In recent weeks and months, I have been hearing great things about N.T. Wright's newest book, "Simply Christian". Hailed in part as a "Mere Christianity" which is written to make sense for our generation (and being a Mere Christianity dropout myself), I felt that I needed to give this book a try.

The first four chapters are rather difficult. I felt like I must have been the most illiterate and most pagan person on the planet the way that these chapters just weren't doing anything for me. They weren't capturing my interest, my intellect, or even my curiosity. Not anywhere close ... but I slogged ahead, chasing the great promise that I had heard so much about.

Chapter 5 got better and then things really took off. Wright spent a lot of time helping me to understand what Jesus brought to the world as the prophesied Messiah.

Simply Christian left me with a different view of God's creation and intent. It is impossible to have a different view of those things without also gaining a different perspective of my own calling and how I fit within the greater scheme of things.

Wright's premise is that, as Christians, we are to live out the interlock between heaven and earth, between God and man. We are not here to just "bide our time" following certain rules, waiting to be rewarded someday with a better place. We are instead called to be God's reflection in the world ... to help carry justice, beauty, and Spirituality to the world in a way that ushers in God's new kingdom here on earth.

Without giving away Wright's support and insight, let me share with you a little bit from the end of the last chapter, hopefully enough to make you want to dig into this book for yourself.

Gradually we are glimpsing a truth which cannot be overemphasized: that the tasks which await us as Christians, the paths we must walk and the lessons we must learn, are part of the great vocation which reaches us in God's word -- the word of the gospel, the word of Jesus and the Spirit. We are called to be part of God's new creation, called to be agents of that new creation here and now. We are called to model and display the new creation in symphonies and family life, in restorative justice and poetry, in holiness and service to the poor, in politics and painting.

When you see the dawn breaking, you think back to the darkness in a new way. "Sin" is not simply the breaking of a law. It is the missing of an opportunity. Having heard the echoes of a voice, we are called to come and meet the Speaker. We are invited to be transformed by the voice itself, the word of the gospel -- the word which declares that evil has been judged, that the world has been put to rights, that earth and heaven are joined forever, and that new creation has begin. We are called to become people who can speak and live and paint and sing that word so that those who have heard its echoes can come and lend a hand in the larger project. That is the opportunity that stands before us, as gift and possibility. Christian holiness is not (as people often imagine) a matter of denying something good. It is about growing up and grasping something even better.

Made for spirituality, we wallow in introspection. Made for joy, we settle for pleasure. Made for justice, we clamor for vengeance. Made for relationship, we insist on our own way. Made for beauty, we are satisfied with sentiment. But new creation has already begun. The sun has begun to rise. Christians are called to leave behind, in the tomb of Jesus Christ, all that belongs to the brokenness and incompleteness of the present world. It is time, in the power of the Spirit, to take up our proper role, our fully human role, as agents, heralds, and stewards of the new day that is dawning. That, quite simply, is what it means to be Christian: to follow Jesus Christ into the new world, God's new world, which he has thrown open before us.