Falling, falling falling; the leaves are dropping now like rain, like snow covering the grass and my pick-up and the driveway. The branches and boughs must be content somehow to release the weight, responsibility, burden of all of their hundreds of thousands of broad leaves in light of the upcoming “long winter’s nap.” I can almost hear the exhale of relief after 8 months of labor of photosynthesis and hydration and evaporation and oxygenization as the November wind blows more of these gray-brown leaves to their mulch-heaps. But it is not a fatalism that November brings; it is a hope of April … a hope of the resurrection. The trees are just making space for the resurgence of life—new leaves can’t bud unless the old leaves are gone. “That which you sow does not come to life unless it dies” (1 Corinthians 15:36). The trees are banking on resuscitation. They are keeping no leaves in reserve just in case springtime doesn’t show up [old leaves which wouldn’t work anyway in the flipside]. Their “today” is impacted by their tomorrow. Tomorrow’s resurrection directly touches today’s decisions, morality, priorities and endurance. After a long, exquisite, reasonable and detailed lesson on the necessity of the resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15, Paul adds this encouragement to his readers: “Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord” (15:58). Steadfastness, immovability, endurance—these are a direct result of the firm belief in the resurrection in the Lord. Today’s toil is not what we have to muddle through just killing time until the resurrection. No! We toil today “knowing that [our] toil is not in vain in the Lord” … the same Lord who told Martha earlier in a similar context where the resurrection of the dead was kind of relegated to the hereafter and erroneously divorced from the toil and worry and pain of today. “Jesus said, ‘I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies. And everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?’” (John 11:25-26). Present tense—I am the resurrection and the life. Present tense—Martha, do you believe this, right now in mourning, right here in the graveyard? Tomorrow’s resurrection is arguably the most concrete and reliable piece of our today. The fact of Christ’s resurrection—foretold, accomplished, witnessed, recorded, passed on through preaching (1 Corinthians 15:1-11)—trumps all other “facts” that fill our days. And every day we have the question placed to us: “Do you believe this?”
Do we believe the resurrection in the hospital room, in the courtroom, in the living room, in the bedroom? Do we believe the resurrection in the quiet, in the noise, in the soft, in the hard? Do we believe the resurrection when all human hope is gone, when all bets are lost, when all dreams have become nightmares, when all delights have turned to ash in our experience? Today—especially a “today” that is painful—is exactly the moment where resurrection needs to be remembered. After all, resurrection is the signature miracle of our great God and Savior—bringing life out of death. Are we making space by faith for the resurgence of life?
