Fr Robert Hendrickson

Dear Friends in Christ,

One of my favorite lines in Scripture is part of the Epistle today. It’s stark and simple in its hope. “If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.”

This is in the context of a portion of the letter encouraging followers of Christ to know and proclaim that Christ rose from the dead, and by unsealing the tomb sealed our eternal destiny with him.

His rising was the first heralding not of a once and done miracle but of an eternally unfolding quotidian miracle that continues in the life and death of each believer—each day and each hour.

In Christ, there is no goodbye for the Christian.

In Christ, life is changed—not ended—when our mortal bodies lose their strength. When that strength fails, the strength of Christ carries us on to an eternal hope.

This epistle reading is paired with the Beatitudes in the Gospel today.

The encouragement we should take is that we can have courage to live the counterculture life of the Beatitudes because this life is not all there is. We can risk living differently in this life because of the joyful hope we have in the next.

If this life is all there is then we are indeed most to be pitied for then any risk for the sake of the Gospel seems too chancy a toss of the dice.

But the sure and certain hope we find in the knowledge that Christ has won for us a place beside him in the next can inspire us to stand firm in the world-changing compassion and world-defying proclamation that is the world’s hope, too.

I take encouragement from the simplicity of the Epistle today, and hope you find encouragement for the week there, too, as we risk more boldly knowing all our life is a gift— and the greatest risk is to live as if it is ours to jealously guard rather than to joyously spend for the love of God and our neighbor.

Yours in Christ,

—Fr Robert