On the day after Ash Wednesday, and contemplating our mortality, how about a little bit on resurrection? Nothing new to followers of this blog or my preaching, but I liked the way Moltmann says it here in these quotes from The Crucified God:
This world of death and the coming world of life are no longer set over against each other like two different periods of the world. . . . In that one man [Jesus the Christ] the future of the new world of life has already gained power over this unredeemed world of death and has condemned it to become a world that passes away. Therefore, in faith in the risen Jesus, men already live in the midst of the transitory world of death from the powers of the new world of life that have dawned in him.
By the way, I really like that phrase "the powers of the new world of life."
Or, for a different little bit of resurrection, there is this Mary Oliver poem, "Prayer," with which I ended our Ash Wednesday service last night:
May I never not be frisky,
May I never not be risqué.
May my ashes, when you have them, friend,
and give them to the ocean,
leap in the froth of the waves,
still loving movement,
still ready, beyond all else,
to dance for the world
Wonderful poem.
Posted by: Justin Fortney | February 23, 2012 at 10:40 AM