Into Eternal Life – sermon on May 8, 2016
1 Corinthians 15: 1-23, 51-57 Now, brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, and on which you have taken your stand. By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain. For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Last of all, as though I had been born at the wrong time, I also saw him. 9 For I am the least of all the apostles. In fact, I’m not even worthy to be called an apostle after the way I persecuted God’s church.
But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? 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. More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified that God raised Christ from the dead. If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied. But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. 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.
Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be transformed – 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 transformed. For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory. Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Sermon: Into Eternal Life by Rev. Doreen Oughton
Paul’s letter to the Corinthians was written in an effort to address some problems that had bubbled up in this church that Paul had founded and then left to continue on without him. Last week we talked about the part where Paul encouraged them to honor the gifts and contributions of all, not to get too excited about their own gifts, not to put personal interests above the well-being of others or of the community as a whole. In the passage from today’s reading Paul seeks to correct people on an important aspect of his own belief and teachings. Apparently some in the community are saying that there is no resurrection of the dead. This would have been terribly distressing for Paul, as the resurrection of Jesus is what converted him from a persecutor of the church into one of its most productive messenger of the faith. He reminds them that the most important part of his preaching and teaching is that Jesus died for our sins, was buried, and was raised from the dead. There is absolute certainty that he was raised, Paul seems to say, because of all the people that saw him – there were the twelve, the 500, and finally he himself.
Now for Paul, his encounter with the living Christ had incredibly powerful and lasting impact. It was what converted him from a persecutor of the churches of Jesus Christ, to one of its most fervent evangelizers. Having been an educated Pharisee, with insight into the objections a devout Jew might have to a Messiah who’d been crucified, Paul put lots of thought into his theology of the cross. It was a crucial question for him, one that he had to reconcile in order to preach with conviction, as he was compelled by his experience and his feelings.
Now Paul, along with many of the early disciples, believed that Christ’s return would occur soon, probably, hopefully, within their lifetime. And when followers of the way died, it would have been upsetting. Would Jesus’ return be too late for those who died? Paul’s answer was no, absolutely not. All who have died will be raised, just as Christ was raised. And anyone who is questioning that, or saying it is not so might just as well be saying that Christ wasn’t raised. And, well, if Christ wasn’t raised, then our faith is meaningless, useless, and we are fools to be pitied. For Paul, the essential of faith is belief in the resurrection – in Christ’s resurrection and in the promised resurrection for all Christ’s followers. Anything else – healing, worship, prophecy, charity – is secondary. We will live eternally because Christ lives eternally.
Now the second scripture suggested to go along with this one is from the Gospel of Mark, ch. 12, verses 26-27a. Jesus is teaching and is approached by some Sadducees – who do not really believe in life after death. They try to trip him up with a question about a woman who is widowed and then marries first one of her 6 brothers-in-law, then all the rest of them as one after the other dies without producing children. They ask whose wife she will be in heaven. Jesus does not answer their question, but challenges their disbelief in life after death. He says, “haven’t you ever read about this in the writings of Moses, in the story of the burning bush? Long after Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had died, God said to Moses, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ So he is the God of the living, not the dead. You have made a serious error.”
So here’s my question: If Abraham, Isaac and Jacob had all entered into eternal life with God before Jesus died, was buried and raised after three days, was it really Jesus who made eternal life possible? Paul talks about how we all face mortality because of a man – Adam – referencing the Genesis story of Adam and Eve eating the fruit and being banished from the Garden of Eden. He says that because of another man, Jesus, we are restored to eternal life.
Now Paul might say my faith is pointless without my agreement on this point, but it is not pointless to me. Though I think eternal life is the outcome for all souls, and always has been, that doesn’t mean the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus were irrelevant or pointless. My theory is that Jesus came back to help us to better see this truth. We worry so much about death. We are so afraid of it that we think we have to fight for life. We think we have to compete with others for the things that maintain life as we know it. We hoard more than we need because we are afraid we might die if we don’t have enough. We go to war, killing others so they don’t kill us. I think Jesus came back to show us that we have no reason to worry. Death is final. It isn’t the end. It is a transition, like birth is a transition. You can, you will, face this thing you fear so much, and you will be alright. Better than alright.
And I think he wanted to convince us of this so that we could change how we live now. In doing so we can get a glimpse of this eternal life even while we are in these mortal bodies. His life and his teachings were the models for that, for how to enter the kindom that is within and among and between us. And his resurrection sparked such hope and faith in this eternal life that people through the ages and around the world have come to it. They stand firm in it, as Paul says.
There is a website I check regularly called the Dollar Store Children’s message. Sometimes I use what’s there for the word for all ages, sometimes take the general idea and adapt it, and sometimes I just close the page. The message for this page was one that I not only closed immediately, but was making faces about it. The suggestion was to get lots of noise-makers and make lots of celebratory noise about this victory over death. Now I think that would be confusing to children, and maybe it would even make some of you scratch your heads. What if they’d just lost a pet, or a grandparent, or a friend? What about all the people you’ve lost – those of you thinking of your mothers today? Death, as we understand it, still happens. People leave this life and it hurts. It doesn’t feel right to celebrate victory over death when death still has the power to hurt us so much. Maybe not our own deaths, but the deaths of loved ones.
I think even in this we can turn to Jesus. He leads the way through suffering and sorrow. He was willing to truly experience those things, as well as the fear of death. Wherever we might go – into fear, into sadness and grief, anger, into doubt, even, he has been there. He has been on the cross abandoned and betrayed by his friends, feeling abandoned by his Abba. And still he came back to tell us that these things do not have the last word. He may not have been the first to be raised from the dead, but as far as I know, he is the first to come back and show us. He is the one who has shown me, the one I will follow because he has been there before me and will show me how to live, how to die, how to be raised again, how to enter God’s beloved community. We’ll all get there eventually, but how long do you want to wander and wait, when we have a living savior eager to show us the way. May it be so.
