Text: 1 Corinthians 15:20-26
Focus: Easter
Function: rejoicing at salvation
19If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.
20But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died. 21For since death came through a human, the resurrection of the dead has also come through a human, 22for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ. 23But each in its own order: Christ the first fruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. 24Then comes the end, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father, after he has destroyed every ruler and every authority and power. 25For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. 26The last enemy to be destroyed is death.
He is Risen!
He is Risen!
He is Risen indeed!
Happy Easter to the beloved of God!
This is a highly symbolic passage of scripture and although we didn’t read it, it starts out with the phrase: “Behold, I show you a mystery.…” And then he goes on to defend the doctrine of the resurrection.
This passage of scripture is Paul’s defense of the resurrection. It is his logical proof of the fact of the resurrection even though he was not among that initial small group of terrified believers who were the first witnesses to the resurrection starting with Mary, moving on to Peter and John and then the rest of the twelve and according to Peter, over 500 people who saw him before he ascended into heaven.
And Paul, who wrote our text for today, only saw the resurrected Jesus later in a vision when God called him to be an apostle. But that was after Jesus ascended into heaven.
I have often pondered the fact of the resurrection and the circumstances surrounding it since Jesus had a different physical form. We know that because Mary, while looking at him thought him to be the gardener. That same day on the way to Emmaus Jesus appeared to two other disciples and they didn’t recognize him until he broke bread with them and then disappeared. It was clearly a miraculous visitation because of the way Jesus disappeared, but his resurrected form was different. Scripture doesn’t tell us know why except that Jesus was in his new body, the one he says will be like the angels in heaven and not male and female.
Our resurrection will bring about a glorious change and it is something to look forward to.
But since Jesus looked different, skeptics continued to doubt.
I have often wondered about whether or not I would continue to live the way I live if there was no resurrection.
And I can conclude that the path of caring for each other as much as we care for our individual selves is the only real way the human race can survive.
And all of that comes to me from the example of the way Jesus, the Lord of Glory and the commander of tens of thousands of angels, allowed himself to be crucified and forgave the ones who did it.
I believe, like Martin Luther King Jr. that passive resistance is a real path to peace.
It makes a spiritual statement about where our faith lies and it exposes the evil of the oppressor.
It witnesses to the same power of the resurrection that Jesus embraced.
For me, the fact is, I believe in the resurrection because of the Spirit’s leading in my heart.
On Good Friday, when Jesus died, the veil in the temple was split by divine providence from top to bottom.
The veil represented the separation from mankind that our failures have brought upon us. We can call that sin.
And Jesus’ death took upon him the sin of us all.
I picture the cross, and Jesus crying out; “Eli! Eli! Lama Sabachtini!” translated as “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?”
It wasn’t a statement that God abandons his own, but the statement that at that point the weight of the evil of humanity was born by him as Kathy read Thursday night from Isaiah 53.
God showed us through the prophet Isaiah that Jesus would bear our sins before God. Through that, we are forgiven and the Holy Spirit now dwells in the hearts of people, leading them to love one another.
The resurrection brought about the freedom to follow Christ through the Spirit of God.
Jesus death and resurrection proves to us that God has power over our own death.
And Jesus did it, I believe, to empower us to live for him.
He did it by defeating the last enemy, death. And that comes from the last verse.
It is fear of death, or loss, that can keep us from our bold witness to the love of Jesus as the way to continue the healing of humanity that Jesus started.
But we don’t live in fear, we live in faith.
The good news us that Jesus came to liberate all of us instead of a select few.
The last enemy to be conquered for us is death and the good news is that death is already conquered!
Jesus rose again and has promised that we will as well so that we can live our lives to love God by loving others.
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