Back to the Basics - This We Believe!
I Believe in Jesus Christ . . . Who on the Third Day Rose from the Dead
September 14, 2008
1 Corinthians 15:1-11
At 21, I visited New York City for the first time. I arrived at Penn Station and went looking for a public restroom. In those days, public restrooms in New York were hard to find and generally not what you wanted once you found them. But I didn't know that. So I descended into the bowels of Penn Station to find the restroom. And lying at the bottom of the stairs, I found a bag lady who appeared to be dead.
I was scared to death.
She lay there unmoving. I watched for movement but I didn't see any. And I began to panic trying to figure out who I was supposed to report her to.
Then she moved!
And I was out of that room in a flash! The dead, after all, are supposed to stay dead!
Yet, the central claim of Christianity is that Jesus buried and sealed in the bowels of the tomb did not stay dead. And on the Sunday after his violent death, the women arrived at this tomb to prepare his body and found that in his case the dead had most certainly not stayed dead!
In the 15th chapter of the first letter to the Corinthians, Paul takes on the Corinthians' misunderstandings about the importance of Jesus' resurrection and our future resurrection. Listen to how he begins his explanation.
1 Now I would remind you, brothers and sisters, of 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 have come to believe.
1 Corinthians 15:1-11
At the center of our creed lies this central belief of Christianity: I believe . . . in Jesus Christ . . . who . . . on the third day rose from the dead.
This central claim of Christianity is the turning point in the creed because it is the resurrection of Jesus Christ that makes sense of all that has come before. And it is the resurrection of Jesus Christ that makes possible all the remainder of the bold claims of the creed.
Without the resurrection of Jesus, we have declared belief in a God who is maker of heaven and earth. But that creation appears to be a mess. Sin abounds. Suffering is rampant. And at the end of it all, we die. Without the resurrection of Jesus Christ, we have declared belief in a God who loves us enough to enter into the mess of our lives. A God who took on flesh in order to teach us how to live a better life. But we are left on our own to change how we live! Without the resurrection of Jesus, we are declaring belief in Jesus who came declaring the in-breaking of the Kingdom of God-but we killed him. At best, we have a sacrifice of a perfectly innocent man-perhaps even a God-to atone for our sins. And at worse, it appears that despite it all, this is not a very almighty God because in the end-Satan, sin, death, evil-have won!
But when we say that we believe that on the third day Jesus was raised, we are boldly affirming our faith in a God that has acted on our behalf in such a say that nothing is what it seems and as a result nothing will ever be the same!
Sometimes we in the church take for granted what we claim. Because when we say we believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, we don't mean that we believe that Jesus just appeared to die. We say he was really and truly dead! Nor do we mean that he was a ghost, an apparition, or a hopeful wish. We are saying that he was really and truly alive again! Nor are we saying that he was somehow revived to die again another day. Rather we are saying that Jesus Christ who truly died, who was buried and remained so for nearly three days, was raised by God to new life on the third and because of that action of God on our behalf EVERYTHING is different!
In a few weeks, we will explore what it means for us to believe in our own future resurrection and eternal life. The resurrection of Jesus Christ is an example of what God has in store for us in the future. Paul says it is just the first fruits of what God has in store for us. But for today, let's focus on what the resurrection of Jesus Christ means for us now-in this moment-in this life.
We talked last week about how Jesus took our sins, our suffering, and our pain to the cross with him. We ate the bread and sipped the wine that reminded us that Jesus gave his body and his blood for our sake. But as Paul reminds the Corinthians a bit later in this same chapter: if the resurrection is not true, we are most to be pitied. We are without hope because we are still dead in our sins. On the cross, Jesus died for our sins, but it is the resurrection that brings our forgiveness and our new life.
In a few hours, we will gather by the water to participate in the baptism of seven new Christians. They will enter the waters-just as they are. They will be immersed in the water as a symbol of the need to die to their sins-a symbol of what Jesus has done for us on the cross. But without the resurrection, I would have to leave them there!
But thankfully, that isn't the end of the story! As Paul says in Romans, Jesus was handed over to death for our trespasses but Jesus was raised for our justification. What happens in baptism and what happens in the life of the Christian is not just that we die to our sins but that we are also raised to a new life-a new beginning!
Thanks to the resurrection of Jesus Christ we are no longer bound by the sins, the temptations, the shackles of this life. We are free to begin again.
As I said last week, it doesn't mean that we are no longer tempted by the sins and addictions of our old life-but we are no longer enslaved to them! And while the cross means that when we face temptations and when we face suffering and death, we can do so knowing that we are not alone that Christ is with us and understands our fear, our pain, our suffering. The resurrection of Jesus means that when we stand facing death, facing sin and evil, and facing suffering that we can stand in the sure and certain hope that the victory has been won and that sin, death and evil-no matter how powerful they seem-do not have the last word!
As one of my favorite writers once said, the resurrection means that "the worst thing that ever happens to us is not the last thing that ever happens to us." So when we come to the end of our world, the end of our lives, the end of our marriage or our job or simply the end of our rope, we have not reached the true end-because beyond that ending is God!
And with God, we can enter into a new life-not just a life after our physical death-but a new life NOW! Jesus said he came to bring us life and life abundant. To say we believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ is to say that we believe that our lives NOW can have a taste of the world to come. We can have a bit of heaven in our lives here and now.
Resurrection doesn't mean trudging through this life waiting for the next. Resurrection means living this life in light of the life to come. And that means we can live life more fully because we don't have to live life anxiously worrying about what's to come. We don't have to live life worrying about our deaths. We don't have to fret our way through life worrying about our security. We don't have to live our lives enslaved by our past, by financial debts, by old hurts and grudges, by sins that destroy our lives and the lives of others. Resurrection means we can begin living now as people who know that death, sin, and evil don't have the last word so we can live joyously and fully.
If you want an example of what a life defined by resurrection looks like, look to Jesus! Jesus lived his life fully. He enjoyed being with people-all kinds of people. He so loved a party that one of the most frequent complaints about him and his disciples was that they were having too much fun and hanging out with the wrong people. In Jesus we see that a life defined by the sure hope of resurrection is a life that believes the best is possible even when facing the worse. A life defined by joy. A life defined by trust.
Someone pointed out to me recently that one of the most frequent commands in the Bible is "Do Not Fear!" So out of curiosity, I did a text search and I found around 120 references to the commands to "have no fear" "do not fear," and "be not afraid." 120 times we are commanded that as people of God we should not fear! Resurrection reminds us that we can live without fear because beyond every ending is a new life with God!
When I was in Israel last fall, we visited both of the places that claim to be THE empty tomb. At the end of the tour of one of those sites, the tour guide said that he had many reasons to believe that we were standing in the actual tomb of Christ but that in the end it didn't matter because he was not there-Christ was raised!
There are those who would like to find some sort of physical proof of the resurrection of Christ. There are those who don't believe because we lack concrete proof of the resurrection. But if you ask me, the real proof-the only proof really-of the resurrection is the behavior of the disciples! Peter goes from a scared fisherman lying about his relationship with Jesus to a bold preacher of the gospel standing on the steps of the temple proclaiming Jesus' resurrection. The disciples who ran and hid for fear of their lives willingly risk their lives and most eventually die to proclaim the resurrection! And Paul-the self-righteous, murderous Pharisee-not only becomes the most famous and effective preacher of the resurrection but he preaches it to those unclean Gentiles!
Truth is that there is plenty of concrete proof for the resurrection but it isn't to be found in an archeological dig or a history book. The proof of the resurrection is found in the lives of those who have experienced it: the disciples, Paul, Augustine, St. Francis, Martin Luther, John Wesley, Mother Teresa, and you and me.
This past week, I was reading the blog of a pastor friend and he talked about a funeral he attended. The funeral was held in a predominately African American church in Huntsville. Now, as many of you may know, African Americans know how to do a funeral. They know the value of celebration at the end of life: celebration for the life that was lived but also celebration for the life to come. No mumbling words of comfort or whispering words of pain. Everything is expressed boldly-the pain and the hope, the suffering and the joy. All are placed before God. He said that the whole service reminded him of the joy of believing in resurrection.
But there was one moment in particular that truly stood out. During one of the anthems, a woman in a pink pants suit, jumped up and started dancing in front of the coffin. He said it wasn't a dignified liturgical dance, but a "holy boogie! The woman danced joyfully around her friend's coffin. And Steve who was sitting near the piano was able to see her face as she allowed herself to be swept up into the joy of her belief and hope in the resurrection.
Steve asked, "Why not dance in front of the casket? Do we not believe in resurrection and new life? Do we not believe our friend had been ushered into heaven? How can we hold back this joy?"
This week as I reflected on what it means to believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, I was reminded again and again of the hope and joy with which we as Christians can face the death of those we love and even our own death. Granted the pain of loss is very real! Even Jesus cried at the death of a friend. But resurrection means that we don't have to stop there. We don't have to stay shackled to our tears and our fears. Resurrection means we are free to live fully even in the face of suffering, death and evil.
But more than that I was reminded that to believe in resurrection means that we have hope and death in this life. We can face additction, sin, broken relationships, death of loved ones, war and insecure times because we know that none of those things can destroy us. None of those things can separate us from God. None of those things can ever win because God has won already.
Because of the belief that Jesus Christ was raised on the third day, we can not only dance with joy because those we love who have died have been ushered into the arms of God. But we can dance with joy because this life has more meaning! Because this life can be lived without fear! Because the shackles have been removed and we are free! Because our lives can be a taste of the life to come for a hurting and broken world!
To believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ is to be invited to the dance.
Won't you join in?
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