I Corinthians 15:12-17, 53 -58 12 But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? 13 If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. 14 And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. 15 More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised. 16 For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. 17 And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. 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.” 55Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” 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. 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.
Resurrection living is living as if Christ is right. He is right when He identifies with the weak, the poor, the moral failures. He is right in His forgiveness. He is right in the way He serves. He is right when He removes barriers between people. He is right in the paradox of destroying human rules about the way we are supposed to live even as He gives us a high and holy responsibility in the way we live. He is right both in what He gives and in what He demands of us. He is right when He says that God is in control and yet suffers a shameful death on the Cross. And He is right when He says, “because I live, you will live also.
When we live as if Jesus is right, we discover that Jesus is right about life and death. If we lack trust or if we fail to live as if Jesus is right, the result is the same. God gives us life after death in Jesus Christ, but we discover that truth only by faithful living. C.S. Lewis could remind us that no matter how a person may appear to us, we have never met a mere mortal. But, when his wife Joy died, he felt very much like a “mere mortal,” without much hope in the life to come. He continued to live faithfully as best he understood, but he felt ashamed of the way he felt. He wrote down his thoughts and feelings in A Grief Observed. Even thought C.S. Lewis could not see it or feel it at the moment, God was at work giving him victory through Jesus Christ our Lord. Even thought C.S. Lewis felt he did not keep the faith, the faith kept him, and it has been an inspiration to thousands ever since.
Believing in the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting is a statement of confidence that God will continue to give us life now and after death, and a pledge to focus on the work God is giving us to do.
From a sermon preached by Henry Dobbs Pope August 27, 1995
© Rhonda Hinkle Mitchell
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