The promise is rooted in the fact that the only way we can endure any ounce of suffering in this life is because Jesus Christ is tending the soil of our lives.
Nearly two thousand years after Paul scribbled out these lines, the only reason “we” are here, reading Paul’s magnum opus together, is that we are inheritors of the promise Paul sees in the paradox.
The most counter-cultural action any Christian church could take right now would be to foster healthy and constructive conversations among its members and neighbors across their variety of opinions and perspectives.
Paul is thinking of the cross and empty tomb, but the liturgical calendar places us at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, not the end: Jesus standing waist deep in the Jordan River.
As we continue to celebrate the mystery of the incarnation, this is a perfect moment to meditate on how the work of God “in Christ" unfolds in every moment of the life of Jesus of Nazareth.