“Death Swallowed in Life” 1 Cor 15: 1-26, 51-57

“Listen, I will tell you a mystery! We will not all die, but we will be changed. For this perishable body must put on imperishability, and this mortal body must put on immortality. Then the saying that it is written will be fulfilled: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.” “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Words from the Apostle Paul to the church in Corinth that are often read at committal services. Proclaimed when we are saying goodbye to the people that we love. Stated at times when it seems that death has won.

Last week we talked about some of the struggles of the church in Corinth and how Paul was reminding them that they needed to get back to the practice of love. The non-optional piece of living out the faith because of the love that God has shown us in Jesus Christ.

When you read this section of Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians it would seem that it is completely separate from everything that he was saying just a few chapters ago. Why did Paul jump ahead and start talking about the power of the resurrection? Because for him it is deeply connected. 

If love is the praxis or practice of what we believe, resurrection the theological or God talk behind it. Resurrection is the most important theologically point for Paul. It is the connective tissue that holds everything in the past, present, and future together and gives us hope. 

I get a little frustrated when Christians only talk about Christ dying on the cross as that which gives us hope. Christ’s death for us was powerful, but it was brought to completion through the resurrection. Our faith, dear friends, is tied together in the resurrection.

Why is the resurrection so important to Paul? Because Paul believed because Christ was raised, we too will be raised. When we say together week in and week out during the Apostle’s Creed that I believe in “the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting” we aren’t just talking about what Jesus did. We are talking about what Jesus offers to us - new life. A resurrected life. 

The problem that Paul was facing in Corinth wasn’t just in how people were treating each other in the body of Christ, it was also in what they were being taught. What they were believing. Some people amongst them were spreading misinformation about the resurrection. Some may have denied that there was life after death. Others thought the resurrection already happened and wouldn’t happen again. Still others thought there wouldn’t be a bodily resurrection. For Paul this poor theology put their very faith at risk. If you don’t believe in a resurrection from the dead, then what hope is there to offer. 

Probably the lie that was being spread the most was this idea that the body wouldn’t be raised from the dead. In ancient Hellinistic society the body was at best just something that you needed to deal with and at worse evil. But Paul is proclaiming that bodies have value to God. That God created us in a body for a reason. 

I think we can probably understand a little bit where the ancient Greek society was coming from, can’t we. In America today we are either hyper-fascinated with bodies - trying to get to be what we think perfect is, or we are turned off by bodies -they make us squimish. We don’t know what to do with them. Especially as it seems that bodies start to fail - how could God create these fragile vessels. 

Paul proclaims though that even that which we think is fallible will be redeemed. Even these bodies that make us feel uncomfortable at times and fail will be restored. For Paul it is connected to this profound statement that nothing is beyond the redemption of God. 

In fact for Paul, it goes even deeper than that - no one us beyond the redemption of God. He tells the Corinthians just to look at him! He mistreated people horribly before coming to know Christ and now God is using him to preach the Gospel. God is at work in our lives in a way that we often cannot even begin to understand. And if God can redeem and work through the likes of Paul, then Paul says that no one is beyond redemption. 

For Paul, this hope of redemption through resurrection isn’t just some hope way out there. It’s a manifestation of the power of God right here and now. The power of God saved us and the power of God allows us live. The power of God can change us. 

1 Corinthians is always a book of the Bible that will be dear to me. When I was in seminary I took a class inside of the walls of a women’s state correctional facility on this book. There were some “outside” seminary students that met week with “inside” students. If you want to talk about the power of the Gospel to change folks hearts and lives you needed to look no further then these amazing women, many of whom were serving long prison sentences, but who wanted to study God’s word because they had experienced a powerful change in their lives. They had experienced a resurrection, my friends, that lead them to believe in THE resurrection. 

When Paul says that our hope rests in Jesus, that is the type of hope that he is talking about. Not just something yet to happen, but redemption from sin here and now. New life through forgiveness here and now. Paul fully understands the spiritual death of sin, but because God has raised Jesus from the dead, we have a hope that things can and will be different. 

Church, Paul is trying to tell us that Jesus’s story is part of our story because Jesus changed everything for us. When we tell our story, we cannot help but tell the story of Jesus. When we live out our life of faith in practice we cannot divorce it from talking about God. 

Now does that mean that we know all of the details? By no means. Paul doesn’t offer any of that here. But he does say that the resurrection is trustworthy because there are people alive who bear witness to it. He believes in the resurrection, because despite who he was, Christ chose him. 

Friends, our lives bear witness to the resurrection as well. For the last several months I have had you collecting small rocks and now is the time to put them to use. Each of you should have picked up one of those rocks on the way to worship today. If you didn’t let us know and we will get one for you. We are going to take a moment to pass out markers and I want you to write on one side of the rock something that was dead inside of you and on the other, what new life Christ has brought to that area of your life. Any words that come to mind, friends. 

Because as we wait for the resurrection, we also believe that Christ resurrects and changes pieces of us here and now. We are witnesses to that fact with our lives. We have hope because of it. But that isn’t ours to hold on to in secret. Paul tells us to go forth and share it. And not let anything distract us from this work we have for the Lord. Let us take a moment to be in prayer before thinking of the areas in our lives where Christ has brought new life and new life abundantly. Amen.