Beautiful Things

In my reading and in my Bible study, a recent emphasis is on the resurrection of Christ. As it is not Easter and these two readings were completely unrelated, I believe the Lord is bringing this into focus for me. My daughter's scripture verse for the week from her children's program is 1 Thessalonians 4:14, "We believe that Jesus died and rose again." I also read this quote from Yancey in Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World: "The three-day pattern - tragedy, darkness, triumph - became for New Testament writers a template that can be applied to all our times of testing" (132). What great encouragement, awe, and transcendent perspective comes through this tenet of Christian belief - the bodily resurrection of Christ, and the power behind that resurrection. The hope I have is not in my own power, and the power in which I place I have my hope is not limited by death or the grave. The thing that really gets me is that beyond the darkness, there is triumph. Beyond the grave, there is a more glorious life. He doesn't provide merely an end to our grieving period, but replaces it with gladness (Isaiah 61:3). There are a lot of songs that talk about this concept, but the one I heard this morning is Gungor's "Beautiful Things." I have to say I don't think that you can make a doctrine out of this song, and I don't know entirely where Gungor is coming from (though I have some idea) but as far as the simple idea in this song goes, it's true. The album art is a nice complement, too. Side note: we saw a beautiful sunrise this morning. Exactly.