Reflections on Resurrection

In early July, my family read a book aloud together. I was the only one who had not read it before and after finishing it once through with them I immediately read it two more times on my own and once aloud with Brett. If you have not read The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis, go read it now before you even finish this post because it is that good.

In his book, Lewis writes in first person as a character living inside a story of the eternal choices people make between life and death. Some choose death over life because they do not wish to give up something or someone they hold more precious than God himself. As Traherne commented in his Centuries of Meditations, It is not that they love other things too much, but that they do not love the things they desire enough and they do not love God. A weak and decrepit passion can only become wholesome and true when it is first killed and resurrected in submission to Love.

I had the opportunity in early August to be a camp counselor for my sister's high school youth group. As the youth pastor had difficulty finding willing volunteers, I was the only leader of eleven high school girls. I was definitely intimidated. My sister was with me, of course, and she reassured me that this particular group was going to be more interested in me braiding their hair than in serious conversation. The topic for the week was "Growing up in your faith" as in 1 Peter Chapter 2. These girls took to a moderate Torrey style discussion with ease. And what should they talk about with me but the idea that every choice you make between sin and good is a matter of life and death and that the Christian life is not merely a part of life on earth, but is life itself. I was blessed beyond possible description by their openness and their serious thoughts and at how God had used parts of The Great Divorce to help me minister to them, half of whom were strangers to me before that week.

Everything that has been circulating in my head about this book climaxed beautifully, when God gave me an opportunity to be baptized just a few days ago. When I was growing up, I attended a church that held the attitude that physical symbols like water baptism and the Eucharist were not only completely unnecessary but tended to distract from the things they point to. Though we left this church right before I graduated from high school, I came to adopt this perspective myself. But, when I came to Torrey and read Calvin in our On Knowing God semester, my opinion on the subject promptly changed. I have been waiting for the past two years for an opportunity to be baptized and the church my family is now going to is, ironically a church plant from the church we used to attend, holds a very different view of baptism. The pastor who baptized me and my siblings this past Saturday, along with my dad, ended up being my sister's youth pastor, who had asked me to come and be a counselor for the high school girls at camp.

As I reflect on the unity of the events of this summer, there is a theme that emerges. Death coming to life. I accepted Christ when I was four years old and can truthfully say that I was given such grace that I never questioned my faith, at least not until we read Nietzsche. God has used this summer to re-teach me the gospel and I am glad for it, because I believe it is a story I will need to hear over and over again for the rest of my life.