This is a sermon that was preached at United Presbyterian Church on Sunday, March 4, 2018.
Listen to the audio here.
Read 1 Corinthians
15:12-22, Psalm 19:1-6 here.
A
common perception is that dead people
stay dead. We are afraid of death,
and fascinated with the idea of resurrection. Often we deal with our fear and
fascination through humor. Lots
of humor. I know this because I found
tons of it on the internet this week.
I was googling because I wanted to make sure that I didn’t make
the same mistake twice. Last Wednesday I
preached at the college chapel, and afterward Christian Dashiel, Andy Giorgetti
and Brett Callan accused me of plagiarizing my sermon. They said I couldn’t have written it myself
because there were no puns in it. I
think they were making much ado about
nothing. Rest assured, from now on there
will be puns. So…….
Old ministers never
die, they just get put out to pastor….
And….
What did the
dead person say to the pineapple?
Nothing. Dead people can’t talk.[2]
The
Bible reinforces our view of death as an enemy[3]
that Jesus conquered when he was raised by God from the dead.
The last
enemy to be destroyed is death.
--1 Corinthians 15:26
We
toy with the idea of being able to conquer death ourselves, but try as we
might, and lord we have tried, we cannot conquer it ourselves. The good news of the resurrection is that God is stronger than death.[4]
Friday
night I went to see the play Romeo & Juliet at Sterling College. A wonderful production! It’s fun and funny in parts, but there’s also
lots of death in it. Some of the most dramatic
moments in the play are when characters find that their friends or family
members have died and are overwrought with sadness and disbelief. In the midst of their feud with the
Montagues, the Capulets (played by Amy & Larry Brownlee) are determined to
arrange an appropriate marriage for their daughter Juliet, but Juliet foils
their plans by faking her death. Romeo
thinks she’s dead, and takes poison so that he can join her in death. We want to yell out to him, “Don’t do it! She’s not really dead.” Shakespeare
plays with the idea of resurrection in 14 of his plays, usually by having
characters reappear after someone thought they were dead.[5]
The reality is that only God can raise
the dead. God is the one who created us and gave
us life. Our psalm reading for today says the heavens are constantly telling us
about God’s glory…..
There is no speech, nor are there
words; their voice is not heard;
yet their voice goes out through all the
earth,
and their words to the end of the world.
(Psalm 18:3-4)
The
power of God is displayed in the rising and setting of the sun each day, and that same power raised Jesus from death,
but it is power that only God has.
There
is an old legend that the Spanish explorer Ponce
De Leon discovered Florida while he was searching for the fountain of
youth. Although that is only a legend,
the city of St. Augustine in Florida
has a statue of Ponce De Leon and a fountain of youth that is a popular tourist
attraction.[6] Tens of thousands of people go every year to
St. Augustine to drink water from that fountain that is only commemorating the
fountain of youth.[7]
Although
people have tried throughout the ages to thwart death, we see in Genesis that
from the beginning God knew that that
would be a bad idea.
Genesis 3 22 Then
the Lord God said, “See, the man has become
like one of us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might reach out his hand and
take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever”— 23 therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground
from which he was taken. 24 He
drove out the man; and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the
cherubim, and a sword flaming and turning to guard the way to the tree of life.
Death
came through Adam & Eve, but God brought us life through Jesus, as Paul
explains in 1 Cor 15:21-22:
For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. (1 Cor 15:21-22)
This
letter to the church in Corinth was written only 30 years after Jesus died and was resurrected, which means
that this was written earlier than the gospels.
They didn’t have the Bible we have to refer to for help with theological
questions yet. Christianity was very
young, and churches were already having
issues. Paul writes to the church in
Corinth to address some of these issues, one of which is that some are saying that there is no
resurrection of the dead. And in
typical Pauline fashion, he presents us with a very logical argument.
If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. (1 Cor 15:13-14)
The
reason we make such a big deal about celebrating Easter, celebrating the
resurrection, is that it is the foundation
of our faith. We would not celebrate
Jesus at all if there had been no resurrection.
Paul continues his argument by showing what this means for us
personally:
For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. (1 Cor 15:16-17)
If
there is no resurrection and Christ has not been raised, then there is no
forgiveness of sins, no grace, no basis for our hope. But,
as we profess every time we recite the Apostle’s Creed together, we do believe
that Jesus was raised from the dead, and we state our belief “…in the resurrection of the body and the
life everlasting. Amen.”
What
are we actually professing when we say that?
One of our confessions, the Heidelberg Catechism, gives us a brief
explanation:
Question 57: How does “the
resurrection of the body” comfort you?
Not only my soul will be taken immediately after this life to Christ its head, but even my very flesh, raised by the power of Christ, will be reunited with my soul and made like Christ’s glorious body.[8]
That answer helps, but still leaves us with
questions, so let’s consider why we hope for the resurrection of the body, what
it means, and when it will happen?[9]
Why hope for bodily resurrection?
·
Paul tells us why
in 1 Cor 15:20: But Christ has indeed
been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep.
·
We hope for it
because we believe that it has happened:
a dead man actually lived again! Not
just a man (so that the event could
be considered a freak exception to the rule that dead people stay dead), but
one in whom we believe God’s plan for the future of all human beings is
revealed.[10]
·
Paul also
explains this in his letter to the Romans.
Romans 8:11 If the Spirit of him
who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the
dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells
in you.
So
we hope for the bodily resurrection because Jesus was raised.
What does bodily resurrection mean?
If
we were to go dig up some of the bodies in the cemetery, we wouldn’t find
bodies that looked like they did when the people were alive. They’d be in various states of decay. This is what we see in all the zombie
movies. There’s a very funny scene in a
book by Christopher Moore called The
Stupidest Angel.[11] In this story, somebody’s accidentally killed
Santa Claus, and a little boy who witnessed the killing has prayed for someone
to resurrect Santa. Luckily there’s an angel waiting in the wings (get it?)
and he comes to help. Unfortunately,
he’s not very good at his job, and in one of his attempts to resurrect Santa,
he resurrects one whole section of the graveyard. Some have been dead so long that they’re just
skeletons, others are quite recent and look almost normal, and some are in
between. It’s a big, hilarious mess.
·
So although we
don’t know really how this works, we do know that the resurrection of the body
means the resurrection of a person. Both body and soul.
·
1 John 3:2 We do not know what we will be, but we know
that we will be “like him” (Jesus)
·
This is based on
what we see in Jesus’ post resurrection appearances as described in the
gospels.[12]
They show us that Jesus was recognizable but transformed. He had a body that
still bore the scars of the crucifixion.
He walked, talked, ate, drank, and could be touched. But he did appear
suddenly inside locked rooms. And also
disappeared.
·
Paul describes it
this way in 1 Cor 15:42-44 So will it be
with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is
raised imperishable; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown
in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a
spiritual body.
·
We don’t know
what Paul meant exactly by spiritual body, but it’s fun to speculate, and I
think that’s one of the reasons we have such a variety of ideas in books and
movies and art.
When
will it happen?
·
Immediately upon
death we will be with Christ. Jesus told
the thief on the cross being crucified next to him, “Today you will be with me in Paradise” (Luke 23:42).
·
And at the end of
time
·
1 Cor 15:51-52 Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will
not all sleep, but we will all be changed— in a
flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will
sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.
·
1 Thess 4:16-17 For the Lord himself,
with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call and with the sound of God’s
trumpet, will descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise
first. 17 Then we who are alive, who are left, will
be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air; and
so we will be with the Lord forever.
·
Jesus tells us
this in Mark 13:26-27 Then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in clouds’ with great power
and glory. 27 Then he will send out the angels, and
gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of
heaven.
·
So it’s kind of a
both now and later thing.[13] We meet God immediately, and our bodies are
resurrected when Jesus comes again.
The
bottom line is that resurrection is something only God can do, and only God can
fully comprehend. We cannot do anything
to affect it, other than trusting that what the Bible tells us, what Jesus
tells us, is true. He came “so that everyone who believes in him may
not perish but may have eternal life” (John 3:16).
As the monk Thomas Merton puts it, “The final
step on the way to holiness in Christ is then to completely abandon ourselves
with confident joy to the apparent madness of the cross.”[14]
In
Shakespeare’s play, Juliet cannot imagine life without Romeo, so much so that
the horrors of death are acceptable because life without Romeo is worse:[15]
Or, if I live, is it not very like,
The horrible conceit of death and night. . .
The horrible conceit of death and night. . .
Whether
or not we have known that kind of love with another human, we have a love that
is even stronger with our savior Jesus.
I cannot imagine a life without God’s constant loving presence, a life
in which there is no cross of salvation, no grace and forgiveness through
faith, no resurrection of the dead and eternal life with God.
Let’s
enjoy the fun that we have with the mystery
of the resurrection in our cultural expressions, and enjoy the assurance we have through our faith in
Jesus Christ that there is a
resurrection that is already at work in us and in the world around us, and
that there is the resurrection of the dead and the life everlasting.
[1] By Rev. Melissa Krabbe,
preached on March 4, 2018 at United Presbyterian Church, Sterling, KS
[3] Randall Working, From
Rebellion to Redemption, 128
[4] Shirley Guthrie, Christian
Doctrine, 274
[5] https://muse.jhu.edu/book/5356
[8] Luke 23:43, Phil 1:21-23, 1 Cor 15:20,42-46,54; Phil
3:21, 1 John 3:2
[9] Shirley Guthrie, Christian Doctrine, 392-395
[10] Shirley Guthrie, Christian
Doctrine, 392
[11] Christopher Moore, The Stupidest Angel: A heartwarming tale of
Christmas Terror, Kindle edition 2006 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B006O0I3ZO/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1
[12] Matt 28:9-10; Luke 24:13-50; John 20:11-29, 21:1-13
[13] Shirley Guthrie, Christian
Doctrine, 395
[14] Thomas Merton, Life & Holiness, 1963 (Also quoted
in Easter Earthquake) https://www.scribd.com/doc/52208155/Thomas-Merton-Life-and-Holiness
[15] William Shakespeare, Romeo & Juliet, Act 4: Scene 3
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