The ‘realer’ life of the Resurrection
By Bishop Gary Mueller
I’ve been thinking a lot about real life. Things like cancer, the opioid crisis, sex trafficking, my own mortality, and what the division in the UMC means for the future.
I’ll be honest. Doing this can be hazardous to my spiritual health. Or, at least, raise my level of anxiety.
At the same time, I’ve also been pondering something I can best describe as “realer” life. It’s what I experience in the resurrection of Jesus Christ that has the power to overcome death, sin, hatred, hopelessness and the worst real life has to offer.
Focusing on realer life gives me hope I know can only come from God.
It takes an incredible amount of faith for me to see “realer” life amid real life. But this faith––stumbling and bumbling as it is at times––does something astounding. It enables me to experience how every bit of real life is transformed through the realer life God offers in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Not just long ago on that Easter Sunday when the women discovered the tomb was empty––but right now!
I know more than I want to know about real life because I live it every single day. I’m grateful Jesus is helping me experience more and more of the “realer” life he is unleashing as he makes all things new.
Sure, this is a journey that lasts a lifetime––and beyond. And, yes, it is spiritual. Perhaps, even mystical. But isn’t that the point? To be so shaped by the realer life of Jesus’ resurrection that what I see is transformed, what I experience is transformed, and what I do is transformed because I am being transformed.
He is risen - He is risen, indeed!
Bishop Gary Mueller, vice president
General Commission on United Methodist Men