The Preacher's Lectionary Notebook - New Life in the Here and Now
The Resurrection of the Lord: Easter Day (Year A)
Paul writes that believers have been raised with Christ, and the verb tense used here points to something already accomplished. The phrase “having been raised” comes from a completed action, something done in the past with ongoing significance in the present. It is not a future hope waiting to happen, nor merely a symbolic aspiration. It signals a decisive event that has already taken place. In Paul’s imagination, the resurrection of Christ is not just something that happened to Christ alone. It is something that has already, in a real sense, happened to those who belong to him. The life of faith begins not with striving upward but with recognizing that a lifting up has already occurred.
That completed action reshapes everything that follows. Because this raising has already happened, Paul calls for a reorientation of attention and desire. The instruction to seek what is above flows directly from that past reality. It is not presented as a ladder to climb in order to reach Christ, but as a response to a union already established. The focus rests on living in alignment with a reality already given. The indicative grounds the imperative. What has been done becomes the basis for what is to be pursued.
This past action also carries a hiddenness that defines the present experience. Life is now described as being hidden with Christ in God. That language suggests both security and mystery. Something real has happened, yet it is not fully visible or recognized in ordinary terms. The world does not easily perceive resurrection life when it is embedded in fragile human existence. Still, Paul insists that the hiddenness does not negate the reality. It simply means that the fullness of what has already begun has not yet been revealed. The future unveiling will make visible what is already true.
The final note in the passage looks ahead to that unveiling. When Christ appears, those who have been raised with him will also appear with him in glory. The future is not disconnected from the past action. It is the natural completion of it. What has already been set in motion will come to its full expression. The resurrection is both a completed act and an ongoing story moving toward revelation.
In having been raised with Christ, identity is not something constructed from scratch but something received and lived into. The call is not to manufacture new life but to inhabit it, even when it remains partly hidden.
FOR FURTHER EXPLORATION
How does understanding resurrection as a completed action reshape the meaning of spiritual growth?
In what ways does the idea of hidden life challenge common expectations of visible success or transformation?
What difference does it make to see future glory as the unveiling of something already true rather than something entirely new?