Multitudes
who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others
to shame and everlasting contempt. (Daniel 12:2)
According
to biblical scholar Walter Brueggemann, this is one of only two clear Old
Testament references to the resurrection of the dead. The first is Isaiah 26:19
– Your dead will live; their bodies will
rise. You who dwell in the dust, wake up and shout for joy. Your dew is like
the dew of the morning; the earth will give birth to her dead. He is
careful to connect this with Isaiah 25:6-10a.
Daniel,
then, is the second. Whereas the Isaiah text focuses on the joy associated with
resurrection, Daniel says there are two sides to that coin. Some will be
resurrected to everlasting life and some to everlasting contempt.
Brueggemann
writes that we are mistaken to limit resurrection to a merely private
experience… reward or punishment, or even that of being restored to our loved
ones. It’s bigger than that. Let Brueggemann speak: It is clear that the affirmation of life-beyond-death that is only at
the fringes of the Old Testament is able to speak of resurrection as a function
of ‘the end’ (12:13) that is also the beginning of ‘new life.’ That is,
resurrection is a vehicle for radical, apocalyptic thought that bespeaks
fearful endings and amazing beginnings, all of which are wrought by the power
of God. [1]
What
does the promise of resurrection mean to you?
No comments:
Post a Comment