I Corinthians 15:12-26
“What If It’s Not True?”
April 12, 2009 - Easter

         “And what about the Easter Bunny?” That’s what our daughter Susan, age 6, asked us after we explained to her the facts about Santa Claus, trying to preempt a more painful disclosure by another child at school. Hearing the truth about the fat man in the red suit, she pretty quickly put two and two together and deduced that the big white rabbit with the basket of eggs might be in the same category.

         It was a good moment for us as parents because Susan took it well. She laughed and shook her little head in amazement at Daddy and Mommy’s ability to pull off these little charades every year. Discovering that her beliefs about Santa and the Bunny were not true did not dampen the joy of Christmas or Easter for her at all. She grew up into Christian faith and a deep appreciation of what those holidays really mean. But what if even those Christian beliefs were not true? Sunday evening some of us heard atheist Christopher Hitchens put our Christian faith in the category of childhood story and fantasy. What if he’s right? What if it’s not true?

         That’s exactly what Paul asks us to consider in our text today. What if all this that we’re celebrating this morning is not true? The empty tomb, the risen Jesus appearing to Mary and Peter, the nail prints in the living flesh of His hands—what if it’s all just a cleverly concocted story that has deceived millions of people for 2,000 years? What if it’s not true?

         In I Corinthians 5:12, Paul started down that depressing chain of thought because some Christians in Corinth were doubting one particular part of the whole story. They were willing to believe that Christ was raised from the dead, but were having a hard time accepting that Christians will rise from the dead. So, he says in verse 13, suppose that’s the case, suppose “there is no resurrection of the dead.”

         Now, here at Valley Covenant Church, we recite the words from the Creed, “I believe… in the resurrection of the body,” at least once a month. It might seem as if their problem, in Corinth, is not our problem. None of us are saying that there is no resurrection of the dead. Or are we?

         A Christian scholar named N. T. Wright and many others have recently been trying to remind us that our usual talk about what happens when we die is not quite what Paul has in view here, not quite what we regularly recite in the Creed, not quite what Easter faith is all about. What do we regularly say happens to a Christian who dies? She goes to heaven, right? She’s with the Lord, right? Yes, and yes, but that’s not the whole story. That’s not quite the substance of Christian hope.

         Going to heaven is not the whole story because when a person dies and goes to heaven, his body is left on earth. God willing, we bury that body, lay it to rest, but then we forget about it. We picture our departed loved ones as just that, departed into heaven and now happy and complete. They’ve already arrived where they will be forever, they already enjoy all the blessings of God’s kingdom. We may speak of eventually going to join them there, of being reunited with those we love in heaven. That’s our idea of hope. We want to go to heaven.

         Please hear this clearly. There is much truth in the picture I just painted. If you believe in Christ you will go to heaven to be with Him when you die. But that is not our ultimate goal. That’s not what we’re celebrating today on Easter morning. Heaven is not our last and best hope as Christians. Our real hope is richer and better even than heaven.

         It’s not a uniquely Christian thing to believe in life after death. Hindus and Muslims believe in it, and even some atheists think advances in technology may one day allow us to revive a human mind in a computer. Hundreds of years before Jesus, Socrates and Plato argued persuasively for life after death, because the human soul is the sort of thing that just has to live forever. It’s not a distinctively Christian belief, nor is it the hope which brings us together on Easter Sunday.

         The true hope of Christian faith, which the Corinthians were having trouble with and which we downplay and forget in all our talk about going to heaven, is that God will raise our bodies from the dead, just like He raised Jesus’ body from the dead. As Christians, we believe that being in heaven without a body is a temporary condition, a time of waiting, an incomplete state that still looks forward to what God will finally do. The Creed doesn’t say we believe in the immortality of the soul, though we do. What we really believe in is the resurrection of the dead. That’s what Paul was so worked up about here in I Corinthians 15. It’s what I’m worked up about this morning.

         Verses 13 through 19 are what logicians call a reductio ad absurdum. Paul starts with the idea that the dead are not raised and shows that it reduces to an absurd, even pitiful conclusion. First, in verse 13, if we don’t believe in the raising of the dead, then we can’t believe that Jesus was raised from the dead. That’s the key point. He repeats it again in verse 16, “For if the dead are not raised, Christ has not been raised either.”

         And if Christ has not been raised, all sorts of ugly deductions follow: in verse 14, that preaching is useless and so is faith; in verse 15 that the whole thing is a terrible lie; in verse 16 that faith is futile and our sins have not been forgiven; in verse 18 that those who have already died are lost; and finally in verse 19, if the dead are not raised, if our only hope is this life, then Christians are the most pitiful people of all.

         There’s no in between according to Paul. It’s all or nothing. That’s the great service which outspoken atheists like Hitchens and Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett do for us. They make us see that if we don’t believe the whole story, don’t believe that God raised Christ and that He will raise us too, then our faith is a complete lie, a travesty, a futile game we play that does no one any good. There’s no half-way. We can’t stop with just going to heaven. Real faith goes on to believe and hope and trust in the rising of the dead.

         As we struggle with life in the world of 2009, we need the better hope, the real faith. It might be easy when you’ve lost your job or your house or health to want the half-way deal. Let’s just leave these bodies and this world behind and all go to heaven. It might be comforting to think in the midst of global warming and a failing world economy and rising levels of violence and war that all we really want is to escape into the spiritual presence of God. It might feel pretty good to sing along with The Animals, “We gotta get out of this place, if it’s the last thing we ever do,” and hope it is the last thing we ever do.

         Yet what we actually sang this morning is, “Christ the Lord is risen today!” That’s what Paul practically shouts from the page as he writes verse 20, “But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead”! It’s what we read in our Gospel lesson from John 20 this morning. Mary and Peter, then all the disciples saw him. As Paul tells us in verse 6 just before our text, he appeared to more than 500 eyewitnesses, most of whom were still alive and available for interviews.

         He showed them His hands and side, John tells us. He ate fish. He sat by a little charcoal fire on the beach and talked with Peter. Jesus did not leave His body behind. He did not escape from this hard, troubled physical world and float off to heaven as pure spirit. No, He rose in His body from the dead, with all the marks of crucifixion still on Him. And God means to do the same for us. That’s the real deal. That’s our whole and complete hope. We are to be raised with Christ.

         That’s why Paul proclaims “But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.” We believe Jesus is risen as the first of many. We’re not looking forward to leaving our bodies and this world behind. We’re looking forward to rising again in our bodies and living in this world forever. That is the Christian hope. That’s the real message of Easter.

         Yes, I hear some of you. This Easter message may not sound so hopeful if your body is giving you problems, or if this world doesn’t feel much like a place you want to be. If you’ve struggled with a handicap all your life, or if where you live is a hard place, you may be very ready just to get out of there and fly off to heaven as a spirit set free.

         Yet the hope we have in Jesus Christ is that He’s not going to simply rescue us out of the world, out of our bodies. He’s going to rescue us, bodies, world and all. If He just wanted to yank us out of here into heaven, He could have done that without leaving His comfy throne in heaven’s living room. But He wanted to save us completely, soul and body, For that He had to become one of us, had to be in our world, had to accept a body Himself, had to die on the Cross, and had to rise from the dead. All because He would not abandon our bodies or our world.

         At least one family here is going to lose their home soon. What a painful day that will be. To empty it out of all your furniture and belongings. To close and lock the door on all those memories, the rooms where you loved and played and ate and grew up together. To just walk away and leave it for the bank. What agony. My heart goes out to you. It’s like dying. It’s a lot like dying.

         Even if a Christian goes to heaven, the body gets left behind. Those arms that hugged, those eyes that sparkled, those legs that ran and that mouth that laughed and cried and sang and spoke and tasted so much good food will all be left in the ground. That’s the very real agony of death. It feels like it doesn’t matter if a soul is alive in heaven. You close the lid on the coffin. It’s lowered into the ground, and you walk away from precious, dear flesh and blood.

         That’s exactly why the Christian hope is better and more complete than mere immortality of the soul. Because Christ is risen, we know that God does not abandon our flesh and blood, the beloved bodies of our friends and family. He’s going to save them, just like He saved Jesus’ own body. And Romans chapter 8 and Revelation chapter 21 teach us that He will also save the world our bodies live in.

         So the hope and promise of Easter is largely yet to come. Christ is indeed risen. That’s already happened. But verses 21-24 look ahead to what will happen. “Since through a man came death, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ will all be made alive.” But it hasn’t quite happened yet. That’s why verse 23 cautions us, “But each in his own turn: Christ, the firstfruits; then, when he comes, those who belong to him.” And it’s only now do we read in verse 24, “Then the end will come.”

         It ain’t over till it’s over. It ain’t over when a Christian dies and goes to heaven. That’s just the beginning. It ain’t over until the sky breaks open and our risen Lord comes down again to raise us up like He was raised. It ain’t over until all God’s people who have ever lived join Him in this world He’s going to re-create. It ain’t over until He takes our risen bodies and our remade world and “hands over the kingdom to God the Father.”

         I’m glad to believe that my mother is in heaven with Jesus now. But I’m even happier that there will be a day when I see her again, red hair, fair skin, freckles and all. I expect to be totally surprised and overwhelmed with joy one day when Beth and I greet in the flesh the child we never knew, an unborn baby lost between the births of Susan and Joanna.

         A baby never born and a 79 year old woman. It raises all sorts of questions. What shape will our resurrected bodies be in? How old will we look? Hugo of St. Victor thought we would all appear about 30 years old, because that’s the age of Jesus when He began His ministry. At 53, that sounds pretty good to me. Maybe it’s not so great if you’re seventeen. But we don’t know. Scripture doesn’t answer all our questions. What we do know is what Paul says later in chapter 15: our resurrected bodies will be imperishable, immortal. Each one of us will be whole and complete and as beautiful and strong as God meant us to be.

         I could go on. I look forward to seeing my grandmother’s slightly crooked smile again. I expect to see the small form of our old friend Ellis, a little person, but he will be standing straighter than he was ever able to before. I’d like to greet the fat bulk of Thomas Aquinas and the wiry thin frame of Francis of Assisi. I kind of hope C. S. Lewis will have a pipe clenched between his teeth when I meet him. I’d love to see Mother Teresa’s marked and wrinkled old face smoothed into lasting beauty.

         Most of all, though, what we hope to see and hear and touch with raised and renewed and perfect bodies is the glorified shape of the One who made it all possible. As our text for next Sunday from I John says the first believers did, we look forward to seeing His face, to hearing His voice, to touching His hand. We will rise and meet Him not just in spirit, but in the flesh.

         In the meantime, you and I have a mission. God raised Christ from the dead because He cares about our bodies and our world. He’s not going to let death foreclose on our flesh and blood or on our planet. Instead, He’s going to make them into His kingdom. Verse 24 tells us Jesus will destroy, “all dominion, authority and power.” Verse 25 says, “For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet.”

         Jesus is going to raise and redeem and remake our bodies and our world. He’s going to reign over a kingdom where no one will be forced out of their home, no one will go hungry, and no one will suffer the pain of cancer or the embarrassment of a handicap. He’s at work building and getting ready for that kingdom right now.

         That means we are called to live as people who plan to be here in Jesus’ kingdom forever. We’re not going to lock the doors and finally walk away from body and world. If we leave for awhile, we believe we’re coming back. We’re going to live here again. It’s our Christian mission to do our best to leave things in good order.

         Verse 26 tells us, “The last enemy to be destroyed is death.” That’s why we are called to be people of life, people who work for bringing life into this world that Jesus came to save. Now is the time to plant trees, to heal bodies, to clean up rivers, and to build houses for those who have none. Now is the time for Christians to show everyone else what the kingdom of God looks like and help them discover and feel the hope we have. Now, as the economy is falling and people are dying, is the time to preach that Christ is risen, and that He is coming to raise us up with Him. Now is the time to tell our world the truth.

         And I invite each one of you to believe that truth. Maybe you never have before. Maybe you just had a halfway hope of getting to heaven somehow. But Christ is risen! There’s no halfway. If it’s not true, then we’re all pitiful fools. But if it is true, if it is true, then it’s the only thing worth all your hope, worth all your life. Please put your hope for the future in Jesus Christ.

         Amen.

Valley Covenant Church
Eugene/Springfield, Oregon
Copyright © 2009 by Stephen S. Bilynskyj