The New Life of Christ

Our world is full of dreams of a new life. Honestly, most of them leave me dry and flat, like the transhumanist future talk of digital platforms, plasticity of embodiment, technological singularity and the Marxist utopian vision of social sameness, means of production and super abundance of material goods. Furthermore, they demand faith grounded in some kind of human development that must pull itself out of death and futility into the utopian world. It requires a leap to believe that those who are mortally wounded and enmeshed in the ruin of our existence will make for ourselves a fundamentally new life.

The Bible testifies to the new life we receive by the resurrection of Jesus Christ with vines, fruitfulness, flowers, trees, bubbling water, a wedding, young children, the dawning of a new day and harmonious nature. We find stories, metaphors and pictures in scripture that are joyful and exuberant—truly fitting for new life springing forth in an old world of sin and death.

This is how Isaiah speaks of the new life that comes from God:

“They shall not labor in vain,

or bear children for calamity,

for they shall be the offspring of the blessed of the Lord,

and their descendants with them.

Before they call I will answer;

while they are yet speaking I will hear.

The wolf and the lamb shall graze together:

the lion shall eat straw like the ox,

and dust shall be the serpent’s food

They shall not hurt or destroy

in all my holy mountain,”

says the Lord. (Is. 65:23-25)

John the Apostle speaks, in a beautiful text in the Book of Revelation, of this new life shown to him:

“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” (Rev. 21:1-4)

This new life of God’s salvation is created for us by Jesus Christ and it is the subject of the story of the wedding at Cana in the Gospel of John (John 2:1-11). In the Old Testament and other Jewish writings, wine signified the new life of God’s salvation. At the wedding, Jesus created an extravagant abundance of wine—far beyond what was needed at the wedding.

Irenaeus was a bishop in Lyon, France in the second century after Christ. He picked up on the exuberance of this new life gained for us by Jesus Christ. Here is one of his passages that practically explodes with this life:

“The days will come, in which vines shall grow, each having ten thousand branches, and in each branch ten thousand twigs, and in each true twig ten thousand shoots, and in each one of the shoots ten thousand clusters, and on every one of the clusters ten thousand grapes, and every grape when pressed will give five and twenty metretes [one metretes is about 37 liters] of wine. And when any one of the saints shall lay hold of a cluster, another shall cry out, ‘I am a better cluster, take me; bless the Lord through me.’” (Against Heresies, Book V)

As the church celebrates the resurrection of Jesus Christ, while death is still present in this world, we rejoice in the exuberant, vivacious new life he gains for us.