Curable or Chronic? Young people often don’t think about their illness or injury this way. Of course, every health crisis is curable! But as we grow more chronologically advantaged the new conditions we accumulate often become permanent unwanted companions. They become chronic, the new normal.
The phrase “the new normal” is most often used in a negative sense, expressing a sense of resignation over an unpleasant or unexpected permanent change to our lives that redefines our normal. While change is one of the unchanging certainties of life, we are naturally averse to the uncertainties it brings.
We like the old normal. It is comfortable and fits well. It is broken-in and we like the way it looks. The new normal is stiff, unfamiliar, demanding that we learn to like a new look. This is as true of our spiritual as well as our physical lives. This tension is what makes our sanctification as believers feel sometimes like a tug-o-war between our old sinful desires and the conviction of the Holy Spirit. The Puritans described this pointedly, writing that “though betrothed to Christ, believers often pine for their first husband, Adam.”
A transformed life is the new normal for believers. Though this glorious new normal often brings tension, uncertainty and questions. And this new normal promises another new normal, a radical and final new normal that comes with the return of Christ. A new normal that includes complete restoration of all things, our body and soul, our world, our affections and our activities, and our relationships with Christ and other believers.
It is a radical and instantaneous change, when Jesus will “will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body, according to the working by which He is able even to subdue all things to Himself.” (Philippians 3:21) Or as Paul describes it in 1 Corinthians 15:51-53.
Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed— in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.
Theologians refer to this moment as the General Resurrection. And despite Scripture’s description of this moment as a “blessed hope,” the resurrection provokes questions and anxiety. How will we be changed? How will the dead be raised up? And with what kind of body will we be raised? What will resurrection life be like? What does it mean to be “sown a natural body, but raised a spiritual body?”
The Scripture does not satisfy all our curiosity. It leaves wonderful surprises for the moment of Christ’s return. But it does give us enough detail to replace our anxiety about the end of the world with a longing for it. Join us as we examine 1 Corinthians 15:12-26 and 35-53 and consider just what makes the resurrection of the dead the blessed hope of believers. We meet on the square in Pottsville, right next to historic Potts’ Inn at 10:30 am for worship. Get directions here or contact us for more info. Or join our livestream on YouTube.
