I
have to admit that I get pretty excited about new discoveries in the world of
physics. For example, in 2012 when CERN
produced a Higgs Boson with its Large Hadron Collider I preached a sermon on it
– professional faux pas. The Higgs Boson
is the elementary or sub-atomic particle that gives stuff mass. Sub-atomic reality consists of fields of
little blips of different kinds of energy – fermions and bosons – so that we
are swimming in as well as consisting of a lake of different kinds of energies
and don’t know it. One of those fields consists
of Higgs Bosons. When fermions interact
with the Higgs Bosons they get mass – they get heavy and slow down and start to
stick together to make the particles that make atoms. Without the Higgs Boson everything would just be
tiny, little, sub-atomic blips of energy zipping about at the speed of light
and we wouldn’t be here. The Higgs is
affectionately known as the “God Particle” because everything that “is” depends
on it. Back in 1964 a man named Peter
Higgs predicted the existence of the Higgs Boson, but it wasn’t until this last
decade that we had particle colliders that could produce enough energy to smash
one into revealing itself. The Higgs
Boson – predicted in theory, but now seen.
In February
of 2016 scientists at the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory
measured a gravitational wave proving something Einstein had predicted nearly a
hundred years earlier; that when massive things in the universe start mixing it
up the very fabric of space-time ripples like throwing a rock into a pond and
unseen and unfelt by us every subatomic particle we are made of does a
ride-a-wave thing. The Gravitational
Wave – predicted in theory, but now seen.
The
oldest light we can see in the universe is a form of heat known as Cosmic
Microwave Background radiation. It was
discovered in the mid-1960’s but lately with newer telescopes they’ve been
mapping the universe with it. It’s 13.82
billion years old and originated about 378,000 years after the Bing Bang. If you want to see this light you can hear it
if you listen to static generated by a television. 4-8% of that noise is the sound of the first
measurable remnants of the Big Bang; i.e. of Creation itself. The Bing Bang – predicted in theory but now
seen or rather heard.
Wednesday
a week ago a group of scientists using the Event Horizon Telescope produced a picture
of a super-massive black hole that is 6,000 times the size of our sun and located
at the center of a nearby galaxy 40 million light years away. Black holes happen when too much stuff gets
together and becomes a mass so dense that the force of gravity becomes so strong
that not even light can escape from it. Black
holes are like death. The moment
something passes the event horizon of a black hole we have no idea what happens
to it. This picture of a black hole is
important because it is the evidence that black holes really exist. Before, we knew them only in theory and math,
and they even look like what we expected.
Black Holes – predicted in theory, but now seen.
Well,
it’s Easter and for me when I think about Jesus’ resurrection I have to put it
into the context the real stuff of real science. As Christians we cannot with any integrity
continue this charade of saying that Jesus resurrection from the dead is simply
a spiritual matter which a person can chose to believe or not. Rather, the Church professes that God the
Father in the power of the Holy Spirit raised Jesus, God the Son incarnate,
from the dead and it was a bodily resurrection.
This means that Jesus’ resurrection body brought back anew from the
“black hole” of Death must still have a physical connection to this Creation
that God Big Banged into existence roughly 14.1 billion years ago. For Jesus to have been able to be touched by
his disciples and to have sat and eaten with them after being raised from the
dead he had to be made of real stuff.
Therefore what his resurrected body was made of must still interact with
Higgs Bosons and have mass. He is just
as real as the Higgs Field and the Higgs Boson, gravitational waves, Cosmic
Microwave Background radiation, and black holes. Since Jesus resurrected is still human we
also have to add him into the categories of reality that we call life, consciousness,
and sentience (which includes intelligence, relationability, emotion, reason,
wonder, creativity) and we also have to add the highest category: that of
knowing and relating to God.
Jesus
resurrection is an act of New Creation. Jesus
resurrected is everything we are yet he has gone through the black hole of
death and come out the other side as New Creation. In fact, he is the beginning of the whole
Creation being made new.
Since
God raised Jesus from the dead everything in God’s good and wonderful Creation
has begun to change. New Testament scholar
N.T. Wright often says that when God raised Jesus from the dead a shockwave
went out through all of created existence.
Things are now somehow different.
I hear that and I think that a gravitational wave makes a good
analogy. We can’t see or feel them but
when they come through, the space-time fabric of our very existence is part of
it. So it is with the effect of the
Resurrection of Jesus. We may not be
aware that we are experiencing it, but that doesn’t change the fact that we
are.
Just
as science predicted the Higgs Boson, gravitational waves, the Big Bang, and
black holes so also God has predicted this New Creation that he has begun with
the resurrection of Jesus. God spoke to
Isaiah and said he was making a new heavens and a new earth. The picture he gives us of it isn’t of a
non-physical, simply spiritual heavenly reality. In the New Creation, life – real and physical
– continues on. Children are born. People grow old. We build houses and there make our
homes. We plant and we eat. There are vineyards so that means wine. Work is productive and rewarding. There is joy and delight and lasting
blessing. No more will there be weeping
and cries of distress. No more futility
or premature death. No more losing
everything that you’ve worked for. No
more children needlessly dying. It even
seems that predation in the animal kingdom will cease. Our relationship with God will be such that
we know God hears us before we even speak as opposed to this sense that we
often have of just bouncing prayers off the ceiling not knowing whether God
hears or cares.
The
Book of Revelation also shows us a creation made new, a new heaven and a new
earth where God is knowably present rather than hidden yet present. It is a Creation healed of Sin, sickness,
grief, and Death where God tenderly comforts all who sorrow. Please notice that the New Jerusalem comes
from heaven to earth. God does not
destroy earth so that we can all go to heaven.
In the New Creation heaven and earth open to each other. Heaven is no longer hidden.
This
New Creation that God himself has predicted is taking effect in us this very
moment through the workings of the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit calls us to come and be Jesus disciples and as we
together as the body of Christ and focus more on the task of being Jesus’
disciples, the more we find ourselves being made new, being made to be more and
more like Jesus. By communion with the
Holy Spirit we are partakers of Jesus’ resurrected life and this will culminate
when at the end of this age Jesus returns and we, like him, are bodily raised
from the dead and all things are made new and there will be no more Sin or
Death or evil powers or chaos. All will
be made alive in Christ and God will be all in all (1 Cor. 15:28). The earth will be full of the knowledge of
God as the waters cover the see (Is. 11:9).
Lastly,
God the Father himself is the one who has made this prediction. He said to Isaiah “I am about to create new
heavens and a new earth.” In the
Revelation he said to John (and this is the only time God the Father from his
throne speaks in the whole Book), “See, I am making all things new.” In the world of physics a prediction is not
like Nostradamus staring into a bowl or Jimmy the Greek predicting the Super
Bowl winner. Instead, in physics a
prediction is something that will in time come about because it is the only way
things add up. Peter Higgs predicted the
Higgs Boson knowing that there had to be an elementary particle mechanism that
made things have mass. We have found
one. Einstein predicted gravitational
waves and black holes simply because the math said they have to exist. We have found them. The Big Bang had to have happened because
that is the only way we can have Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation. The Big bang happened. Likewise, God is making all things new. This New Creation started with Jesus’
resurrection. It is being worked in us
now by the presence and working of the Holy Spirit. But, the God-predicted Day will come when all
things will finally be made new. Resurrection
and New Creation are as real and predictable as the Big Bang, Higgs Bosons,
Cosmic Microwave Background radiation, and black holes. Just wait and see. It will happen. Amen.
