Covenants are not just contracts, exchanges of property or actions. Covenant are about binding two parties together in a way that creates a new identity. God’s covenant with us is rooted in a promise of peace, since from the very beginning humanity was created to live in covenant partnership with God.
The summary of the gospel in its fullest sense is that God has a dream for the world’s wholeness. This dream of God’s is not rooted in violence or condemnation but in forgiveness and peace.
To the extent that our lives are shaped by fear we testify that we do not understand or believe the gospel. The power of the resurrection allows us to be vulnerable, to own up to our mistakes, and to live in the midst of the brokenness of the world by witnessing to it the newness of the dream of God.
We miss the power of the Resurrection if we only think about it in terms of the immortality of the soul or life in the hereafter. For me, it is about the ability to experience the fullness of life. It is about victory, not a military victory, but a over the power over Death — Death with a capital D. It is about the light of life finally shining in the darkness...
In that sense, Resurrection is not just about dead bodies rising, but about a specific kind of power — the power of a life so determined, so tenacious, so unshakably rebellious that it rises even in the face of death. It is the beauty of knowing that life, not Death, has the last word.
