm 73. You will find the same reality almost daily at the kitchen table, or in the news, or at the doctor’s office or when the kids get home from school. It can all become too much.

Except for this: Christ has indeed been raised from the dead.

Our life together as Church and within our congregations has its challenges. We have witnessed decline. We struggle getting enough volunteers and full-time church workers. The culture of the land intrudes and disrupts. We tend to major on minors and minimize the call to love God above all things and our neighbors as ourselves. We meet bureaucracy at every turn where we expect to find collaboration. There are indications that the Church’s “best days” are behind her.

Except for this: Christ has indeed been raised from the dead.

Have you said prayers that have seemed to have gone unanswered? Are there things that you experience in the world that don’t add up with the Word? Are there things you read in the Word that don’t add up with the world? Does your confidence in Jesus wane as secularism continues to rise? Do you expect to see more of God’s power at work than what you see? Maybe it is time to give up on it all?

Except for this: Christ has indeed been raised from the dead.

As we continue to bask in the victory over sin, death, and the devil made certain by both the death and the resurrection of Jesus, let us approach each day with boldness, confidence, joy, and love. Certainly, we live in a broken world with its brokenness poking into all areas of our lives. At the same time, we live in an eternal Kingdom with a resurrected King reigning at the right hand of the Father. He continues to build that Kingdom, having assured us that nothing can withstand its advance.

We make an important distinction in our circles about a “theology of the cross” and a “theology of glory.” With the Easter Season soon giving way to Pentecost, let’s consider a “theology of the Gospel.” Through Jesus’ incarnation, death, resurrection, and ascension, a good Kingdom has drawn near. By the proclamation of the Gospel, it inexorably breaks out around the world drawing people from every tribe and nation into it. (See Luther’s Explanation to The Second Petition of the Lord’s Prayer.) It is a Kingdom that is ours by faith; powerful and victorious even if experienced in a certain hiddenness.

So onward, people of God.

At times all might seem to be lost and left behind and the world victorious. And outward experiences might lead us to believe that is true.

Except for this: Christ has indeed been raised from the dead.

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