An eternal address
Living in two places at once, which most of us need to do at some point in our lives, can be a confusing business. Where should our post go? Where do we belong? To make dual residency of any kind work requires imagination as well as practical effort.
Christians are called to do this in a spiritual sense, for we believe Christ makes us, at the same time, citizens of earth and of heaven. At no season of the year is this most clearly evident than at Easter, when we celebrate God’s new creation in the midst of the old. We are people who inhabit the spring, seeing in it signs of this new birth, but whose true hope is in resurrection.
The poet John Donne, musing upon life and death, wrote how Jesus makes ‘one parish’ of earth and heaven, which is a lovely image. He adds that ‘Christ was not out of his diocese when he was upon the earth’! Nor (we might add), when he ascended to heaven.
The church, then, is a rehearsal space for the kingdom of heaven – and as such must allow for all the trial, error and excitement this involves. For Christ is risen, we have an eternal address and another country beckons.
- Bishop Andrew