Hopeful Thought for the Day

As long as we see Christian hope in terms of “going to heaven,” of a salvation that is essentially away from this world, the two questions are bound to appear as unrelated.  Indeed, some insist angrily that to ask the second one at all is to ignore the first one, which is the really important one.  This in turn makes some others get angry when people talk of resurrection, as if this might draw attention away from the really important and pressing matters of contemporary social concern.  But the Christian hope is for God’s new creation, for “new heavens and the new earth,” and if that hope has already come to life in Jesus of Nazareth, then there is every reason to join the two questions together.  And if that is so, we find that answering the one is also answering the other.  I find that to many — not least, many Christians — all this comes as a surprise:  both that the Christian hope is surprisingly different from what they had assumed and that this same hope offers a coherent and energizing basis for work in today’s world.

N.T. Wright, Surprised by Hope:  Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church