The Connection

At the heart of the Christian faith is a moment.  It is a moment that can be any moment and it is shown in the scriptures over and again to be many moments.  It is the moment when one brain, one soul has to make room for the impossible because of God.  When Mary hears her name in John 20, the idea “dead guys can come alive” had to move from the part of her brain where impossible things go to rust, to the part where possible things burst with life.  Same with “God’s love beats death,” and “Jesus is alive!”

“With God, all things are possible,” Jesus tells his disciples in Matthew 19.  And this maneuver, from impossible to possible, did not start with Jesus,

either. Just ask Shadrach Meshach and Abednego about fire, or ask Ezekiel what can happen with dry rattling bones.  God has always been in the impossible-to-possible business.

And that, friends, is real Wonder.  Wonder happens when we have to reshuffle the deck of what we thought we knew.  With God, wonder makes the whole world new.  At PUCS, we talk about “God’s Good World” and celebrate as our students explore their way into it.  As we should.  AND, beneath all the things we can see and feel and taste and touch, lies the deeper, older magic, as Aslan describes it – the one where love, God’s love, actually rewrites the rule book of what can happen, what the world can be and who we can be in it.

So this past Sunday, Easter morning, we all were invited, once again, for the first time, to really have our minds moved from darkness to light.  At Easter, we get reminded that, for God, resurrection is normal, even as it blows our minds.  Life from death with God is just another Tuesday or, in this case, Sunday. And Jesus’ resurrection, as particularly wonderful and powerful as it is, is also one more invitation in an endless line of invitations, to Wonder at what God can do.  To God be the Glory.  Happy Eastertide!

Dave Swanson serves as PUCS’ Interim Executive Director.  He thinks PUCS is pretty rad.