Living A Bigger Life In Christ

 

In downtown Louisville, KY at the corner of 4th and Walnut, Trappist monk and author Thomas Merton had a mystical vision in 1958 that’s one of the most famous revelations in the history of spirituality. 

There is a historical marker at that spot commemorating the event, which would change Merton's life.  Merton suddenly saw all the people around him glowing with a strange light. He described it like this: 

“In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all those people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers." 

This vision would change the direction of Merton's spiritual and theological beliefs, and he would go on to become one of the most beloved spiritual authors in the world.  

What Merton saw on that day was that Christianity was bigger than he had previously imagined, and he was determined afterward to begin to live as such.  

While most of us don't have the benefit of a mystical vision that changes the course of our lives, we do have scores of chances each and every day to live a bigger kind of Christian life, the kind that Jesus desired for his followers.   

So often, our vision of the Christian life becomes too small. We reduce it to rules, boundaries, and exclusivity rather than seeing it as the wide-open invitation of God’s kingdom. N.T. Wright captures this beautifully when he writes:

“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 ... 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.”

This is the invitation: to leave behind smallness and step into the wide horizon of God’s new creation. The resurrection of Jesus was not just a victory over death—it was the opening of an entirely new reality. 

Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 5:17, “If anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” We are no longer bound to the narrow ways of selfishness, fear, and exclusion. Instead, we are set free to live expansively—to embody joy, justice, and love that reflect the breadth of God’s heart.

Jesus himself said, “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full” (John 10:10). Life “to the full” is not a small life hemmed in by bitterness or by drawing lines around who’s in and who’s out. It is a life flung wide open by grace, rooted in God’s boundless love, and extended outward into acts of justice, mercy, and reconciliation.

This larger life is not about escaping the world but entering more deeply into it with the eyes of Christ. When we forgive instead of retaliate, when we seek beauty beyond shallow sentiment, when we stand for justice instead of vengeance, we are living as people of resurrection—people whose lives proclaim that God’s new world is already breaking in.

Today, may you resist the temptation to live small. Instead, lift your eyes to the risen Christ, who has opened the door into a life more expansive than you can imagine. 

Step boldly into that life, knowing you are part of God’s new creation. You are a resurrection person—live as though the tomb is empty and the sun has already risen.

Prayer
Risen Christ, you have opened the door to a bigger life than we often dare to imagine. Free us from the smallness of fear, bitterness, and self-interest, and draw us into the wide horizon of your new creation. Fill us with joy that overflows, love that embraces, and courage that seeks your justice. Teach us to live as resurrection people, carrying your light into every corner of the world. Amen.