Moreover that will also be the ongoing title of the entire series that will span the 50 day Easter season from Resurrection Sunday to Pentecost Sunday. Back when I was in Guatemala and making the decision to start this blog I knew that it primarily was for this Lenten experiment that I’ve been working through so the title could have reflected that – perhaps some play on words about God transforming my soul through the Transformers I was going to give away. But in the end I came to the conclusion that this forum was going to be a cornerstone of my new approach to ministry when I got back to Canada and although the pace of posting would necessarily dither after Lent – it needed to have a title that would encapsulate something more enduring than this discipline that I’ve been engaged in.
So I’ve titled this blog “Sunday is only the beginning” because it embodies a truth about life and a philosophy of ministry that God has been continually bringing me back to again and again over this last year. It’s a philosophy that attests to the reality that the Kingdom of God is not being built in bricks and mortar inside the sanctuary of a church but rather in acts of love, forgiveness, restoration, and truth in the world outside of our ecclesial walls. It’s a way of approaching life and ministry that acknowledges that the six and a half days that we don’t spend in the church service account for six and a half more opportunities to worship God than we have at church. In this Easter season in particular it references the reality that the empty tomb is the beginning – and not the end of the greatest story ever told.
These are not original ideas beginning with me. I am greatly indebted in my new outlook to a great many individuals – particularly N.T. Wright and his thoughts as published in his book Surprised by Hope. If you are familiar with his, and like-minded authors, ideas then this will not be new to you either. But despite their pedigree and unoriginality they are no less world changing – and to be honest these ideas have been and still are changing my world and worldview.
We often fall into the false assumption that the Easter season begins at Ash Wednesday with the beginning of Lent and carries through the 40 days of preparation building steam over time until it reaches a fever pitch with Holy Week, reaching the height of dramatic tension on Good Friday and finding sweet release and conclusion with our Easter Sunday celebrations. But this year as we are in the thick of that Passion Week I want to posit to you a different idea: Sunday is only the beginning.
Rather than taking a deep sigh of relief after the Easter Sunday benediction and joining in with the rest of the culture and putting the season behind us to go on vacation (for non local readers – in Saskatchewan the week after Easter is a school break) I am calling us to understand the resurrection from a more appropriate theological perspective – as the beginning.
The resurrection of Christ is the beginning of victory for God, the resurrection of Christ is the beginning of joy for the Christian, the resurrection of Christ is the beginning of hope for the world, the resurrection of Christ is the beginning of restoration for creation, the resurrection of Christ is the beginning Heaven’s invasion of Earth and the resurrection of Christ is the reason the church exists. To speak in the words of the Apostle Paul:
But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all others.
1 Corinthians 15:12-19 (TNIV)
The resurrection is the lynchpin in our entire theological system and the foundation of our faith. And for that reason it is the beginning – and not the end – of the story. So this year as we begin our Easter series we begin on Resurrection Sunday rather than finishing with it and in an authentic response to that world changing news we’re going to continue on celebrating all the way to Pentecost. Just a word of warning for those you hoping to get past Easter and onto something else – This Sunday, is only the beginning!
And now for something completely different...
Today's figure is Revenge of the Fallen Voyager Class Bludgeon. Much like Lockdown yesterday he is a fish out of water in the ROTF universe. Bludgeon is actually a character that defies expectations and convention in a few ways. Amongst Transfans (the official term for Transformers enthusiasts like myself) he is a hugely popular character and Hasbro really threw a bone to the fans by including him in this toy line - but he's popular despite the fact that his first toy was from a hugely unpopular sub line in the late 80s during the waning years of Generation One's popularity who never saw himself featured in any of the North American cartoons. Bludgeon's popularity this side of the pond is based almost solely on the high profile role he received in the transformers comic books and particularly in the stories of British writer Simon Furman.
In those ongoing serials (which took a completely different approach to the characters than the cartoons ever did) Bludgeon was a revered master of Metallikado - a Cybertronian martial art. In his original form his was a Pretender - a robot living inside the disguise of a human shell - except his human disguise was more skeletal and corpse-like than most pretenders. In the comics he ended up leading the Decepticons for an extended period in the absence of Megatron and proved himself to be a formidable battlefield general. This toy would really be more at home in the universe line featuring modern re-workings of classic characters but for some reason Hasbro felt the need to beef up their ROTF offerings and like Lockdown he ended up here. That being said he's an extremely satisfying toy. Clever transformation, nice looking tank, well detailed robot mode and nice little bonuses like the hidden scabbard for his sword in the tank turret. I'm sad to be seeing this toy go but I'm happy to be losing it to such a good cause.
Until tomorrow,
Chris
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