Saturday, April 14, 2018
Dead rise
1 Corinthians 15:14
And if Christ is not risen, then our preaching is empty and your faith is also empty.
On a fairly frequent basis, people who claim to be a god die. Some of these persons have many followers many of whom tend to remain faithful in the face of the evidence that they were merely human.
A good recent example is Sathya Sai Baba. Considered by millions globally to be a reincarnation of one of the Hindu gods, there was great lamentation outside of an Indian hospital in April 2011 when he was admitted in bad condition. He died later that year. Interestingly, his first declaration was that he was Sai Baba, a reincarnation not of a god, but of a previous man who it was claimed was a god.
There are many eastern religions with men who either claimed or were believed to be a god, a reincarnation of some god before them. When they die, their devotes build shrines at their burial place. There are dead.
In the Caribbean, where Rastafarians believe that Selassie was devine, a Bahamian gospel reggae singer, Christian Massive, once popular in the 90s, had a song, Selassie I dead. I couldn’t find the song lyrics this morning but memory suggests “Selassie I dead / If you can’t get it through your head / Your brain must be steel / or your mind must be lead” then the chorus, “Dead dead dead / Dead dead dead / the man done dead.”
There are tombs, shrines, crypts, vaults, mausoleums, pyramids and the like built for so-called god-men down through the millennia.
Jesus walked to Bethany in the midst of the fourth day of mourning over a man named Lazarus and made some declarations that no one before, or since, has made. The conversation with Lazarus’ sister went like this, “Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again. Martha said to Him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.” John 11:23,24.
As is typical, Jesus and Martha had their heads in different places. Jesus sought to clarify and made to her the most profound of declarations, “Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die.” Then He pressed her with a question, “Do you believe this?” John 11:25,26
Jesus here made one of his I AM declarations. He moved from the idea that those around Him had that He could give life, to being life itself and a life that could not be truly extinguished and that could restore life if it is lost. In John 6:35-40 Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life.” He later ended that discourse saying “And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day.”
Later, in John 14:6, Jesus said “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” Jesus kept emphasising not just that He could give life but that He Himself is Life.
Back in Bethany Jesus said, “Where have you laid him?” Then He said, “Take away the stone.” And then He said, “Lazarus, come forth!” And finally, He said, “Loose him, and let him go.” Jesus demonstrated His credentials at the tomb that day, but the full validation was yet to come.
There are other accounts in the scriptures of Jesus interrupting funerals and bringing the dead back to life – Jarius’ daughter recorded in Matthew 9:18-26 and repeated in Mark 5:21-43 and Luke 8:40-56; and there is the son of the widow at a place called Nain recorded in Luke 7:11-16.
None of these resuscitations, however, compares to that Sunday morning after His death on the cross the Friday before.
Jesus died for our sins, and that is important because, “according to the law almost all things are purified with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no remission.” Hebrews 9:22. However, the validation of His death for our sin is in the resurrection. That He is no longer entombed but is risen. The resurrection changed everything. Jesus gave ultimate validation that He alone is the resurrection and life.
Our key verse today takes us to the Apostle Paul writing to the Christians at Corinth and declaring to them that the resurrection is the game changer and differentiator. Some of these guys had reached a place where they were being influenced by cult leaders who altogether denied that the dead body could rise.
This was a critical issue because if they denied that the body could rise they would be denying the resurrection of Jesus Himself. If Jesus did not rise bodily then the whole Christian faith would collapse because for us the resurrection is the differentiator.
There were a lot of religious and philosophical influences both among the Jews and Greeks that lead to this view that the body was an end in itself. Some Greek philosophers even had the idea that the body was a tomb because we died and ended in it.
We believe differently, we believe that the dead rise (read 1 Corinthians 15:12-19), that Jesus had an “endless life.” Hebrews 7:16. And that We believe that as believers in the resurrected Jesus we have “abundant life.” John 10:10.
Take away the resurrection and we would have no faith that’s worth anything now. “And if Christ is not risen, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins! Then also those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men the most pitiable.” 1 Corinthians 15:17-19
Think on these things:
- Do you see the resurrection as central to your faith?
- How do these ideas make you think about other faiths and religions?
- How would you communicate this to persons of other faiths without being disrespectful or offensive?
Prayer focus:
Let us pray today that we would fully appreciate the power of the resurrection.
In His Grace
Pastor Alex