Jesus issued an invitation for people to follow him, by putting their own interests aside and taking up their crosses, so that they would win their lives. They would be rewarded when he returned from heaven in glory. (See Matthew 16:24-27; Mark 8:34-38; Luke 9:23-26; John 12:24-26)

What was Jesus Christ talking about? Was it “good people die and going to heaven” or “heaven coming to earth”? The Christian Scriptures are abundantly clear; Jesus was talking about “heaven coming to earth”. “Going to heaven” was just an intermediate stage, a “holding pattern,” for those who die before his returns to complete the establishment of his kingdom on earth.

The first thing that the Creed teaches us is that God is the ‘creator of heaven and earth’. God is bigger than anything. He stands outside of creation like a watchmaker stands outside a watch.

‘God loves his creation’ is an underlying principle of the Jewish Scriptures. At the beginning of the Bible we read, “God saw all he had made, and indeed it was very good.” (Genesis 1:31; see Psalm 104 and Psalm 148) And if there is anything wrong with creation, it is because of the sin of Adam; “Accursed be the soil because of you!” (Genesis 3:17)

Another principle is that the rest of creation, as we know it, is ordered towards humanity as “the image of God” (See Genesis 1:27-28). That is why there was a disordering of nature when Adam sinned.

Paul realized our redemption in Christ would affect nature with the Return of Christ. He wrote: “The whole of creation is waiting with eagerness for the children of God to be revealed…freed from its slavery to corruption and brought into the same glorious freedom as the children of God.” (Romans 8:20-21)

Already this re-ordering of creation was starting with the public ministry of Jesus. It is intriguing in Mark’s Gospel that Jesus starts out preaching: “The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is close at hand. Repent and believe the good news” (Mark 1:15). Yet, Mark does not give us Jesus’ teaching on the kingdom. Instead he writes about Jesus, casting out demons, healing people and even forgiving sins. He is pointing to Jesus’ actions to show us the kingdom-in-action.

Healing people was a re-ordering of creation, as were the ‘nature miracles’ such as the multiplication of food and walking on water. After Jesus had walked on water, Mark makes a telling comment: “ Then he got into the boat with them and the wind dropped. They were utterly and completely dumbfounded, because they had not seen what the miracle of the loaves meant; their minds were closed.” (Mark 6:51-52)

So what is an open mind? It is the mind of a little child. Jesus took little children as a sermon-in-action: “ ‘I tell you, anyone who does not welcome the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.’ Then he embraced them, laid his hands on them and gave them his blessing.” (Mark 10:15-16) Little children do not put limits on the world around them. They know that the world is so much bigger than they are and it is a wondrous place of discovery. It is only later in childhood that they try to reduce reality to the formulation of their discoveries. [The secret, of course, is to use formulae as stepping-stones to new discoveries]

Jesus talked of God as ‘Abba’ (Father). It is an expression that is rich in meaning. Two aspects that it draws together are the bigness of God and the involvement of God. God, who made everything and sustains it, is involved with his creation.

God is certainly passionate about humanity; but this involvement is also bigger than us. God is restoring the rest of creation from the effect of Adam’s sin. He is bringing about a new creation. (See 2 Corinthians 5:17; also Isaiah 65:17)

Talk of “the sky dissolving in flames and the elements melting in the heat” (See 2 Peter 3:12) does not refer to a physical meltdown of creation, but to purification from sin by symbolic fire. (See 1 Peter 1:7; 1 Corinthians 3:13-15) Creation will be so purified that the “upright people will be at home” in it. (See 2 Peter 3:13)

So God is not going to keep us bodiless in heaven. But we are going to participate fully in the new creations with bodies like the one Jesus showed his followers after his Resurrection. (See 1 Corinthians 15:48-49, 52-53)

For your reflection:

1. “God saw all he had made, and indeed it was very good. Evening came and morning came: the sixth day. Thus heaven and earth were completed with all their array.” (Genesis 1:31-2:1)

2. “Accused be the soil because of you! Painfully will you get your food from it as long as you live.” (Genesis 3:17)

3. “It was not for its own purposes that creation had frustration imposed on it, but for the purposes of him who imposed it, with the intention that the whole of creation itself might be freed from its slavery to corruption and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God." (Romans 8:20-21)

4. “And not only this: we too, who have the first-fruits of the Spirit, even we are groaning inside ourselves, with eagerness for our bodies to be set free.” (Romans 8:22-23)

5. ‘I tell you, anyone who does not welcome the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.’ Then he embraced them, laid his hands on them and gave them his blessing.” (Mark 10:15-16)

6. “Send forth yours spirit and renew the face of the earth” (Psalm 104:30)

7. “Praise him, sun and moon; praise him, all shining stars; praise him, highest heavens; praise him, waters above the heavens. Let them praise the name of the Lord at whose command they were made: he established them for ever and ever by an unchanging decree.” (Psalm 148:3-6)

2: Resurrection

In the time of Jesus there was a range of beliefs about the after-life. Some people believed that when we die there was nothing to follow. Some held to a disembodied suspension, like Sheol for the Jews. Some thought that departed souls went to Hades, like the Greeks influenced by Homer and Plato. Some prepared the bodies of the dead for an after-life somewhat like this one, as Egyptian burial practices show.

However, among the Jewish People, a number had come to believe that God’s faithful people would rise from the dead when God came amongst them in glory. Those who had died before his coming would not miss out on living with God on earth in ‘the age to come’ (See Mark 10:30; Ephesians 1:21; Hebrews 6:5 for the expression "age to come").

Up to the time of the return from the Babylonian captivity, the Jewish People identified more with the survival of their nation than with what happened to individuals after death. So we do not have much evidence for belief in resurrection.

The Sadducees, of Our Lord’s time, were the conservative party in Israel, holding strongly to the Books of the Law in which there is no explicit reference to resurrection.

Belief in resurrection probably germinates after the return from Babylonian captivity when people started thinking why some evil people sometimes prospered in this world and good people could strike misfortune. This question was laid out in the Book of Job. The author admits that the answer is beyond him and puts on the lips of Job these words: “I have been holding forth on matters I cannot understand, on marvels beyond me and my knowledge.” (Job 42:3) But he seems to have caught a glimpse of where the answer lies with these memorable words: “This I know: that my Defender lives, and he, the Last, will take his stand on earth. After my awaking, he will set me close to him, and from my flesh I shall look on God.” (Job 19:25-26)

Some centuries later, belief in resurrection came into its own at the time of the dreadful persecution of the Jewish People by Antiochus Epiphanes. Written about this time the Book of Daniel featured a past hero of the Babylonian captivity and it was written to encourage God’s People who would not be left without hope for those who had died: “Of those who are sleeping in the Land of Dust, many will awaken, some to everlasting life, some to shame and everlasting disgrace.” (Daniel 12:2)

Chapter seven of the Second Book of Maccabees, written in the same period, shows us how strong the belief in resurrection had become for those who stood up for the Law of God. It records the way a mother encouraged her seven sons to face death: “I do not know how you appeared in my womb; it was not I who endowed you with breath and life, I had not the shaping of your every part. And hence, the Creator of the world, who made everyone and ordained the origin of all things, will in his mercy give you back breath and life, since for the sake of his laws you have no concern for yourselves.” (2 Maccabees 7:22-23)

The Pharisees were the heirs of the Maccabees of a couple of centuries earlier and they had a great influence on the ordinary people. The followers of Jesus stood in that tradition as Martha had occasion to express when confronting Jesus over the death of her brother, Lazarus. “Jesus said to her, ‘Your brother will rise again.’ Martha said, ‘I know he will rise again at the resurrection on the last day.’ (John 11:23-24) Jesus then went on to raise Lazarus from the dead.

Resurrection of Jesus from the dead went beyond his raising people who would die again. It was like having a symphony orchestra reach a crescendo and then fall silent. Then a lone flute starts playing a new theme and the orchestra gradually picks it up.

The Resurrection stories are stark in their simplicity. There are not many resonances with themes from the Jewish Scriptures as we find in the infancy narratives of Matthew and Luke. Even for people, who believed in the resurrection on the last day, there was hesitation in accepting that Jesus had risen from the dead. Also, there was a real humanness about his encounters, calling a person by name, walking and talking as a stranger, offering his wounds for inspection, cooking breakfast for fishermen. And his abilities to stand in a locked room, to disappear from a dinner table, to listen in unseen to a conversation, were recorded without elucidation or comment. It was truly a new theme.

For your reflection:

1. “You are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified: he has risen, he is not here. See here is the place where they laid him” (Mark 16:6)

2. “He spoke to Thomas, ‘Put your finger here; look, here are my hands. Give me your hands; put it into my side’.” (John 20:27)

3. “Heaven gave me these limbs; for the sake of his laws I have no concern for them; from him I hope to receive them again.” (2 Maccabees 7:11)

4. “I am the resurrection. Anyone who believes in me, even if he dies, he will live.” (John 11:25)

5. “After my awaking, he will set me close to him, and from my flesh I shall look on God.” (Job 19:26)

6. “Now, we are those witnesses – we have eaten and drunk with him after his resurrection from the dead” (Acts 10:41

7. “He has ordered us to proclaim to his people and to bear witness that God has appointed him to judge the living and the dead” (Acts 10:42)

3: Second Coming

Resurrection comes in two parts, first the resurrection of Jesus and then of his faithful when he returns. And this is all part of a “new creation” which was started on Easter Sunday. (See 2 Corinthians 5:17)

The people of Philippi were a colony of Roman citizens. They probably had little desire to live in over-crowded Rome but they would have been very happy for the Roman Emperor to be present among them. They would have gone out of the city gates to welcome him and escort him in. And he would have sorted out any problems they were having with the people around them who were making it difficult for them to live in the Roman life-style. So the Christians of Philippi understood very clearly what Paul meant when he wrote:

“But we are citizens of heaven and it is from there that we are expecting a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transfigure our wretched bodies into copies of his glorious body, through the working of the power which he has, even to bring all things under his mastery.” (Philippians 3:20-21)

The Greek word for the arrival of the Emperor was ‘parousia’ and it became a technical term for the early Christians for the second coming of Jesus. And when they called Jesus ‘Lord’, they were stating that their allegiance to Jesus was more important than their allegiance to Caesar. There is ultimately only one Lord so that when they proclaimed, “Jesus is Lord" the unspoken by-line was "and Caesar isn’t”.

In the early Church, Christ's followers put their weight on the fact that Jesus had risen from the dead as the 'first fruit' of a new creation. And they looked towards the return of Jesus, knowing that their bodies would become "copies of his glorious body" (Philippians 3:21). Living between the Resurrection and the Parousia is rather like riding a bicycle: most of your weight is over the rear wheel and you use the front wheel to steer.

For the early Christians this was no downhill ride. They were expected to work, preparing for their master’s return. If they did well, they would be well rewarded; if they didn’t they would be punished. (See Matthew 25:14-30 and Luke 12:48) They would face a lot of hardships. (See Matthew 10:17-23) Non-believers would also be rewarded, if they helped “one of the least of these brethren of” Jesus (Matthew 25:40 see 10:42) who had been thrown into prison or left without food or clothing.

The followers of Christ were to be prepared for his coming at any time. (See Matthew 25:13; Luke 12:36) So there was to be no excuse for laziness when he did not come quickly. They were to be people on fire, so committed to the service of Christ that even family members would oppose them. (See Luke 12:49-53) They would be individuals who would 'make a difference'. Remember, this was in a culture where the family, not the individual or the clan, was the basic unit of survival and prosperity.

But they were not left without help. (See John 14:26; 16:7) They were given the Holy Spirit as their guide and their power. As any cyclist would appreciate, a wind that is always blowing towards the destination and tugging at the bicycle when it moves off its course is a very helpful wind.

For your reflection:

1. “Why are you Galileans standing here looking into the sky? This Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven will come back in the same way as you have seen go to heaven” (Acts 1:11)

2. “He will send to you the Christ he has predestined, that is Jesus, whom heaven must keep till the universal restoration comes.” (Acts 3:20-21)

3. “Blessed those servants whom the master finds awake when he comes. In truth I tell you, he will do up his belt, sit them at table and wait on them.” (Luke 12:37)

4. “And indeed, anyone who does wrong hates the light and avoids it to prevent his actions being shown up; but whoever does the truth comes out into the light, so that what he is doing may plainly appear as done in God.” (John 3:20-21)

5. “Love comes to perfection in us when we can face the Day of Judgement fearlessly, because even in this world we have become as he is.” (1 John 4:17)

6. “Just as all die in Adam, so in Christ all will be brought to life, but all of them in their proper order: Christ the first-fruits, and next, at his coming, those who belong to him.” (1 Corinthians 15:22-23)

7. “If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead has made his home in you, then he who raised Jesus from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit living in you.” (Romans 8:11)

4: New Creation

With the outpouring of the Spirit, the new creation has already begun. In Luke’s account of Pentecost the first sign of the Spirit’s presence in power is the “sound of a mighty wind blowing” (Acts 2:2) recalling the “divine wind sweeping over the waters” (Genesis 1:2) in the first creation.

The Spirit is resurrection power in a person. As we can see from Paul’s teaching, the Spirit is at work in us now and will raise us up with Christ: “Thus, condemnation will never come to those who are in Christ Jesus, because the law of the Spirit which gives life in Christ has set you free from the law of sin and death…If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead has made his home in you, then he who raised Jesus from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit living in you.” (Romans 8:1-2,10-11)

So the Spirit "is the down payment of our inheritance" (Ephesians 1:14 see 2 Corinthians 1:22) which is the "kingdom prepared for us since the foundation of the world" (Matthew 25:33) and belongs to the gentle who "shall have the earth as an inheritance" (Matthew 5:4). This is the people bought for God with Christ's blood "of every race, language, people and nation" and made "a line of kings and priests for God to rule the world". (Revelation 4:9-10)

Where we are shown in the Christian Scriptures how to live, it normally comes after an exposition of who we are as Church, living in anticipation of the Second Coming. The scriptures present a pattern, namely, "Who we are" followed by "How we act". We can see this transition in Ephesians 14:17, Colossians 3:5, 1 Peter 2:11 and 1 John 1:6.

Although codes of conduct may have been drawn from Jewish practice or from Greek philosophy, they are presented as the way people should live in the kingdom already established by the death and resurrection of Christ, in the knowledge that he would be returning to "judge the living and the dead". They saw themselves living in the new creation here and now. This would be a struggle because they would have to consistently oppose the life of self-indulgence. (See Gal 5:16; Eph 5:3,5; Col 3:5; 1 Pt 2:11)

St John's first letter is a treatise on how 'we live in light' (1 John 1:6). He writes of breaking with sin, the commandment of love, detachment from the world and guarding against the antichrist. All of this, he places in the context of a loving community. (See 1 John 2:9-10)

This belief in the Resurrection of Jesus, and in his Parousia, drove the early Christians to transform the world, not to withdraw from it. They were so convinced that the new creation had begun with the resurrection of Jesus that they transferred their Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday, "the Lord's Day". The expression "first day of the week" echoed the "first day" of creation (See Genesis 1:5). Every week as they gathered for Eucharist on the Sunday, they were commemorating the first day of the new creation. This new creation was brought about by Christ's death and will be completed when he comes again. So Paul could write: "Whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you are proclaiming the Lord's death until he comes." (1 Corinthians 11:26)

In the Second Century, the great leaders of the Church kept their focus on the Christ's return. Ignatius, Justin, Tertullian and Irenaeus added to our understanding of the Parousia as they grappled with the pagan beliefs around them.

In later centuries, Christians began new ventures such as hospitals, the care of the destitute, applied science, the abolition of slavery, the development of trade unions and charters of human rights. Hope in Christ's return was not an excuse to escape from the world, but (even for the most reclusive hermits) to transform the world.

If the Christians of the first three centuries had the mentality that, when they died, they simply went to heaven to enjoy the beatific vision for all eternity, they would have had no more effect on Roman society than any of the Gnostic groups that were developing at the same time. But they knew that their king would be returning and he would judge all according to how they had handled ‘little things’ (Luke 19:17; Matthew 25:21). As the saying goes, “Anyone who is trustworthy in little thing [like money] is trustworthy in great” (Luke 16:10).

Trustworthiness in the things of this age would lead to responsibility in the age to come. (See Luke 19:19; Revelation 5:9-10) Rewarding Christ’s followers with responsibility in this world would complete the circle of restoration since God gave the sinless Adam the responsibility to “cultivate and take care of” (Genesis 2:15) the Garden of Eden.

The community of believers needs the strength of a hinge pin. We are in the world and are destined to have responsibility for the world. But we are citizens of heaven, living as the ‘new creation’ now. Like a hinge pin we are the connecting link between God and creation. We need to be vigilant: “Watch yourselves, or your hearts will be coarsened by debauchery and drunkenness and the cares of life, and that day will come upon you unexpectedly, like a trap. Stay awake, praying at all times for the strength to survive all that is going to happen, and to hold your ground before the Son of man.” (Luke 21:34-36) This relationship with God, who is returning, is one of great love. It is like the desire of a bride for her groom to arrive. (See Revelation 22:17) So the prayer of the Church is “Amen; come, Lord Jesus.” (Revelation 22:20; see Acts 3:20-21; 1 Corinthians 15:20)

For your reflection:

1. “So for anyone who is in Christ, there is a new creation: the old order is gone and a new being is there to see.” (2 Corinthians 5:17)

2. “Let your behaviour be free from murmuring and complaining so that you remain faultless and pure, unspoilt children of God surrounded by a deceitful and underhand brood…Then I shall have reason to be proud on the Day of the Lord.” (Philippians 2:14-16)

3. “All beings in the heavens, on earth and in the underworld, shall bend the knee at the name of Jesus and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.” (Philippians 2:10-11)

4. “Always behave honourably among gentiles so that they can see for themselves what moral lives you lead, and when the day of reckoning comes, give thanks to God for the things which now make them denounce you as criminals.” (1 Peter 2:12)

5. “And so I tell you this: use money, tainted as it is, to win you friends, and thus make sure that when it fails you, they will welcome you into eternal dwellings.” (Luke 16:9)

6. “Then I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride dressed for her husband.” (Revelation 21:2)

7. “The Spirit and the Bride say, ‘Come!’ Let everyone who listens answer, ‘Come!” (Revelation 22:17)

The Invitation

In union with the Spirit, read Our Lord's invitation to join him in risen life:

If you want to follow me, you must deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me. If you want to save your life, you will lose it, and if you lose your life for my sake you will find it.

For what will it profit you if you gain the whole world and forfeit your life? What would you give in payment for the return of that life?

If you are ashamed of me and my words, I will be ashamed of you when I come in the glory of the Father with the holy Angels.

(See Matthew 16:24-27; Mark 8:34-38; Luke 9:23-26; John 12:24-26)

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The conclusion is simple: Follow Jesus now and when he returns be given responsibility to care for the new creation.