Life: As it really is….

A friend of mine who has lived with the crippling results of childhood meningitis says that in his experience, Christians seem to have difficulty accepting the reality that life is hard. Life has excellent moments, but the overwhelming reality is, life is hard.

Of course, we know this because this is what the Bible teaches! Our world is broken. People are flawed. Relationships are a mess. There are glorious moments – but the trajectory of all things is hardship. This began when Adam and Eve were expelled from the garden. Work became hard. Childbirth became hard. Marriage became hard. Life became hard. And death became our only certainty.

Life outside the garden is characterised by death. But this is not what God intended. He wanted us to live eternally and peacefully with him, and the Bible makes it very clear where the responsibility for death and all this brokenness lies – it lies with us. This is the world as we have made it.

No matter how fervently we may wish it were not so, life is hard.

Thankfully, Jesus deals with all the consequences of our sin and brokenness in his death but there is for us only a slow-release of the enjoyment that flows from the cross. While we are forgiven and presently God’s children we are not yet free of the world or our bodies. Despite being sinless in the eyes of God because we are in Christ, we still sin. Despite being a new creation in Christ we still get sick and die.

Jesus says…..
25 Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies;  26 and whoever lives and believes in me will never die”.

If we had it all now then we wouldn’t sin and we wouldn’t die but sin and bodily frailty are still part of this life. The clearest demonstration of the reality that we do not yet enjoy the full fruits of Christ’s death is the fact that a Christian still dies bodily. We eagerly await the fullness of our inheritance – the resurrection of the dead.

It will not be until our Lord returns that sickness will finally be done away with and at that time there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain (Revelation 21:1-6). As Glenn Davies, our Archbishop said to me once, “the ultimate act of healing is death!”

Many in our community are grieving and suffering. Our prayers of comfort and hope are with you. Our arms are around you.

Prayerfully,
Nigel