Surprised by Hope, by N. T. Wright

Chapter Fifteen

1.  Wright has a beef with the way Easter is typically observed.  His corrective:  The forty days of the Easter season, until the ascension, ought to be a time to balance out Lent by taking something up, some new task or venture, something wholesome and fruitful and outgoing and self-giving. You may be able to do it only for six weeks, just as you may be able to go without beer or tobacco only for the six weeks of Lent. But if you really make a start on it, it might give you a sniff of new possibilities, new hopes, new ventures you never dreamed of. It might bring something of Easter into your innermost life. It might help you wake up in a whole new way. And that’s what Easter is all about.

What might this new Easter expression be for you…for us?

2.  The mission of the church must therefore include, at a structural level, the recognition that our present space, time, and matter are all subject not to rejection but to redemption. Despite the tendency in some parts of the emerging church to marginalize space, time, and matter, I remain convinced that the way forward is to rediscover a true eschatology, to rediscover a true mission rooted in anticipating that eschatology, and to rediscover forms of church that embody that anticipation.

What value do we give to space, time, and matter in our context?

3.  What I am saying is, think through the hope that is ours in the gospel; recognize the renewal of creation as both the goal of all things in Christ and the achievement that has already been accomplished in the resurrection; and go to the work of justice, beauty, evangelism, the renewal of space, time, and matter as the anticipation of the eventual goal and the implementation of what Jesus achieved in his death and resurrection. That is the way both to the genuine mission of God and to the shaping of the church by and for that mission.

How does this statement mirror the Apostles’ & Nicene Creeds?

4.  Wright provides a brief outline of six central aspects of Christian spirituality that arise in the light of our Easter hope.  They include: New Birth & Baptism; Eucharist; Prayer; Scripture; Holiness & Love.

Discuss the role that each of these plays in directing our lives.