Do you enjoy a good mystery? Do you love a puzzle? Or maybe a crossword? Perhaps for you, it’s fixing something that needs repair. I enjoy a well-told story that unfolds hints and clues along the way. I can enjoy an old mystery novel or a movie filled with plot twists, but let’s be honest: Generally we enjoy a mystery or a puzzle for it’s challenge AND for its resolution. The mystery of life and death looms large for us because it is of great importance, but also because there is a mystery for us that remains somewhat unresolved. Today I want to talk about this resolution a bit.
Last week we discussed the first portion of this chapter in Paul’s letter to the church located in Corinth. In the beginning of chapter 15, Paul argues that Jesus’ resurrection is as important to Christian faith as Jesus’ birth. Another church leader, Basil, wrote a couple hundred years after Paul to a church in modern Turkey. He said, (I paraphrase): [Basil of Alexandra to Sozopolis in Pisidia]
“If Jesus had not been born of Mary, he could not have endured human suffering and be described as truly human.
If Jesus had not actually died, then he could not have conquered death by being resurrected from the dead.”
And the apostle Paul told us last week: Jesus was born of Mary, lived on the earth, he died on the cross, he was placed in the tomb, and on the third day, he rose from the dead. If you missed last Sunday and wonder at all if it is important that Jesus actually did raise from the dead, then please check out last weeks sermon, or better yet, read the first half of this chapter.
35 But someone will ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come?”
Ah, aren’t you curious? Don’t you wonder what it will be like? What life after death will really entail? This isn’t just the subject of a after-school TV show? (Remember when TV shows were shown at specific times of the day?) Anyways, this fascination, this mystery, fills us, because we all know what it is like to live, at least we think we should. Every morning we awake. Yesterday I woke up and just as I expected, I was alive, just like the day before. I woke the same man who dozed off to sleep, only a bit more refreshed. But that won’t always be the case will it. One famous Christian author, Phillip Yancey once had a near death experience: a car accident left him lying on the concrete staring up at an emergency medical technician. The EMT told him plainly the deep wound would likely take his life. He wrote that three questions rang like a piano hammer striking single strings: One, Two, Three.
“Who do I love? What have I done with my life? (and) Am I ready for whatever is next?”
– [Philip Yancey, The Question that Never Goes Away, 2013, p 50.]
Last week we dared to ask “is there life after death?” This week, we ask Paul: “how are the dead raised?”
Paul starts with a picture:
36How foolish! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. 37 When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed, perhaps of wheat or of something else. 38 But God gives it a body as he has determined, and to each kind of seed he gives its own body.
This is a bulb <<HOLD UP A BULB>>. It is pretty large, but from it grows a relatively small but beautiful tulip. But only if I give it up and plant it. Only if I bury it and allow it to perish. This is an acorn <<HOLD UP AN ACORN>>. It is smaller, but you might know, that God has determined that this little seed might, should it be buried, should it crack, decay a bit, break open and give up being a seed, this seed might become a mighty oak. It is a great image Paul uses. Indeed, it’s almost like God created things so that in every planting and harvest cycle we humans would watch again the great mystery that Jesus spoke of. Remember him saying: “unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds?”
A pastor friend wrote: “You can count all the apples on a tree, but who can count the apples in a seed?”
- (Mike Syers FB page. Not sure where he got it)
So we see a clue in our mystery. In nature, a seed holds in its tiny form a potential plant or tree or flower. But that plant or tree can only be released if the seed vanishes.
39 Not all flesh is the same: (Paul continues) People have one kind of flesh, animals have another, birds another and fish another. 40 There are also heavenly bodies and there are earthly bodies; but the splendor of the heavenly bodies is one kind, and the splendor of the earthly bodies is another. 41 The sun has one kind of splendor, the moon another and the stars another; and star differs from star in splendor.
Our second clue in our detective work comes from nature also. Paul’s point here is a bit obscured if we get to close in. Take a step back to see the picture he’s painting. Earthly creatures differ from each other in obvious and significant ways. Much bigger ways than say you and I differ. This is also true of the heavenly bodies. Stars differ from other stars a bit, but they differ from moons a great deal more. My flesh is different from a salmon, and Pluto is different from a comet. BUT I am in a totally different category of different from the burning hydrogen furnace of a star. The earthly creatures are TOTALLY DIFFERENT from the heavens and their cosmic inhabitants.
Perhaps Paul is alluding to a portion of the exiled prophet Daniel who, speaking for God, wrote: (Daniel 12:2-3)
- But at that time your people—everyone whose name is found written in the book—will be delivered. 2 Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt. 3 Those who are wise will shine like the brightness of the heavens, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars for ever and ever.
Ahhh, our second clue: earthly creatures don’t belong in the heavens.
So here Paul reaffirms our questioning hearts saying…
1Cor. 15:42 So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; 43 it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; 44 it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body.
We are alive now, we will perish. We spoil. Paul says my body is sown in dishonor, in weakness. He’s right you know. If you’ve been near to our loved ones as death closes in, it is truly undignified, tragically vulnerable. But the contrast is like difference between the passing old woman and the beautiful moon, the injured, coughing, sickly boy and the glory of Saturn adorned with celestial halos.
it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power;
The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable;
it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.
What was merely earthly has become heavenly.
Our final clue before we resolve our mystery:
45 So it is written: “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit. 46 The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual. 47 The first man was of the dust of the earth; the second man is of heaven. 48 As was the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth; and as is the heavenly man, so also are those who are of heaven. 49 And just as we have borne the image of the earthly man, so shall we bear the image of the heavenly man.
There is the trail to follow, back down from my father and mother to their fathers and mothers, their grandparents, ancestors named and many more forgotten. The person I am, reflecting now the sum of their movements, choices, and fates, importantly back all the way to Adam, the first man, Eve, the first woman. Created on the earth, from the dust, their natural life replicated through the generations of children born in their image, of the same kind, to this day. And here we are, daughters and sons of Adam.
But then who is the last Adam? Last week we saw Paul making the connection between Adam as the first man who had death to question and Jesus as the first man who had resurrection to reply. So here the last Adam is Jesus who Paul calls also “a life-giving spirit.” There are some interesting paths here to explore you Bible geeks out there. What about Adam’s first breath and Jesus’ last breath are implied here? Does “last” mean “ultimate” or “finishing” since it doesn’t seem to mean chronologically last? Is Jesus the “second man” as in the replacement first-born? I see some trail heads over by the phrase “life-giving spirit” also…
But we must press into Paul’s bigger picture here to find our goal. Earthly humans Adam and Eve came first and so we are all born as an earthly images of them. But Jesus came later as a heavenly man, and follow Paul’s argument, specifically Jesus who is resurrected from the dead is the heavenly man. So he concludes And just as we have borne the image of the earthly man, so shall we bear the image of the heavenly man.
This is glory, the power, he spoke of earlier. The imperishable nature of the resurrected body. Right now you bear the image of God that he created Adam and Eve to bear, but one day, sister, one day brother, you will bear the image of Christ.
So clue 1: Seeds perish like human bodies, but their death begins a new, more full, more complete life. One might even say, their actual intended life is realized after they are buried.
Clue 2: Earth bound life is wonderfully diverse and cosmic bodies dance and shine in their own amazing ways, but earthly bodies don’t belong in the same category as the stars. Neither does the natural mortal body compare to the heavenly or spiritual immortal body to come.
Clue 3: As humans, like Adam, we all face the mystery and terror of death. But Jesus, risen from the dead, is a final “Adam” and reveals a heavenly answer to an earthly problem: a spiritual and material body that by God’s fiat and design belongs in heavenly categories while still birthed from an earthly seed.
Our Conclusion?:
1Cor. 15:50 I declare to you, brothers and sisters, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.
53 For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. 54 When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.”
1Cor. 15:55 “Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?”
<<PAUSE>>
So we see in the mystery a resolution if we will have it. Our mortality from Adam and Eve, from our frail humanity, must be clothed by Jesus’ immortality. Just as God fashioned clothing to cover Adam and Eve’s shame, so to he fashioned salvation to cover our evil, to forgive my wickedness and our sin.
1Cor. 15:56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57 But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
1Cor. 15:58 Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.
[CLOSING ILL: LAX terminal line]
In my previous career, over two decades ago, I arrived at Los Angeles’ LAX airport. I made my way to the International terminal with tickets to fly to Manila, the capital of the Philippines. As I followed sign after sign from the domestic flight area to the international terminal I found myself in a line dozens and dozens of people long. It looked like it was a line to get into the international terminal. I thought it was an odd place for a line, but many people where cueing up behind me and waiting patiently. But the line wasn’t moving, and I didn’t have much time. After waiting twenty minutes with no progress, the mystery of the purpose of the line, or the realization that I might miss my flight caused me to get out of line, risking my place to see what was at the front of the line. Ten people. Twenty people. Passing thirty people, then forty, then more… Finally I came upon the front of “the line”. A tourist group of about 15 people had stopped against a wall to collect themselves and organize their bags. There was no purpose of the line. It wasn’t a check point or a narrow opening or anything. It was just 15 or 20 people standing in such an organized manor that a line had formed behind them assuming they were waiting purposefully.
Brothers and sisters, we are not waiting as the world waits. We are not passing time from birth to death as if our atoms were just another cluster of material. I made my flight because I stepped out of line to resolve the mysterious delay. Today we resolve the mysterious work of God in salvation. Would you step out in faith and trust Jesus? Would you believe his words that if you give up your life, he will save it? Would you trust him who asks you to give your entire life knowing that he gave his entire life?
[CLOSING PRAYER]
