Five promises were seemingly all those apostles, staring into the sky, had to go on. Five promises that were more than enough.

We know that death does not have the last word in Christ.

God comes to us through the flesh and blood and spirit of Christ precisely where he promised to be manifest to us and for us.

Only the resurrection of Jesus guarantees and facilitates divine presence and love to us as divine life for us.

If Jesus did not rise, then religion is just religion — a mere anthropological phenomenon.

The resurrection of Jesus encompasses the total and comprehensive glorification of a human being, not merely his restoration.

If it’s all a fiction spun by disappointed disciples, if it’s a mere symbol for the idea of an inner awakening, if it’s not a fact that Christ has been raised, then our grief and loss have no end, and we have no hope.

I think the problem with the idea of eternity is that we do not have any direct experience of it, but we encounter enough of its possibility to be unsettling.

While the world is full of horizons and endpoints, for Christians, there is always tomorrow, and there are people in that tomorrow waiting for us as we wait for them.

We ache in eager anticipation as we see Christ in action and as we take in the snapshots of his life, death, and resurrection.

The epistle text from Colossians 1 declares how the great drama of redemption and human history ends.

Carson Wayne Bird, father of Chad Bird, died on October 31. He was eighty-one years old. At a small, family gathering on November 4, Chad spoke these words to his mom, sister, and the other family members of Carson, who gathered to mourn and remember this beloved child of God.