Now and Then vs. Now and the Not Yet

Yesterday was Easter.  It was a great day at www.srbcc.com.  We had two services with some great fellowship in between.

I don't intentionally work harder on Easter sermons than "regular" ones during the year.  That being said, I do feel like there are a lot of special Easter resources out there that I tend to get attracted to.  I found this great quote in one of the resources:

“Jesus' resurrection is the beginning of God's new project, not to snatch people away from earth but to colonize earth with the life of heaven.” - N.T. Wright, Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church.

So there is a lot here in this quote - I don't want to ignore or overlook the nuance or the context.  That being said, I think Wright is getting at something important.  Wright is, at some level, offering an alternative to the narrative that Christ's death and resurrection is strictly or merely an eschatological event.  Having read a lot of Wright's stuff, he would not deny the eschatological character of the resurrection.  Surely that exists.  

All of that said, much of the evangelical tradition (that I grew up in) emphasizes the eschatological character of the resurrection to the detriment of the ecclesial or ethical dimension of the resurrection.   To put it more bluntly, the evangelical tradition has always seen the resurrection of Christ as a "way to salvation."  Belief in Christ means that one is saved and going to heaven.

That's the "there and then."  But what does the resurrection of Christ mean for the "here and now?"

I think this is exactly what Wright wants us to think about.  Christ's work on the cross isn't just about a "one and done" salvation for each of us.  It's about how we live now.  Paul spends A LOT of time talking bout how we live "here and now."  Romans gets a lot of playing time, but what about 1 Corinthians, etc.  Now I happen to be in the "we have misread Paul for a long time" camp.  This doesn't mean that we can ignore him completely or just mine Romans for theological nuggets to prove a point we already believe.  If we 're gonna use, Paul - let's use him right and in good measure.  

What of ethical behavior?  I find it so odd that many Christians are so narrow in their discussion of it.  We all have no problem with Paul's command not so sleep with one's step-mom.  Most would find this behavior abhorrent.  Paul ALSO spends a lot of time in 1 Corinthians 11 discussing how the rich among them were abusing their wealth and having better meals and food than those who had less.  In other words, Paul is chastising them for the way they use their wealth.   In fact, in my experience, the church spends  a lot of time (way more than Paul and Jesus, no less) enamored with sexual sin.  Now I'm not saying sexual sin isn't important.  What I am saying is that we live in a over-sexualized culture and that we have chosen to 

This is sort of the classic battle, isn't it?