“I look for/expect the resurrection of the dead (Προσδοκῶ ἀνάστασιν νεκρῶν, Чаю воскресения мертвых, Et expecto resurrectionem mortuorum), and the life of the age to come. Amen.” (Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed)
Christianity is all about “looking for” or “expecting” good things, rather than bad ones. A God-centered life turns me away from the “bad” kinds of expectations rooted in merely-human anxiety, – that feeling of impending doom, coming at you around the corner, for example, in financial matters or in personal relationships. In a God-less, self-reliant state we tend to slip into certain fears, like that of being left destitute or being left alone, like, with six or seven cats in a lonely apartment. ☺
But what is it that I am invited to “look for,” or “expect” and long for, in a God-centered existence? Life. I am invited to participate in, and grow into, already here, in Holy Baptism, in Christ’s and our “resurrection” from the dead, and also “the life of the age to come.” I both “look for,” and find, this life, more and more, in a daily life in Christ, on the light-filled, cross-carrying journey. As our Lord Jesus Christ says, “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.“ (Jn 10: 10) So let me direct my focus to life, that I may have it “abundantly“ in Christ, and turn away from merely-human, death-bringing anxieties outside of Him. Today, O Lord, I look, once again, “for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the age to come,“ already in the here and now, in and with You. Amen!
