If the dead are not raised

Sermon Notes, Sunday, Feb 13, 2022 Epiphany 6 1 Cor 15:16, 17 For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. It was in the summer of 2000 when Peg and I were driving through Yellowstone, the year after the devasting forest fire that had burned nearly a third of the park. Looking out the drivers' side window I saw grey skeletons of burned trees, barren ground, scorched earth. But looking out the passengers' side I saw a mature green forest thriving in the morning sunlight. The road we drove on had proven to be the firebreak where the flames were checked. The contrast was staggering and the image of that road trip came to my mind as I considered our reading from 1 Corinthians 15 today. Paul is writing about a great contrast, the greatest contrast of all, between life and death. Looking one way, death rules. Life is doomed to futility because death will ultimately win. There's no escaping the curse. Looking the other way everything is rich, meaningful, full of promise. Life wins. Is it just a matter of our attitude? Which direction we look? Many would have us think so. If we call creation the cosmos, or the universe, we lose the sense that God is behind it all. And in front of it all. The cosmos is amoral, spinning on its own energy toward its inevitable collapse. The universe doesn't care what we think of it. We are but specs along for the ride. Life and death have no meaning beyond phases that come and go. But all of scripture points to another conclusion. From the very beginning God values his creation. He pronounced it "Good." Then throughout the Bible, we see the Lord lovingly watching over his creation. Even though sin has corrupted creation, and many are led away from Him, He persists in his love. He gives us the Law. He sends his prophets. And he sends his Son into the world out of his divine love, to save the world and restore creation. Life and death are the only choices that matter. Moses forever set the table when he said in Deuteronomy 30: "See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction." V. 15. And he expanded on it to say, "For I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commands, decrees and laws, then you will live and increase, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land you are entering to possess." v. 16. The alternative is stark. "But if your heart turns away and you are not obedient, and you are drawn away to bow down to other gods and worship them, I declare to you this day that you will certainly be destroyed." vs. 17,18. Imagine our car driving through Yellowstone with a couple passengers in it. Those on the drivers' side see only the deforestation of the recent fires. Those on the passenger side see only the verdant greens of the thriving forest. We might say where you sit determines your reality. But does it? Is there a wider view that is big enough to include both death and life? In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul says yes to that question, and he names that reality: the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. The resurrection is the reality that forever pushes toward life. The dead forest is not the end, but a stage. It is always and eternally becoming the green forest that it once was and will be again. In verses 1 through 11, which we studied last week, Paul took us through the argument that the resurrection of Jesus is an historical fact, verifiable, anticipated throughout history, and witnessed by many who were then still alive. Now, in verses 12-20, he points toward the tremendous difference the resurrection makes in our lives. He writes: "And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. " It is not our faith that determines if the resurrection is real, but the resurrection that determines if our faith is real. There can be no real faith if there isn't first the resurrection of Jesus. If the resurrection of Jesus isn't real, there is no sense in you sitting here and listening to me, because what I am preaching is nonsense. We are wasting our time and would be better off gardening or exercising or hiking or playing computer games instead of sitting here in church. But because the resurrection is real, what we do here is infinitely more important than anything else we might consider doing. Because the resurrected Jesus is alive, and we enter into his presence here. We encounter the risen Lord in this place. It isn't the only place but it is His place. He may and does find us anywhere. But here we know his presence abides. Our faith, prone to wander as it is, meets the real resurrected Jesus at his table, as his guests. Paul continues, "We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised." Paul is saying that we cannot claim to believe in God and deny the resurrection at the same time because that would blaspheme God. Some theologians still teach that a belief in the resurrection is not necessary for belief in God. Or that the resurrection was in spirit only and not in body. Such a belief undermines a sovereign God because it calls to question God's authority. The dead, including the crucified Jesus, lie outside the sovereignty of God, eternally separated by death and corruption of the body. Nearly everything we say about God: his omnipotence, his eternal nature, his goodness, his unchangeableness, is challenged or denied if Christ was not raised from the dead. Our lives end in a kind of frozen suspension and our souls, if they live on, wait with all those Hebrew souls in Sheol for some future grace that is denied us at present. If that is our hope, then, like Paul said, we are most to be pitied. If Jesus is not resurrected, then the dead are just that, dead. What about us the living? How does the resurrected Jesus affect us? Paul writes, "And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins." V. 17 If Christ has not been raised, we are still dead in our sins. We, the living, are dead. We have no hope to be anything but dead. No outpouring of good deeds will save us. The Good Samaritan does not cross over the road to help us. The good shepherd does not leave his flock to find us. The father of the prodigal son mutters "Good riddance" when his child leaves home. When we deny our Lord for the third time and the cock crows, Jesus turns to us and says, "I told you so." In his book The End of Faith, Sam Harris decries religion for perpetuating man's inhumanity to man. He writes, "As long as a Christian believes that only his baptized brethren will be saved on the Day of Judgement, he cannot possibly "respect" the beliefs of others, for he knows the flames of hell have been stoked by these very ideas and await their adherents even now." Pg. 25 He paints a picture of the religious zealot persecuting the unbeliever simply for unbelieving. It is a strange and bizarre world he paints. While it is true that religious fervor has caused deep pain for some individuals and even some societies, what would the world look like without the benevolence and grace offered to it by the resurrected Jesus? The resurrected Jesus summons us to life, not death. Harris describes a world without the resurrected Jesus and calls it Christian. But in fact he paints a picture of a world without Jesus that deserves the name Hell. We need not fear. Christ is risen. Harris' world is imaginary. Paul concludes this portion of his sermon by saying, "But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep." The resurrected Jesus is the first fruit and guarantee of the coming harvest, when by his resurrection all will be raised. How? Well, that's the subject for next week. In the Name of the father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.