Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Oh, She'll Be Back Again

Yesterday I rode 17 miles on the road. It went pretty well. Today I am taking a rest day, even though it is beautiful. I could sleep all day, if I had the chance. But this morning I had a funeral for Julia Prater. Julia was a wonderful person. I do not know why her children wanted the funeral at the funeral home instead of the church. I will miss Julia, she was faithful and kind.

In the Acts of the Apostles, some of the Areopagites scoffed at the notion of the resurrection. Of course, they were not scoffing at the Christian belief, but at their own misunderstanding of it. In those days, many people looked at the events of life and could see nothing but decay. There is a lot of truth there- as soon as we get older, we start to fail. Getting up gets harder, our hair turns gray, sometimes it falls out, our strength leaves us. For that reason, some people of the ancient world believed the body to be a prison for the soul. And even today, many labor under that notion. So any talk of resurrection has those people scoffing. Someone even told me that the resurrection of the body was not good news, so they could not see it as part of the Christian faith.

Of course, who would want resurrection if it was to the same life we have now- the life of corruption and eventual weakness and suffering and death? But the resurrection for which we hope is not just to the same kind of life, with all its problems and sorrows. For those who experience the Resurrection of the Just to Life, it will be a new kind of life, free from suffering and death, free from corruption and weakness, free from sorrow and tears. Instead, it will be filled with joy.

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