Raised with Christ (1 Corinthians 15.51-57)

In Memory of Doris Ward (3rd May 1915 - 16th December 2013)

The lead singer of the Rolling Stones Mick Jagger, now aged 70, was interviewed on a TV chat show a few years ago and was talking about how he keeps going as a youthful rocker. Jagger described the prominent creases on his face as “laugh lines.” The interviewer just smiled and said, “Oh come on, nothing’s that funny”!

The truth is our bodies are getting older, tireder, greyer, wrinklier, achier and for some of us balder every day. Warning, this talk is intended to depress everyone!

Or maybe not, because even if we are all getting older on the outside, the Bible says that those who receive the grace of God are actually getting younger - on the inside. The Bible says “We do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.”

Christians are a new creation; new men, new women. In Christ, you get younger every day. Isn’t that good news?

These days, most people have - at best - only a sketchy idea of what the Bible says about life after death. Ask someone on the street what they think about life after death and you’ll probably get one of three answers.

Some will say, a bit like the Corinthians our reading was addressed to, that our disembodied souls kind of float around for eternity. That comes from Greek philosophy. It’s Plato - and is not what the Bible teaches at all.

Secondly, some will say that we reappear in a different form at some future point on this earth. Reincarnation in other words. That’s Hindu or New-Age thinking and is not what the Bible teaches either.

Thirdly, others will say that there is absolutely nothing at all after death. Atheists believe that when you die, that’s it. For the committed sceptic it is silly to engrave the words “Rest in peace” on headstones. Dead people do not rest, they say. Bodies decompose and that’s all there is to say.

But the Christian vision of what happens to us after death is different to all these tree beliefs. And our reading is one of the places in the Bible where the Christian view is explained.

It says “The trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.”

Our fragile bodies eventually go downhill, die, then decay. Our personality, the real me, the real you, our thoughts, our beliefs stay very much alive. Doris is conscious at this very moment and but is without a body and she is enjoying God’s presence in heaven. One day, when the Lord returns, she will rise with a new, immortal body that will never grow old or tired. In the age to come, all the indignities of our present bodies will be history; the dishonour of our aged, wrinkly frames will be replaced, with something quite glorious.

We have a few illustrations from nature to teach us about these eternal realities. Let me share two of them with you.

The first is the seed and the plant. The genetic make-up of an acorn, its DNA, is identical to the oak tree it becomes. The tree is unrecognisable from the seed it grows from, which may be hundreds of times smaller, and completely different in shape. In the same way, the Bible says that we will be transformed beyond anything we could imagine, completely different. And yet, it’s totally the same thing. The acorn falls into the ground and dies only to become something more glorious. As our reading says, “Death has been swallowed up in victory.”

Jesus, after he was raised, was the same Jesus - but different. People knew it was him and yet, curiously, there was something about him, so that people hesitated to go near him and, in fact, didn’t always recognise him at first.

Which brings me to the second illustration from nature; the caterpillar and the butterfly. At just the right time in its life, the caterpillar goes grey and hangs upside down on a branch and weaves a cocoon. It looks like it is creating its own coffin. But inside, it is undergoing transformation. It uses the same atoms it had as a caterpillar, rearranges them, recycles them, in order to emerge, rise, if you like, as a majestic butterfly, no longer crawling but flying! Its environment is no longer limited to the earth. It can now travel in the heavens.

The same is true of us when we die. Our bodies will be recreated, using the same raw materials, but this time equipped to exist on a different level.

I look forward to meeting up with Doris again one day. We’ll both have new bodies with no aches and pains. We’ll be different but certainly recognisable.

If the resurrection is just a fairy story, Jesus’ bones are lying in a tomb somewhere in the Middle East, our faith is futile, Christianity is untrue and Doris Ward wasted a large part of her life believing a lie.

But no. Her work in the Lord’s service, her praying, her encouragement of fellow believers, her stand against evil, her love for others, her giving, the faith she shared, were not in vain.

While her soul rejoices in the glorious presence of God in heaven, he is preparing for her a body able to enjoy him forever in the eternity to come.

It’s common to become overly preoccupied with our health, particularly as we grow older. Doris certainly had no fear of death. In fact, she was ready to go and rather wished it could have been sooner.

The good news of the gospel is that Jesus opened heaven’s doors for all who repent of their sins and turn to him in faith. Because of Christ, we don’t need to fear death any longer. He has decisively nullified the sting of death.

When we know Christ, we know that one day we will be with Him forever and that makes all the difference.

Thank God for Jesus’ promise: “Because I live,” he said, “you also will live.” 

Sermon preached at All Saints' Preston on Tees, 8th February 2014