Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
I want you to know that as a Christian, as a
baptized child of God, the resurrection of Jesus impacts you in ways you
probably don’t even realize.
Author Paul Maier – no relation – wrote a
novel, a fictional account, of a Christian archaeologist who discovered bones
while digging in Israel. That, in and of itself, was not that big of a surprise
– bones are all over in that part of the world – but the other things
discovered with the bones were earth-shattering. In the grave with the skeleton
was evidence that the bones, in fact, belonged to Jesus. Realizing how
devastating this could be to Christians and, in fact, the entire history of the
world, the team of scientists conducted multiple studies that all seemed to
support the likelihood that this was, in fact, Jesus of Nazareth. A piece of a
manuscript is found, saying that Jesus died and, when he didn’t rise from the
dead on the third day, the disciples squirreled his body away to perpetuate the
lie. Suddenly, the ending of Mark 16, “and they were very afraid,” took on a
new meaning.
Again, this is a work of fiction, but play
“what if” for a moment – what if that was, in fact, the truth? What if that all
happened and, suddenly, every news station, website, and podcast declared Jesus
to be a liar. By extension, then, everything that the Church had proclaimed for
2000 years was a lie and every Christian sermon was a perpetuation of the lie,
every Christian pastor nothing but a con man who had himself been conned, and
every Christian was nothing more than a rube that fell for the worst and
greatest fable ever concocted: God became flesh to die and rise from the dead
for the sins of the world. In the novel, Easter comes, and churches were nearly
empty. The Easter declaration, “Christ is risen!” was met with question marks
instead of exclamation points – people didn’t know what to say. Joy and hope –
the Christian hope, the Christian confidence – were left behind like flotsam
and jetsam bobbing on the sea of uncertainty.
What if that were true? What would you do?
What would you believe? Don’t be too quick to assume you would stand fast.
Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the Bible says, and the evidence of
things not seen, remember? If faith in the unseen, resurrected Christ is
suddenly left shaking because of the seen, buried body of the one who seems to
be Jesus, I suspect many of us – and, yes, I say “us,” me included – might be
sorely tempted to surrender the faith for what seems to be fait accompli. How
would that impact your life? The resurrection would suddenly be meaningless.
Even Christ’s death as a redemptive and atoning sacrifice for the sins of the
world would be called into question. Am I forgiven child of God? For that
matter, am I even a child of God? What of my baptism? You see the dominoes
start to fall – was Jesus the sinless Son of God? Were any of His words true?
What can we trust? Were His promises of a three-day resurrection, the sign of
Jonah, the rebuilding of the Temple just pep talks for the disciples?
Paul began chapter 15 with this statement:
“For I delivered to you as first importance what I also received: that Christ
died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that He was buried, that
He was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures…” Of first importance – everything else is
secondary to this redemptive act of Jesus. The Church confesses it in our
creeds: crucified, died, buried, raised – in that order. That is what drove
Paul to preach and teach, so that others might also believe and also be saved
through Christ Jesus.
These young Corinthian Christians, still
wrestling with what it is to be a child of God in a heathen culture, to receive
His Word and to live according to it, must have been questioning the truth or
the necessity of believing the death and resurrection of Jesus for Paul to have
addressed it so powerfully and thoroughly.
You know what “if-then” statements are. We
use them all the time. You tell your kids and grandkids, “If you have cookies
after school, then you don’t get dessert tonight.” You tell your spouse, “If
you remember to take your vitamins, then you’ll feel better.” Your kids ask you,
“If I clean my room, then I can go to the movies?” If this, then that.
Paul uses this a rhetorical device to show
how the resurrection is no mere myth, a figment of their congregational
imagination. He begins with the simple absolute about resurrection in general:
there must be a resurrection, because if there was no such thing, then it would
be impossible for Jesus to have been raised. And, if Christ was not raised,
then our preaching of the resurrection was a waste of our time and your faith,
grounded in the preaching of the resurrected Christ, was also a waste. This is
so paramount, so important, that he repeats it. If there is no resurrection of
the dead, then the crucified Lord isn’t raised either, and if He isn’t raised,
then we are still trapped in our sins. And, if all that is true, then all who
die, die into eternity. If the only reason for believing in the resurrection is
to fill the life with some kind of hollow hope, a nebulous “maybe,” a holy “who
know’s,” then, Paul says, we are to be the most pitied because we wasted time,
energy, and in fact our very lives in pursuit of the proclamation of the
resurrected Jesus who didn’t rise.
I cannot count the number of times I have
been with a family or with friends at a funeral home or at the graveside when I
heard someone say something like this: I do not understand how people can get
through this without the hope we have in Jesus of the resurrection. For the
Corinthians, that is what they were facing if the resurrection was not true.
But! Paul interjects a powerful contradiction,
breaking the if-then pattern. If this, then that, but now! The whole predicated
argument about if there is no resurrection is cast aside as Paul begins the
affirmative argument.
But, in fact – notice, no “if” - Christ has
been raised from the dead, Paul says. How can he be so sure? He was one of the
last eyewitnesses of the resurrected and glorified Christ on the road to
Damascus. He had intended to hunt and persecute Christians; instead, Jesus
called Paul into apostolic ministry. An eyewitness to Jesus, Paul’s preaching
has authority.
Jesus is the firstruits, Paul says.
Firstfruits are exactly that – the very first fruit that is produced in the
spring. Firstfruits are anticipated, yearned for, longed for. It means the
winter season of death-like rest is over and new life begins. And, where there
are firstfruits, there is more to come. Because Jesus is the firstfruits, because
He rose first, the promise extends to those who come after. The death-rest of
the tomb is now but a brief time while the Christian rests from his or her
labors, awaiting their own resurrection moment.
But what of the forgiveness of sins? Paul
speaks to that as well. The fruit image hangs rich in Paul’s words. Adam and
Eve’s forbidden bite of fruit from the Tree in the Garden. Through one man came
death and sin, Paul says, continuing to pass down generation to generation. We
call this “original sin,” inborn sin, concupiscence if you want the ten dollar
theological word for the week. You cannot undo it; you cannot cleanse yourself
from it; you cannot out-good the sin that is within you. People get this confused,
thinking people are good until they sin, that suddenly by sinning they become a
sinner. Nope. The opposite is true. WE are sinful from birth. We sin because we
are sinners. And, because the wages of sin is death, death awaits all who sin.
That’s what it means when Paul says sin and death came through one man. It’s
the terrible consequence that befalls all mankind for the failure to obey God’s
Garden command.
But in Christ, this is no longer the end, for
the Son of God and the Son of Man, having been raised, has also conquered death
and the grave. One man brought death; this Man – who is God in flesh – this Man
brought life and in Him, through Him, all who believe in Him shall have life
eternal: Christ the firstfruits, then all others who have fallen asleep in Him.
This is our Christian life: you are already
alive in Christ. You died with Him in your baptism; you were raised with Him in
your baptism. Your old adam and old eve, that is the sinful nature within you,
drowned. Satan’s grasp over you and death’s hold over you have been destroyed.
When Christ rose, satan was crushed; when his grave opened, death lost its
terrible power.
Yes, death is still scary. It’s OK for the
Christian to say that. After all, none of us have done it before. But we do not
need to fear the grave because Christ is the firstfuit, remember? He opened the
grave so that yours, too, will be opened.
This, then, frees your everyday life to live
in the joy and certitude of the resurrection. There are no “what ifs.” The what ifs – what
if my sins aren’t forgiven, what if Jesus didn’t rise, what if I am not good
enough, what if I am not sorry enough, what if I die mid-sin, all the what-ifs
satan throws at you to tempt you to take your eyes off of the resurrection –
all what-ifs are silenced in the resurrection of Jesus from the grave. Every
day, then, is resurrection day. We might only celebrate Easter on the first
Sunday after the first full moon after the first day of spring – and, yes, that
is the literal formula to determine where Easter falls on the calendar – but
every day is resurrection day because you are already and always risen through
Christ your Lord.
In this morning’s Gospel reading, Jesus
offered four blessings. They seem quite backwards, don’t they? Blessed are the
poor, the hungry, the weeping, and the hated. Even if those are your place,
now, you are already blessed. Remember: God’s Word delivers exactly what it
says. You live that right now; you are blessed because Christ was poor and
hungry, He wept and was hated for you. The culmination, the consummation of
those blessings will be realized in the resurrection. But the gifts are yours, now,
because of the power of the resurrection.
In a moment you’ll say it again: I look for –
I yearn for, I trust in, I believe in, - the resurrection of the dead and the
life of the world to come. Not just today, in this place, but every day,
looking for resurrection to come. Amen.