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At the same time, Jesus gives a foretaste of a future time when earth will be restored to God's original design. Easter is the beginning of the "laughter of the redeemed … God's protest against death." A person without faith may assume from the suffering on this planet that God is neither all-good nor all-powerful. Faith allows us to believe that God is not satisfied with this world either, and intends to make all things new.

Only at Christ's Second Coming will the kingdom of God take shape in all its fullness. In the meantime, we establish settlements of that kingdom, always glancing back to the Gospels for a template. Moltmann notes that the phrase "Day of the Lord" in the Old Testament inspired fear, but in the New Testament it inspires hope, because those authors have come to know and trust the Lord whose Day it is.

In a single sentence Jürgen Moltmann expresses the great span from Good Friday to Easter. It is, in fact, a summary of human history, past, present, and future: "God weeps with us so that we may someday laugh with him."

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A. J. Conyers reviewed Moltmann's The Coming of God in the November/December 1999 issue of Christianity Today sister publication Books & Culture.

Bruderhof's website has four articles by Moltmann.

A Yahoo group discusses Moltmann and his work.

The Boston Collaborative Encyclopedia of Modern Western Theology has an entry on Moltmann.

One blogger found a book that claims to reveal where Moltmann shops and what he buys there.

Moltmann's works are available through ChristianBook.com and other book retailers.

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September 2005, Vol. 49, No. 9