Resurrection State of Mind: 1 Corinthians 15:1-26, 51-57 - Seventh Sunday of Easter

 Which Christian belief do you think is the most important?

That God created the earth? That Jesus Christ is God’s Son? That the Bible is God’s Word?

These are all fundamental to our faith. But what if I told you that the most important belief is the resurrection of the dead?

That’s the Apostle Paul’s argument in our first reading for today: if there is no resurrection of the dead, then the entire Christian faith is pointless.

We take resurrection for granted, but in the days of Jesus and Paul, the idea of the afterlife was extremely controversial in Judaism.

Image by Shameer Pk from Pixabay

Do you remember the Sadducees who were constantly at odds with Jesus? Unlike their ideological adversaries, the Pharisees, they did not believe in the resurrection. They only counted the Law of Moses, the first five books of the Old Testament, as true Scripture, and since Moses made no mention of the afterlife, they concluded that it did not exist. And they harshly condemned those who did because a belief in the afterlife motivated people to engage in violent, revolutionary behaviors.

They did have a point, considering how much terrorism has been inspired by the wrong belief that some great reward awaits in the afterlife.

That being said, resurrection isn’t something we think about most days, unless, of course, you’ve lost a loved one, you’re fighting a serious illness, or you’re advanced in age.

But resurrection is not just something which happens after you die. Resurrection is God’s reality breaking into your reality, resulting in new birth and new beginnings.

This belief may seem farfetched when you consider the state of our world. Most people see the earth and human existence as on a downward spiral towards oblivion. After all, the global population continues to grow while the planet grows warmer and essential natural resources become scarcer. Nations are rising against nation and kingdom against kingdom, just like Jesus said would happen in the end of days. A wide swath of the population believes that this country is teetering on the brink of civil war.

And let’s be honest, are you better off today than you were five years ago, or twenty years ago? Was our congregation better off in the past than it is today?

It takes faith to see beyond today’s crises to a brighter and better tomorrow, just as it takes faith to believe that there is a life after this one.

Like the women at the empty tomb, and the disciples all locked behind closed doors, resurrection challenges you to be hopeful about a future we cannot see and that will probably not conform to your every wish.

Resurrection isn’t merely a belief; it’s a state of mind. It’s an attitude of gratitude which trusts that God’s gracious hand is always doing good, even in your worst days. A resurrection state of mind remembers that the God who was faithful yesterday will be faithful today, tomorrow and the next day. You trust that the crucified and risen Jesus is with you in everything you are going through, including pain and suffering. You are confident that strength, mercy, and grace will come to you when you need them most. You are certain that no matter what happens, God’s love will get you through it.

A resurrection state of mind embraces change and challenge for the very fact that God uses them to reshape the future. God’s new beginnings happen most often after loss and failure. When doing the right thing doesn’t yield the result you wanted, God is teaching you a better way. When we sin against each other, resurrection is the hope that draws us towards forgiveness and reconciliation.

Resurrection is the strength to let go of grudges and resentments. It inspires you to let go of the things you fear you cannot live without, because you know that God will give something better for.

Resurrection is eagerness to go out into the world to meet new people, serve them in love, and testify to this resurrection hope which everyone so desperately needs. It’s courage to run against the headwinds of fear and despair. It is a bold defiance of greed, apathy, and violence. It’s assurance that there is no greater power in the world than love.

And who are we, really, to doubt the promise of resurrection? Today, we are baptizing little Ivy Mae, for whom God has been working since the beginning of time to bring her to these sacred waters, and to bless the world through her life.

Who are we to doubt the promise of resurrection as we hear our bells ringing, after we feared they would never ring again?

Who are we to doubt the works of Jesus Christ in our own lives, in each other’s lives, and in the lives of those we are sent into the world to serve?

In life and death, in success and failure, in joy and sorrow, “thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the work of the Lord, because you know that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.”

Now I want you to understand, brothers and sisters, the good news that I proclaimed to you, which you in turn received, in which also you stand, ² through which also you are being saved, if you hold firmly to the message that I proclaimed to you—unless you have come to believe in vain.

³ For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures ⁴ and that he was buried and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures ⁵ and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. ⁶ Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died. ⁷ Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. ⁸ Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. ⁹ For I am the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. ¹⁰ But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me has not been in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I but the grace of God that is with me. ¹¹ Whether then it was I or they, so we proclaim and so you believed.

¹² Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say there is no resurrection of the dead? ¹³ If there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised, ¹⁴ and if Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation is in vain and your faith is in vain. ¹⁵ We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified of God that he raised Christ—whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. ¹⁶ For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised. ¹⁷ If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile, and you are still in your sins. ¹⁸ Then those also who have died in Christ have perished. ¹⁹ If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.

²⁰ But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died. ²¹ For since death came through a human, the resurrection of the dead has also come through a human, ²² for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ. ²³ But each in its own order: Christ the first fruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. ²⁴ Then comes the end, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father, after he has destroyed every ruler and every authority and power. ²⁵ For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. ²⁶ The last enemy to be destroyed is death. (NRSVue)