The Great Reversal
In the spring, I’m a rugby coach. I’m also a lot of other things, but in the spring, I live in my rugby sweatshirt. I love the smell of the earth—the dirt softening and giving way to grass. I love that it is a sport that draws together an eclectic group of players, a few who are naturally athletic or have played other sports, but also many for whom this is it, a hodgepodge of misfits finding a place to belong. At this point in the season they are still becoming familiar with each other and the game. I may be one of the few people out there enamoured with a sport because of how it reminds me of the disciples, but there you go. Some insight into how my head works.
This helps explain the metaphor that I’ll use for the resurrection. So, there are games where you get properly bruised, bloody and covered in mud. In my playing days, I knew what it was to hurt and be at my end, and feel like there was no chance of victory. To feel hopeless about that little micro-moment contained in a game. Am I comparing this to the excruciating torture of the crucifixion? By no means. But I’m choosing a palatable metaphor because I’m more than worn out from all the news of actual horror unfolding constantly around the world.
So back to the game. Imagine you are at the end of the game and at the end of yourself and the time has run out. In rugby, the game isn’t over until the time has run out AND the ball is dead. Only the truly audacious hold onto hope once time has run out. Imagine your opponent has the ball, and the clock has hit zero. You’re muddy, bloody and done, as is the rest of your team. The team on offence has had you on your heels for so long that they have already defeated you psychologically. At this point, you’re simply trying to contain the damage. And suddenly out of nowhere, your captain makes a move. Exploding out of defensive mode, they make an offensive reach for the ball, intercept the ball and make the full field run to the end to secure a victory.
Hallelujah!
He is risen!
(You get the point.)
So why have I invited you into this image that you could have gotten as a movie from your streaming platform of choice? Because we are called to carry this strategy, in heavenly form, into the world. God is always looking for the opportunity to burst forth with an offence of love to disarm the enemy. (Nope. Rugby opponents aren’t enemies, but the Evil one is.) Christ’s resurrection reminds us that there is no such thing as hopeless.
Resurrection is both the strategy of heaven and the power of heaven. In Colossians, Paul invites us to set our hearts and minds on ‘things above’. ‘Above’ is a gesture to the heavenly reality of Christ on the throne victorious, and His ways of establishing the culture. In this reality, we are drawn together across difference. There is flourishing and belonging; surrender and freedom; life everlasting and love incomprehensible. All, the antitheses of worldly empire and economic domination. Our Creator’s heart is to reclaim and renew all of creation towards this reality—driving out the darkness of exploitation and death.
Resurrection power is that which calls life out of death. What the enemy sought to contain through crucifixion became the opportunity for love to break in and expand across the whole earth. And today we are invited to let that vision become reestablished in our hearts and minds. We are invited to join Mary at the tomb to witness the first hints of the great reversal. The fragrance of embalming spices yet in her hands, the freshness of morning dew and damp clinging to her body. But incomprehensibly, the body—the battered evidence of defeat—was gone. Instead, heaven burst forth, not from above coming down, but from the depths of hell (however you might understand that to exist) busting out, having defeated death’s power once and for all. The life-giving power of God uncontainable by darkness. The people of God, Jesus’ friends, called to rally their hope. Love not only overcame defeat but immediately began an offensive strategy of renewal that continues to be played out today.
One of my dearest friends is fighting cancer right now, and I asked God for a heavenly perspective on her battle. Holy Spirit showed me that in the natural there are days where she is lying in the sick and the mess, but in the spiritual, her faith and her witness are releasing love and life into the world, disarming the power of the enemy. She’s intercepted the ball and is making a run.
It is a hard-learned lesson that it is most frequently in the dark places where Christ’s love-power is most evident. It is an even more difficult task to be one who carries the resurrection hope, strategy, and power into those circumstances. But if you listen, you will hear the whisper of heaven: “hold onto hope”. In every challenge there is an opportunity; in every broken place the potential for restoration; every tragedy the chance to be re-storied. As resurrection people, carrying the reigning Christ within our flesh, we have the delegated authority to call it into being. So look for the opportunity. Even with heels on your own line and the time running out, it isn’t over.
He is risen.
And we are called to rise with Him.
We are risen indeed.
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