After a six week break we'll be back in our study of the Gospel according to John on Sunday, January 8.  We stopped at the end of chapter 19 studying the burial of Jesus by Joseph and Nicodemas.  This week we begin a study of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.  Jesus had raised Lazarus from the dead but that was a "revivification." A what?  Lazarus was raised from the dead but he died again, he had only been revived from the dead.  Resurrection means a continuing life in a body that does not perish.  Jesus was not simply revived in the same body; resurrection meant a new kind of body!  "Sown in weakness, raised in power; sown mortal, raised immortal" (see 1 Corinthians 15:35ff)  Jesus had a body that could eat, be seen, be touched etc but one that rose through grave clothes and could pass through walls.  This was the kind of body we were meant to have in the beginning...not bound by the rest of creation and subject to it but glorious.  Jesus is the first fruits or the proto-type of the resurrection body.  We don't want to be simply revivified, we want resurrection and because He's alive, we too shall live.  Are you ready for the resurrection?

We humans like to hear new stuff so much a whole industry has been developed to give us "news."  Personally I don't care for "breaking news", especially when it is during a key moment of a program I am watching.  Can't it wait?  We not only like new information, we like new stuff.  We'll even take old stuff if it is new to us.  Pastor Ben and I were talking about this today, we both have great guitars (Taylors ) but we're still on the lookout for new ones.  Jeep people are this way too, a current Jeep is nice, a new one would be awesome.  What is the deal with this desire for new things?  Sometimes it is simply discontentment.  Sometimes it is coveteousness.  But, I think there is something deeper at work in our spirit than that.  We like "new" because we know the old isn't what we thought it was.  It didn't for us what we had hoped.  We keep looking for the new thing, the new place, the new person, the new widget; life as it is in this current day is not what God intended.  We were created for more.  What if all these desires for "new" really point to something eternal, something really new!??  As we start this New Year, I hope you'll join us on Sunday morning for Communion and a look at what it means that Christians are new people.  See 2 Corinthians 5:17 for the key verse and the context of this great promise.  What's new with you?