Bishop's CornerThe Scope of Our Hope
By Bishop Timothy W. Whitaker
 In “The Everlasting Man” G. K.
Chesterton observed that when the women went to Jesus’ tomb on Sunday
morning they “hardly realized that it was the world that had died in
the night. What they were looking at was the first day of a new
creation, with a new heaven and a new earth.”
When we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus
Christ from the dead we rejoice in the promise of eternal life. As the
apostle Paul said, “He will transform the body of our humiliation
that it may be conformed to the body of his glory, by the power that
also enables him to make all things subject to himself” (Philippians
3:21).
Yet, the resurrection of Jesus is not only hope
for each of us personally; it is also hope for all of creation (“all
things”). The God who is revealed in the resurrection of Jesus is
the Creator, and Jesus’ resurrection is the sign of God’s purpose
to transform all of creation so that it fulfills God’s purposes. Our
own resurrection will be a participation in the “new creation” (2
Corinthians 5:17) for which “the creation waits with eager longing”
(Romans 8:19).
In “On Belief in the Resurrection,” St.
Ambrose, the bishop of Milan in the fourth century, wrote “For if He
rose not for us, He certainly rose not at all, for He had no need to
rise for Himself. The universe rose again in Him, the heaven rose
again in Him, the earth rose again in Him, for there shall be a new
heaven and a new earth.”
We have no words to describe the cosmic
dimension of Jesus’ resurrection because we have no capacity to
conceive it. The revelation of God to prophets and apostles does not
contradict the evidence of the natural sciences that the whole
universe and everything in it will die. Nevertheless, the resurrection
of Jesus is God’s sign that there is a power at work in creation by
which it will be transformed beyond our imagining into what C.S. Lewis
called the “New Nature.”
Whenever we reduce the hope of the resurrection
to “the salvation of our souls,” we are conditioned to think that
the natural world or the social and political history of the human
race is not a part of God’s purpose. Knowing that Jesus’
resurrection is the sign of a new creation, our faith in him is not
only a promise of eternal life but also a summons to care for the
creation and witness to justice and peace on earth. “Glorify God in
your body” (I Corinthians 6:20) as you do the work of Jesus Christ,
knowing that “in the Lord your labor is not in vain.” (I
Corinthians 15:58).
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