A Resurrection: "What it Looks like"
Death is not the final word
Sermon Preached by
The Rev. David McMaster
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Text: 1 Corinthians 15:35-57
“But someone will ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?” 1Cor.15:35
I have loved music and songs since I was a child. When I say that I have loved music, my primary interest has always been the music, the words come a distant second. That sometimes has meant that I'd learn a song, sing it over and over again to myself quite oblivious to the meaning. Later, while paying more attention, I have at times found that I really do not like the words, or I don't agree with them. Such, for instance, was my feeling with the great George Harrison's My Sweet Lord. I absolutely love the tune, but the words…??? I don't mean any offence but coming from my tradition, it's difficult to elevate Hari Krishna. Then there's John Lennon's Imagine. I love the tune, interesting lyrics philosophically, but as a Christian, I find them troublesome. Perhaps you remember them: “Imagine there's no heaven, It's easy if you try, No hell below us, Above us only sky …”
Never did I feel that that song was more out of place than at a funeral I attended half a dozen years ago for my son's hockey coach. We had known John for a number of years, he really encouraged my son. It was mid-season, they had a game on a Friday night, on Sunday we got word that he had had a snow mobile accident over the weekend. Monday's game was difficult and I was called to lead the team in observing a few moments of silence in the dressing room. A few days later the whole team donned their team jerseys, made their way to the local Presbyterian Church, and sat together near the front of the large sanctuary. It was another one of those surreal experiences around death. Just before the minister rose to speak, the voice of one of John's favorites was piped through the church's sound system. It was John Lennon singing, “Imagine there's no heaven, it's easy if you try, no hell below us, above us only sky. Imagine all the people, living for today ... You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one. I hope someday you'll join us, and the world will be as one.”
I was torn for I love that song but in the context of a funeral, I found it most disheartening. John was dead. That was it. That's what Lennon was saying, “this life is all we have.” But is it? Is it true that John exists now only in memories? That there's nothing to live for but today? Are we to go along with that strain of thought that has been floating around since ancient times, encapsulated, for instance, in the thought of The Gilgamesh Epic when the Alewife says to Gilgamesh, “When the gods created mankind, Death for mankind they set aside, Life in their own hands retaining. Thou, Gilgamesh, let full be thy belly, Make thou merry by day and night. Of each day make thou a feast of rejoicing, day and night dance thou and play! Let thy garments be sparkling fresh, Thy head be washed; bathe thou in water. Pay heed to the little one that holds on to thy hand, Let thy spouse delight in thy bosom! For this is the task of mankind?” “This life is it, make the best of it,” she says, but are we to accept that?
In ancient times, there were a few who pondered what lay beyond the pale. There were a few in ancient Judaea who had visions of a resurrection for the righteous at the end of days. But there was nothing that prepared the disciples for what they experienced 2,000 years ago after the death of Jesus. Over the last two Sundays we have been talking about Jesus' resurrection and the strong evidence that suggests that he did indeed rise in bodily form. It changed everything for those who experienced it. It gave them a new perspective and, as they began to reflect on what he had said in the past and his promise to return for all who believe and would follow him, it gave way to a tremendous hope of eternal life. The church was founded on that belief and this hope has been preached now for generations such that a hope for life after death has probably become the predominant view throughout the world. For two Sundays now we have said, “No, this earthly life is not all that there is - there is a resurrection. Jesus paved the way. He is risen! The question is now, ”What does that resurrected life look like? What should we expect to be as we move through death to life.
I am reminded of a cartoon that I saw one day on the office door of one of my friends at McMaster University. The cartoon depicted a man, who had obviously died, rising through the clouds of heaven. The man had little wings and a harp in his hand and as he ascended past the second and third cloud, he finally came to a cloud upon which sat a figure. It was the figure of an old man with a long flowing beard. Sheepishly, the newcomer seems to ask, “Are you God?” “Oh no,” came the reply, and he pointed, “She's up there.” In the 1980s, when people were still discussing God and gender, my feminist friends got a lot of laughs from that cartoon. But the point I want to make is that there is a popular lore out there that depicts God and heaven and eternal life in certain ways. Sometimes people think of resurrected life as existing as an incorporeal form, as a spirit. Sometimes it is corporeal forms, like that cartoon, human-like bodies with wings which sit around playing harps all day on the clouds. If you have ever seen the television commercials for Philadelphia Cream Cheese, you will know what I mean.
But what is it really like? As Protestants our source of authority is the word of God and when we turn to the word of God we find some interesting things about the resurrected life.
We can learn, for instance, from the Jesus-resurrection appearances that are in the four Gospels. If one takes a little time to read the last chapter or so of each Gospel, one cannot help but be struck by the doubt, the wonder, and the excitement evident in the portrayal of the disciples. All of the Gospels contain a story of the empty tomb. All have a pronouncement story in which some brightly clothed figure, or figures proclaim that he has risen. In Matthew and John, Jesus appears to the women but, in John's more detailed account, we find that Mary does not recognise him at first. She thinks that he is the gardener before she gets it and calls out, “Rabbouni, my teacher (Jn.20:11ff., Mt.28:9).” There is the encounter with two disciples on the road to Emmaus mentioned by Luke (24:13ff.). It seems that they walked together for ages before they too recognized to whom it was they were speaking. And when their eyes were opened, we read, “he vanished from their sight” (Lk.24:31). In Luke and John, we read of how the disciples were gathered in a locked room when Jesus “stood among them” (Lk.24:36ff., Jn.20:19ff.). In both cases the disciples are invited to look upon Jesus and touch him, to see the marks of the nails. This comes to the fore even more in the story of doubting-Thomas (Jn. 20:24ff.) and in both Luke and John, the risen Jesus eats with his disciples (Jn.21:4ff., Lk.24: 36ff.).
As we try to interpret these accounts, we need to be careful and recognize that the evangelists were using human language to describe what was almost indescribable and outside their experience. So in interpreting what has been written, we should try to avoid being overly literalistic and think more about the broad sweeps of what is said. When we think this way, we note, for instance, a tendency toward continuity between the Jesus of the past and the resurrected Jesus. He is portrayed in corporeal terms rather than spirit-terms. He is seen as a human form with a body, nail marks that can be observed, one who eats with them. And yet, his resurrected self is much greater and somewhat different than what went before. That he was not immediately recognized is a recurring theme. His ability to appear at will, enter locked rooms, vanish before them, and ascend into heaven suggest things that we would normally associate with a spirit-type existence. We seem to have continuity and discontinuity, body and spirit, all at the same time. Something beyond ordinary human life and experience.
Continuity and discontinuity are also prominent in Paul's lengthy description in 1 Cor. 15 as he asks us to reflect on the plant world. I don't know about you, but plants and nature are things I enjoy. Although I haven't done it for a few years, I used to love growing a few vegetables like tomatoes, beans, peas, carrots, lettuce etc. I remember how amazing it was to see a seed go into the ground, watch the first green shoots appear, and then the plant develop over the summer months until maturity. It was amazing, as was the extent that I had to go to keep away pesky rabbits and groundhogs, but we won't go there.
Paul uses the concept of seed going into the ground as an analogy for what happens to human beings. The seed is put into the ground and, in a sense, it dies. In due course, it rises, a green shoot at first and then something greater and greater. When we consider it, there is a vast difference, a discontinuity, between what the seed that it was and the plant that it becomes and yet the two are continuous, one develops from the other. Thus, Paul affirms the continuity and goes on to speak of the differences in a series of contrasts.
He says, first of all, that what is sown is perishable but what is raised is imperishable. In these days of a Toronto garbage strike, we are more than aware of decay and things that are perishable. Everything in this world is subject to change and decay. For human beings, youth's beauty fades, but says, William Barclay, with reference to the musings of Sophocles, “in the life to come there will be a permanence in which the lovely things will never cease to be lovely and beauty will never lose its sheen. And so what is perishable now becomes imperishable with the resurrection.
Paul says that what is sown in dishonour will be raised in glory and Barclay interprets this to mean that, in this life, our bodily feelings and passions and instincts so often bring us dishonour. But in the life to come, we will no longer be ruled by these things and we will have opportunity to be instruments in the pure service of God. There is a cleansing aspect to the transformation that fits us for God's kingdom and presence. We are sown in dishonour, we rise in glory.
Paul continues that what is sown is sown in weakness but is raised in power. Very often these days the power of human beings is spoken of. We see it in the work of The Shuttle. We can go to space, travel to the moon, build huge dams that alter the face of the earth. But time and time again, I am reminded that la vie est si fragile. In March we saw this when actress, Natasha Richardson, wife of Liam Neeson, had a light, seemingly innocuous, fall which led to major brain trauma and death. Perhaps you have seen the effects of a stroke as someone is reduced to a shadow of his/her former self in moments. Young people sometimes feel invincible, but how often have we come across some young life snuffed out by a tragic accident or event or just being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Life is so fragile, but what is to come, says Paul, is clad in strength and power and immortality (cf. 15:42, 53).
Then finally Paul says that what is sown is a physical body is raised a spiritual body. NT Scholar, Tom Wright says that too often people will interpret this to mean that resurrected life is in a spirit-form. But that is not what Paul means here and we must keep the words spirit and body together. Wright likens the body to a ship and says that Paul isn't speaking about a ships of different kinds such as we may say that one is a wooden ship and another a steel ship (analogous to a physical body and a spirit form). He says it is more as though Paul contrasts what powers each ship. The ships exteriors are not what he is getting at, it is what drives them, what powers them, what animates them. One ship could be powered by steam, the other powered with nuclear energy. What Paul is getting at here is the animating force. The resurrected form is still the form of a body, but it is one no longer powered by physical or earthly things, it is raised as a body animated by the spirit, transformed and more able to walk with God.
So we have from the scriptures these windows through which to peer and get glimpses of resurrected life. We see some of it in the resurrected Jesus, we have an analogy for it in how seeds grow into wonderful plants. There is continuity with who and what we are now but what we become in the resurrection is something far, far greater than all our imaginings. We experience decay in life and try to deal with through things like plastic surgery but God is going to transform us in ways we can scarcely fathom. We try to deal with what is dishonourable in us by covering it up. God would rather we come clean and in Christ will raise us up in glory. We try to deal with weakness by building walls and arming ourselves. God wants to empower us in such a way that we will live beyond mere human values and constructs and capabilities. We try to prolong the life of this physical body, God longs to give us something even better, something powered by his life giving Spirit.
And so today, I would like to contrast for you the disheartening feeling that I had at John's funeral service a few years ago (when Imagine was sung - telling us this is it. Life is over.) with another service that I was at in the little village of Campbell's Bay, Quebec some 13 or 14 years ago. It was a large funeral in a small community Church for a parent and grand-parent of some people in my church in Ottawa. I thought that I should go and support them. They were a family who were deeply committed to God and their church and rather than experience a funeral that was dreary and filled with grief, I sat in the congregation being uplifted and encouraged in a way I had never experienced in a funeral. Hymn after hymn were notes of victory. Eulogy and sermon pointed to resurrection and the life to come. At first I thought it was a little odd. This is a funeral, Mrs. Smith is not coming back. But then I thought, why not, isn't this what we believe? Isn't this what we preach?
“Listen, I will tell you a mystery! We will not all die, but we will all be changed, transformed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed… then the saying that is written will be fulfilled:
'Death has been swallowed up in victory.'
'Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?'
… thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ (1Cor.15:51-51; 54-57).”
Death may still be a part of life. But since the resurrection of Jesus it is not the last word. O, we may still have to face it. There are no escape routes, there is no way to avoid that part of the journey. But when we look around us and seem to find no way, God is a God who makes the way. Jesus has already passed through and when that time comes for us, when we lie helpless in face of the greatest enemy of all, The Lord will step into the breach. He will wage the battle for us. Victory is the Lord's as he takes each of us to himself. Paul begins this chapter of 1Corinthians by saying “I want to remind you of the gospel.” It's good news isn't it?