It was a pivotal moment in Philadelphia in 1776 when the elderly and enigmatic statesman, Benjamin Franklin, stood to urge the Continental Congress to draw up a Declaration of Independence. At least that’s the way it comes down to us in the new HBO seven-part special on John Adams. In the midst of great distress over the prospect of being treasonous in their opposition to the British crown, the colonists came to see that they were not attempting to change the reality so much as to live it authentically. They had spent countless hours agonizing over how to live in the new world that was being strangled by the old world. They had finally to choose which world they would live in.

And that is the Easter decision we all must make. You have come here this morning to hear the announcement from the garden tomb that Christ is risen. He is risen indeed, you reply. But how is he risen indeed? How is he risen not just in the past but in the present? How is he risen not just in thought but in deed?

St. Paul tells the Colossian Christians that this is the chief matter before them. If you have been raised with Christ, he says, then seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Live this new reality, in other words. This world that once had a death grip on you is no country for old men, or young. You have a new country, a new world, a new homeland of which you are citizens by virtue of being raised with Christ.

If you have been raised with Christ. … If. What is Paul’s meaning here? Is he dividing up the world like so many before him and so many after him into two classes of people: in this case, those who have been raised with Christ and those who have not been? No, the Greek language has four classes of conditional clauses that begin with the word if. This is a first-class condition that assumes the reality or the truth of what it asserts. “If you have been raised with Christ” is a perfectly acceptable translation, as long as the meaning of it is since you have been raised with Christ. Paul is trying to get it through to Colossian Christians, and to contemporary ones with them today who read his words, that the matter of who you are has been settled once and for all in Christ’s death and resurrection. You may not know it. You may not feel it. Who you are is hidden for now as a mystery—your life is hidden with Christ in God.  For now. Later, in God’s good timing, when Christ himself is made known to everyone at the end of time, then who you are will be plain to all, including you.

For now, live in faith that whatever you claim to be true of Christ is true of you. Settle that in your mind and heart once and for all. Allow your baptism to remind you over and over that death and the grave have no hold on you. Neither do the ways of the world. Neither do the kings of the earth. Look up. Set you mind on things that are above. SINCE you have been raised with Christ, live as resurrection people. In the same way the early colonists had to decide whether they would live as citizens of the old world or the new, you and I must decide whether we will live as people of the grave or people of the resurrection.

Since you have been raised, a new sensibility must attend this new reality. Since you are now citizens of a new country, you must no longer pay spiritual taxes to the government of the old country. Since you are citizens of heaven, you are free to live on earth as free people even now.

But what changes will that bring in the way you live? When in church we hear words about setting our minds on things above, we are liable to think that such thinking is insensible to everyday life. Are we supposed to forget our jobs and our families and our neighborhoods and just meditate on heaven above? Are we just supposed to imagine those paintings of Jesus sitting at the right hand of God with his virgin mother in blue and angels flitting around them as they float above the world in some space that never touches Planet Earth?

No, to think about things above is to think about how the risen Christ is involved down here, in this very world we live in today, and to join him in it. Heaven is not some distant geography to which our minds go before our bodies; it is the invisible realm of this world now. Christ is alive and active in this everyday life as we know it. By the power of his resurrection, he is bringing new life to everyone that is caught in the grip of the grave, everyone whose heart is in the grave, everyone who yet has only the sense of earth and not of heaven.

We get bogged down in the things below in so many ways. Sometimes it takes us too long to learn what is really important.

I asked Dennie Brown the other day what he had learned through the long experience of watching Melanie’s mother slowly slip away in a nursing home before her death last year. He said that when you reach that point in life you realize how little you really need. It doesn’t matter how many sweaters you have in your closet, or even whether the one you’re wearing is yours or someone else’s. All you care about is the simple pleasure of warmth that comes with having one on when you are chilled.

Why is it so hard for me to get that? I went to Sam’s Club the other day and came out with two new sweaters. Not sure how many that makes in my closet, but at $7.44, I just knew I had to have them.

How many things like that represent a preoccupation with things below that do not last? These things cannot give you life; they can only rob you of it. But so can things you deprive yourself of that make you feel better but also don’t give you life.

In the paragraph just before this one in Paul’s letter, he makes a similar appeal in the negative. Here he says, Since you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above. But first he says, Since you have died with Christ, … why do you live as if you still belonged to the world? Some Christians were denying themselves certain food and drink as a way of showing their loyalty to God and the flesh. Others were setting up rules of behavior that would show they were God’s people by what they did not do, by what they did not touch, by how they kept certain ways of praying, or whatever. Paul warns that such practices do not in themselves give life; they may only feed your ego—by doing them you are better than other people.

We see this even in church people sometimes. Those who are supposed to be free in Christ live so cautiously, as though everything is a threat to true piety; and they make sure others know when they are violating the standards, too. They would have you know that only Christianity—with all of its strict moral guidelines and practices—can save you. But it can’t. As one wag has put it: No religion [can save you]” not Hinduism or Shinto or Islam [or Judaism], but also not Christianity. God, and only God, saves. Practicing religion, however correct it is and however correctly one practices it, will not save you. … It is trusting in God that will save you.[1]

The nineteenth-century artist and poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti was the brother of the more famous poet, Christina Rossetti. Although his given name was Gabriel Charles Dante Rossetti, he loved the Italian poet Dante so much that he switched it to his first name. He translated Dante’s poem La Vita Nuova—The New Life, and he even idealized his deceased wife as Beatrice, Dante’s own and only true love. When his wife died, he wrapped up a sheaf of his sonnets and buried them with her as a tribute to their love. But years later, upon the urging of friends, he dug up her body and removed the poems, publishing them for all to read. He came at long last to believe that he should love life more than death and should publish glad tidings of joy.

This is how we make sense of the since of Christ’s resurrection from the dead. Like the women at the tomb and the disciples who would follow, we must by our lives announce the new life that belongs to the world in Jesus Christ. This is resurrection living. And it alone brings happiness.

Happiness is itself a gift of the resurrection. It is a thing from above. My friend Ellen Charry teaches theology at Princeton Seminary. She lost her beloved husband, Dana, to cancer at age 57. After long months of grief, her faith has led her to understand this gift of happiness differently. Listen: Tragedy and suffering are not central impediments … to happiness because it is not dependent on feelings or external circumstances. The key to happiness … is the ability to love well. It is not about how well things are going for us; it is about how well we are going. … Happiness is a life nourished by the love and goodness of God that contributes to the flourishing of creation.[2]

Exactly. And it often changes our way of living from the way we make a living to the way we make a life.

Dr. Frank Burns is the son of Alvin and Jean Burns and the brother of Dwight. He grew up in church in Dallas, but he lives now with his family in Sarasota, Florida. Because he grew up in church, and as a Burns, he understood that he was not supposed to do the work he did only for his own profit. And so, along with his family, he began six years ago serving meals to the homeless in a park. One day he saw a man limping because of severely ulcerated foot, and he had a revelation at that moment: God, I’m not supposed to be serving food here. And so began the journey that led to his becoming known as the “Doc in the Park” and to his being honored by the Community Foundation there as one of its Unsung Heroes. He has started a nonprofit called Saline SOULution, based on the idea that Christians should infuse salt into the world and bring people the solution for their souls. He calls himself “a missionary that never got to the airport.” Nice.

This is the sensibility that follows the since of being raised with Christ.

Billy Collins is one of my favorite poets. He is the former poet laureate of the United States, and his poetry is full of life and humor, which sometimes bothers poetry critics, don’t you know?! He talks about the moment as a boy when he came to understand his calling. I remember reading a poem by Thom Gunn about Elvis Presley, and that was a real mindblower because I didn’t know you could write poems about Elvis Presley. I thought there was poetry—what you read in class—and then when you left class there was Elvis. I didn’t see them together until I read that poem.[3]

If you really understand what is at stake on Easter Sunday, you will see the mind-blowing connection between the resurrection of Jesus long ago that you read about now in the Bible, and your resurrected life today with the risen Christ. And when you make that connection, it will set you to seeking the things that are above … where your true life is found.

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