LIFE OVER AGA IN
Message Delivered by Rev. Curtis B. Akenson, D.D., Pastor of First Baptist Church of Minneapolis, Minnesota, at the Torrey Memorial Conference, January 1953
W OULD you want to live life over again—if you could? Yes. Cer tainly. Except, of course, when your mood agrees with Bertrand Russell’s pessimism that “ Real life is, to most men, a long second-best.” Or with Santayana that “ Life is . . . a predica ment.” Or maybe you feel even as dis couraged and cynical as Dryden sounds in these lines: “ When I consider life, ’tis all a cheat... None would live past years again.” Aren’t you glad that mostly you don’t feel like that? In your search for security and happiness you probably have many times said “ I wish I could live life over again!” And then again, you have said you can’t live life over—and are glad of it.
are correct—but they are only part of the story. On hearing the term “ resur rection” we should learn to thipk of the possibility of a life that, in effect, turns the calendar back . . . of life that begins anew. Because, you see, resurrection sim ply means to live again. Thus there can be no such a thing as a resurrection until something has died. If you would live over again, your old life must die! The body of a man cannot be resurrected unless the body has died. Man’s spirit, Godward, cannot live again until man acknowledges himself “ dead toward God, bound down by things of earth.” Three easy-to-follow steps will help you relate resurrection truth to your desire for the blessing of beginning again. Accept the Fact of Resurrection Resurrection is a commonly and easily observed fact in the order of the natural world. Everyone has seen apparently lifeless trees, dead grass—a stripped-of-green world. But in the spring you expect new life. No atheist would presume to argue with Christ’s words, “ Except a grain of wheat fall into the earth and die, it abideth by itself alone; but if it die, it beareth much fruit” (John 12:24 ARV). The farmers of the richly-productive Upper Midwest pin their hopes of any year’s crop upon the fact of resurrection. They believe in life over again! Resurrection is a persistent fact of human hope that no despair has ever finally overwhelmed. Man of the earth, has never quite escaped—nor will he— the God-implanted knowledge that after this life he lives on. Birds who have never been south wing their way un erringly there. Man’s spirit kindredly wings him beyond the grave—to live again. Individually and as nations men in this life continually fail—only to employ the idea of beginning again. It may be almost without God and without hope, yet mankind repeatedly attempts to live again. Resurrection is an inescapable fact in one supremely important instance —Jesus Christ lived again. Jesus of Nazareth lived on earth at a definite time, in a definite place. Jesus of Nazareth also Page Seven
Your inner conflict is common to men. Philosophers and poets have often ex pressed it. Fontanelle said “ If I were to live my live over again, I would do all that I have done.” But Thomas Moore counters, “ Vain was the man, and false as vain, Who said, were he ordained to run His long career of life again He would do all that he had done!” While pondering the dilemma, it is good to learn that the Bible presents a practical, realistic way of living life anew. The Word of God declares this desirable life possible because of res urrection. Usually you and I think of Easter Day or life after death when res urrection is mentioned. Those thoughts
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