Easter's Surprise Ending....Richard Neuhaus

I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.  (Galatians 2:20)

From As I Lay Dying, by Richard John Neuhaus.....
   
             In the years before my sickness, I had written
about the passage in terms of "the transportation of the ego."

    That still seemed to me a good phrase.

         Christ had taken my life into His, and I had

taken His life into me.

         There was, as it were, an exchange of essential identities. But now it seemed to me much more than a good theological point. Now it was the absolute center of what was happening to me, and what was going to happen to me.

         It was the crux--the cross point. This is what Christians mean when they say that in Baptism we die and  rise again with Christ. This is what we mean when we say we have been crucified with Christ, that on the cross He offered up not only His life, but our lives as well.

         And thus it became luminously clear to me as I fitfully thought through these questions, lying there on the hospital bed: I had already died! My death is behind me!

         The question of what is to happen to me now is not a question about me, but a question about Christ.

         And that question has been answered. "Christ is raised from the dead never to die again, death has no more dominion over Him."
                       
         Therefore death has no more dominion over me. At some point "it" will happen. This body will be separated from this soul, and that is a great sadness. I was not expecting it so soon...but it didn't really matter that much.....

                                        ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


        I tell you this, brethren: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the  perishable inherit the imperishable.

        Lo, 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 shall be raised imperishable and we shall be changed.

        For this perishable nature must put on the imperishable, and this mortal nature must put on immortality.

        Death is swallowed up in victory.

        Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

                                                            --1 Corinthians 15