The Resurrection and You
Gettysburg Presbyterian Church
I Cor. 15 (selected verses)
April 24, 2011 - Easter Sunday
It’s interesting how one event can have a profound impact for years and even centuries. Here in Gettysburg, we think, of course, about the Civil War and how different our lives would have been if the South had won. The U.S. probably would have been two countries. In fact, we might be living a few miles from an international border with the Confederate States of America! You’d need a passport just to go to Emmitsburg! Or, take the invention of penicillin and other antibiotics. How many of our friends and family members are living today because of this invention? Or, more recently, think about how much cell phones have changed our lives! There are pros and cons with this one, but it’s mostly good, I think!
That brings us to this morning. How would your life be different if there had been no Easter? What difference does it make in the way you live today that a man came back from the dead 2000 years ago?
In I Cor 15, the Apostle Paul gives us the fullest discussion about resurrection in the New Testament. In fact, he devotes 58 verses to explore its meaning. Now some of you may be disappointed, but I’m not going to read all 58 verses this morning- you can do that on your own! Instead, let’s focus on a few verses in which we find three ways that Jesus’ resurrection makes a vital difference to us today.
We’ll start with verses 17-19. If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have died in Christ have perished. If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied. That’s pretty radical, isn’t it? Paul says that if Jesus wasn’t raised from the dead, our faith is in vain! Our sins are not forgiven and there’s no need to bother with being a Christian at all. But why is Jesus’ resurrection so important to Christian faith? After all, we would still have his teachings and his death for us on the cross. Why is the resurrection so important?
It starts with what Jesus himself said. He claimed to be God in the flesh. Only as God would Jesus have the authority to forgive our sins and make us right with his Father. He also claimed that his coming death would provide a sacrifice for the sins of the world. And then he promised that he would be raised after three days. So, his claim that he had the authority to wash away our sins was confirmed when he was raised from the dead. Without the resurrection, his other claims are in doubt.
And being forgiven from our sins frees us to live joyful lives, no longer weighed down with the guilt and shame of our moral failures. And we all have moral failures, some of which are so embarrassing we’d never tell them to anyone. But, Jesus taught that no matter what you’ve done, no matter where you’ve been, God welcomes you as you are, and offers his forgiveness and the opportunity for a fresh start. God is the God of second chances. The resurrection of Jesus demonstrates that his promise to forgive our sins is true! This good news is one of the ways your life is different because of Easter!
Secondly, the resurrection affects how we deal with death. Consider this letter from Health and Human Services to a resident of Greenville County, SC: “Your food stamps will be stopped, effective March 2002, because we received notice that you passed away. May God bless you. You may reapply if your circumstances change!” Now that’s a very optimistic letter! The problem is that we all know better. None of us knows anyone who came back from being dead, except, maybe, for a few minutes. Dead is dead. It’s a permanent condition. It’s the end. It’s final. That’s why people have always feared and dreaded it. But the resurrection affects how we handle death. Listen to these verses. Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say there is no resurrection of the dead? But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died. For since death came through a human being, the resurrection of the dead has also come through a human being; for as all died in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ. But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ.” (I Cor. 15:12, 20-23)
Paul’s argument here is clear. Jesus’ resurrection from the dead guarantees our own resurrection. He then talks about Jesus as being the “first fruits of those who died.” What’s up with that?
Some of you gardeners understand. After you’ve tilled and improved the soil, planted the seeds, watered and weeded, kept the critters away, and waited, seemingly forever- one day those first ripe strawberries, tomatoes, or ears of corn come in. It’s not just that they’re great to eat. They also give you confidence that all the rest of the crop will be coming in soon. Paul says Jesus’ resurrection is like that first part of the harvest; it confirms that our own resurrection is sure to follow. And we need that assurance.
When our kids were young, we took them caving in some wild caves near Franklin, West Virginia on several occasions. These were not commercial caves. There were no lights, no paths, no guides. You had to find your way through the caves, and then (more importantly) back out! One time while we were exploring a cave, we came to a place with multiple passages to choose from. Bonnie and I took the easiest ones, and I sent my daughter, Melissa, through the tightest passage, since she was both small and adventurous. Then we waited for her to explore the passage to figure out if it went anywhere, or was just a dead end. In time, she returned with a big smile, saying, “Come on back. This one goes through and then it opens up!” And we followed her into the passage, and moved on through the rest of the cave.
I think that’s a little like what Jesus did for us with his resurrection.
While all of humanity worried and feared about crossing from life to death, Jesus willingly did it. Then he returned to tell us that God is present on the other side, so we don’t have to fear our own passage anymore. None of us wants to die, but Jesus’ resurrection gives us assurance that death is not the end, and that God will be with us through it. That makes a huge difference in how we approach death.
People long for that kind of assurance. Perhaps that’s why the book Heaven Is For Real, the story of a child who believes he visited heaven during a near or actual death experience has been at the top of the NY Times Bestseller list for months. Jesus’ resurrection confirms his claim to be able to save us from our sins, and it gives us hope as we deal with death- our own, or that of our people we care about!
Finally, the resurrection gives us hope for our world today! In a world plagued by terrorism, a potentially catastrophic national debt, global warming, radiation leaks, unrelenting wars, and entrenched poverty, it is easy to lose hope and begin to believe that things will never get better.
Into that sense of despair, comes the resurrection of Jesus. It happened during a grim time in Israel’s history. Israel had been occupied by foreign nations for centuries. Poverty and short life expectancy were the norm. Any dissent about Roman rule was brutally suppressed. The Romans crucified thousands of Jews along well-traveled roads, as a warning to others not to defy their authority. It would be like driving down Baltimore St. and seeing people being executed all along the way. It was about as hopeless a time as you could imagine. Yet into that awful time comes Jesus. It looked as though he had come to the same end as those common criminals, but he came back to life, overcoming the power of evil! And that changes our whole perspective on the possibilities for our world. Listen to verses 24-26. Then comes the end, when he (Jesus) hands over the kingdom to God the Father, after he has destroyed every ruler and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. (I Cor. 15:24-26)
Jesus has promised to return and make all things right. Those who oppress others will be replaced and judged, Paul says. Justice and peace will prevail in what Jesus called the Kingdom of God. Jesus made it very clear that the Kingdom of God is not just a future event, but that it is breaking into human history even now. “The kingdom of God is in your midst,” he said. The resurrection is a powerful sign that the rule of God is already breaking into our world! God is intervening in human affairs, just like he did when he raised Jesus from the dead.
And Jesus invites us to participate in what God is doing to change the world in which we live. And God is at work! In a Christianity Today article, Philip Yancey chronicles some of the ways in which God has been helping our world become a better place. Only a century ago, four in five children died of disease before they reached five years of age. Now it’s about one in ten. Thirty years ago the global literacy rate was 53%. Now, about 80% of the world’s population can read. The percentage of people suffering from malnutrition has dropped by more than half, to 20%. Previously only 1 in 4 people had access to clean water. Now 3 out of 4 do. Dreaded diseases, like smallpox, which claimed 500 million lives in the 19th century, have been virtually eradicated. And according to the UN, overall conditions in the developing world have improved more in the last 40 years than in the previous 500! I’m confident that God is very pleased with all of this progress for the creatures he loves, for it is his will that all live in peace with their basic needs met.
And you should know that followers of Jesus Christ, those who believe that they are carrying out the work of a living Savior, have been at the forefront of many of these improvements. Education, healthcare, feeding the hungry, economic development, agriculture, and justice issues have been at the heart of Christian mission work and continue to be today. Of course, there is still much to be done, but the resurrected Christ is making a difference in the lives of people today, giving us hope for a better life now as well as after we die.
On Easter Monday, a couple years ago, this article, entitled “Redemption,” appeared on the front page of the Richmond Times-Dispatch. It was the story of an Easter service held at the overcrowded, often-dangerous Richmond, Virginia jail. During the service, five inmates were baptized, announcing their faith in Jesus Christ, and desire for a new life. James Pierce, who was serving a nine-month sentence for a probation violation said, “I wanted to be changed. I wanted a change in my life. I felt like, I can’t keep treating my family like this... I just want to be clean. I feel clean today!”
Do you feel clean today? And hopeful? You can! Jesus is alive! And he is at work in the hearts of people like James Pierce, and in the hearts of people like you and me. He assures us that he walks with us through the valley of the shadow of death. And he invites us to join him in transforming the world into the kind of place God wants it to be.
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