The Fellowship of the Holy Spirit (2 Cor 13.11-14 and Acts 2.42-47)

As we head towards Pentecost, we’re starting a new series today on the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit always brings new things. He brings new spiritual life, new vitality, new desires, new ways of looking at things, new songs, new creativity in worship. The Holy Spirit renews the church.

The best two quotes I have ever heard on the Holy Spirit are from the comedian Milton Jones and the pioneer missionary Simon Guillebaud. Jones says, “The Holy Spirit is a real person you can invite in to your home. But watch out - he will go over to the fridge, pull it from the wall and say 'What's all this mess under here?' But at least he helps clear up.” That’s brilliant; the Holy Spirit shows us our sin but he also draws us to Jesus where we can get it sorted out.

And Guillebaud says, “The biblical images to describe the work of the Holy Spirit; fire, mighty rushing wind, flood etc. are exactly the sorts of things we pay good money to insure ourselves against.” That’s true. The Holy Spirit is a bit wild. Jesus said, he’s like the wind; impetuous and unpredictable. Things can get a bit messy.

The Holy Spirit is not a domesticated pet. You know it says on some medicine bottles, "Shake well before use." That is what the Holy Spirit does with us. He often has to give us a good shake before we can be used by God.

This morning, the 9am people had a talk on the Fruit of the Holy Spirit. That means that as long as we hold fast to him, the Holy Spirit fills us with love, joy, peace and so on. You can listen to that talk on the website if you want to. But we’re going to think about the fellowship of the Holy Spirit today.

People sometimes imagine that there are supernatural Holy Spirit phenomena; gifts, miracles, signs and wonders; and there are natural things like fellowship, but let me tell you, the fellowship of the Holy Spirit is a supernatural anointing.

The fellowship of the Holy Spirit is not just friendship, though the church is a place for friends. It’s more than companionship or comradeship or partnership, or relationship.

I remember once I was at a training day when I worked for Sainsbury’s and I was chatting with some people in a crowded lobby at coffee break. I put my drink down on a ledge as I was talking and when I picked it up again, it felt a bit lighter than I had remembered when I last put it down. I thought little of it but when I picked it up a minute later my cup was completely empty, with lipstick on the rim, and it dawned on me that several of us had been unwittingly drinking out of the same cup.

Maybe we can say that having a cup of tea with someone is friendship, but sharing the same cup is fellowship. I wonder how many of us would think nothing of sharing the same supersize coffee cup after the service with everyone else on our table!

As some of you know, “fellowship” is the English translation of the New Testament Greek word koinonia. I happen to be a fluent French speaker and I know that some words are straightforward to translate. Others aren’t. The French expression “n’importe quoi” is impossible to translate exactly in English because it has a range of meanings. The English word “privacy” has no precise equivalent in French either – you need half a sentence to convey in French the meaning of that one English word.

Well, there is no single English word that adequately expresses the range or depth of the Greek word koinonia. It is related to a word meaning “mutual” but it carries the sense of a deep, joint participation in something with someone else. It has the feeling of profound community, of extravagant sharing, of genuine affection and even unashamed intimacy.

The word koinonia was the one they used to describe the condition of Siamese twins, where two individuals share the same bloodstream and even some vital organs. In fact, so dependent are conjoined twins on each other, it can be very dangerous (and is often fatal) to separate them surgically.

Sharing the fellowship of the Holy Spirit together is a profound thing. When they wrote the New Testament down they had to pick a word to describe what they saw in the Christian community. There were other words for sharing, community, friendship etc but the only one that adequately depicted what was happening was the one used for Siamese twins.

In fact, I can’t think of one instance in the New Testament where the word “fellowship” is used to just describe fun times and hanging out. Don’t get me wrong, there’s a lot about friendship and joy in the Bible - and the early church was full of both - but that’s not even the beginning of what the fellowship of the Holy Spirit means.

Let me quickly give you three quick examples of how the word koinonia is used in the New Testament.

1. In 2 Corinthians 8, desperately poor and needy Christians in Macedonia beg to be able to sacrificially give financial aid to famine-stricken believers in Judea. It says they pleaded for the “privilege of koinonia in service to the Lord's people.”

Giving above and beyond what you know you can afford because you love brothers and sisters in Christ whom you have never even met requires amazing faith. So if you ask me what the fellowship of the Holy Spirit looks like, I will reply that it can look like recklessly irresponsible generosity.

2. When Paul wrote from his prison cell, chained to a wall, to the Christians in Philippi, he said, “I always pray with joy because of your koinonia in the gospel (Philippians 1.4-5). In the same letter he talks of one of them who risked his life for him.

What does the fellowship of the Holy Spirit look like at times of ill-treatment and oppression? It shows no embarrassment to associate with a man who has been arrested for civil disorder and remanded in custody. The fellowship of the Holy Spirit means that public disgrace for Christ is a badge of honour.

3. And then when Paul, in the cause of the gospel, gets shipwrecked spends 3 nights in the open sea, is deprived of sleep, gets bitten by snakes, beaten with rods, pelted with stones and flogged with cords he talks about the privilege, the privilege, of sharing in "the koinonia of Christ’s sufferings." (Philippians 3:10).

No wonder pagan onlookers said of the first Christians, “Look, how they love one another and how they are ready to die for each other.”

See what I mean about koinonia – one Greek word translated four different ways there; sharing, partnership, participation and fellowship.

We often close our services or prayer meetings with the words of the Grace. “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with us all, evermore.”

As we saw this morning it’s taken from the end of 2 Corinthians where it also says, “be of one mind, live in peace, and greet one another with a holy kiss.”

Look around you this morning. Would you say you are of one mind with everyone else here? How is it even possible to be of one mind? We’re so different to one another. Our experience of life is diverse. Our family backgrounds are all unique. Our genetic makeup is not the same.

Does being of one mind mean we all have to vote for the same political party, support the same football team and enjoy the same food? No, but it does mean that we go all-out to agree with each other on the essentials. I want to say a bit more about this because it’s important.

Some people talk about beliefs that are written in pencil. We may have a view about drinking alcohol, eating meat, getting tattoos, what we wear in church – things like that. It is OK to come to different conclusions about these things because either the Bible says nothing about them or it can be interpreted in several different ways. These are lifestyle issues and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit means we choose to bear with one another and we live with differences.

Then there are beliefs that are written in ink. These are beliefs that different churches handle in different ways because they understand things in a different way. Do we baptize babies of believing parents or only adults? Is Holy Communion sacramental or just symbolic? Do we have bishops or elders and can women be either? Must we be pacifists or can we support armed combat in some circumstances?

Again, we can have different convictions on these questions. We may have to decide that a certain kind of church is not for me over questions like these. But we have no liberty to say that someone else is not a Christian because they think differently than we do on these kinds of beliefs.

But then there are beliefs that are written in blood. These are core beliefs that define whether you are a Christian or not. Understanding that there is one God; Father, Son and Holy Spirit is not-negotiable. Jesus coming to earth as a man, being born of a virgin, dying on a cross for our sins, and rising again from the dead are essential, not optional. Salvation by grace alone, and never by our achievements, is not up for discussion.

We can all be Christians and share the fellowship of the Holy Spirit even when we have different ideas on the pencil and ink stuff. But we exclude ourselves from the fellowship of the Holy Spirit if we reject those things that are written in blood. These are what make a Christian a Christian and that’s the basic entry requirement for the fellowship of the Holy Spirit.

I love going on holiday and find another church somewhere. I never understand people who avoid looking for a church when away from home. We have found all sorts of churches on our travels. Sometimes it isn’t even in a language we can speak, but there are two words that all Christians say in every language. “Alleluia” and “Amen.” So you can praise God and you know when it’s the end!

But there’s a body language, there’s an understanding, there’s the hallmark of joy and love in a gathering of Christians. And, like a mobile phone picking up a Wi-Fi signal, the fellowship of the Holy Spirit starts when the Holy Spirit in me says hello the Holy Spirit in you, or anyone else, and it’s home, it’s family.

In Acts 2, there’s a short word sketch of a church. It is, in fact, the oldest ever description of any church. It’s a church that, in one day, went from having 120 members to having 3,120 members. That means that, overnight, each member of the original crowd had to care for and nurture 25 people each.

You can’t do that without a lot of hard work. You’ve got to welcome people in, pray with people, patiently instruct them in what it means to be a Christian, gently correct them when they make mistakes, organise them into small groups so they can grow in faith, visit those who are sick or discouraged or housebound, support those thrown out by their families. Psalm 86 says “God puts the lonely in families.” Isn’t that a beautiful thing?

No wonder in v42 it says “They devoted themselves.” Take a look at that word.

I spoke about “zeal for your house” last Sunday. This is the same deal. This is talking about unearthly levels of dedication and commitment. “Devotion” is a word that speaks of great care and attentiveness to detail, it speaks of consecration to a task, it speaks of real affection for others and their welfare; it speaks of great faith.

Where there is low devotion, you can guarantee one thing; that there is weak faith behind it.

You drive around our great cities and somewhere you will see an old church boarded up with “closed” signs outside. Did the congregations that used to fill those buildings “devote themselves” to building up the church and reaching out in mission, do you think? Did they step out in amazing faith and press in to the supernatural ministry of the Holy Spirit? Did they have hard-working, visionary, Spirit-filled leadership? Is that why the church closed down?

What happened? Somewhere along the line, you can be sure that the people lost their devotion. The church, over time, became apathetic and lethargic. Low levels of expectation, and passion, and commitment mean serving the poor gets neglected. Sharing faith dries up.  

And, here’s the tragic thing; what do you think the communities who lived around those great church buildings thought when the church locked its doors for the last time? Did they conclude that God must not exist? Or that the gospel has no power? Or that the Bible is no longer true? Or that the chances of them encountering God are zero?

But in Acts 2 “they devoted themselves to… [amongst other things] fellowship.” When all the members of a church are filled with the Holy Spirit, when they’re awed by the majesty and greatness of God, when they make him the highest priority in life, when they’re devoted to one another in love, when they’re committed to reaching out with the message of amazing grace… when unloved people find acceptance, when sick people find healing, when cranky people start to blossom, then a church grows.

Because who wouldn’t want to be part of a community like that? That’s what the first church was like. That’s what the last church will be like because Jesus is coming back for a perfect bride.

On the screen you can see a line; it’s a continuum of devotion. This is not a confusing diagram. On the left is low devotion. On the right is high devotion. X marks the spot. Where would you put yourself today? Would you say you are at low devotion, or mid-devotion, or high devotion? I’ll tell you something for free – I never found joy back there in low devotion.

Are you attracted, above all else, to living a cushy life and coasting towards a pleasant retirement? Do you hide behind ever-increasing levels of busyness at work to avoid higher devotion to the Lord? Life’s pains and strains - are you moaning and grumbling or are you counting it all joy for the surpassing excellence of knowing Christ? Are you a lover of money? Honestly, how high a priority in your life is advancing the gospel, lifting Jesus high, building up God’s people…?

You might ask, “Well, how can I grow in devotion?” And there are two things I want to leave you with by way of an answer.

Firstly, as a community grows closer to God, it grows closer to each other. Look at the diagram on the screen. 

The fellowship of the Holy Spirit is two-dimensional. As we grow in the vertical aspect, closer to God, we grow in the horizontal aspect, closer to one another.

See? That’s why it says in 1 John 5, “Here’s how we know that we love the children of God: by loving God and carrying out his commands.” You can’t grow in friendship with God without growing in fellowship with one another.

The second way to grow in devotion is to die to everything that hinders it. Jesus said, “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.”

Sometimes other things, other distractions, other ambitions, need to die for the greater vision of the increase of God’s kingdom. Does anything need to die today?

Let’s pray…


Sermon preached at All Saints' Preston on Tees, 24 April 2016

Zeal for Your House Consumes Me (John 2.13-17)

However familiar we are with the passage about the cleansing of the temple, we still find it a bit disturbing. This is not really the Jesus we’re used to. We like the Jesus who heals lepers, who sets repentant sinners free, who forgives his executioners from the cross.

So we wince uneasily at his use of physical force as he throws furniture about and cracks a whip on the crooks who sat behind them.

We squirm in our seats at his display of emotional indignation as he opens the cages holding sacrificial lambs and pigeons and says “Get these out of here!”

We cringe uncomfortably at his attitude of spiritual intolerance. Let’s be honest, this is not great material for a school assembly on “British values” is it?

The truth is though that there are certain things, dressed up in the guise of religion, that Jesus just will not put up with.

Why was he so ticked off? In Mark’s gospel, it says that it was down to the fact that the temple was supposed to be a house of prayer for all nations. But it had become little more than a noisy souk; the place where heaven was supposed to touch earth had become a shabby, middle-eastern bazaar; dirty, congested, loud, unruly, and chaotic.

When you read John’s gospel you find that Jesus cleared out the temple at the beginning of his ministry. But when you read Matthew, Mark and Luke it comes right at the end, in the last week of his life. You may have noticed this.

It’s a puzzle. And some experts suppose that the gospel writers arranged their material thematically rather than chronologically – so they disagree with one another about when this actually did happen. Was it at the beginning or at the end of Jesus’ public ministry?

For what it’s worth, my view is that Jesus cleared the temple not once but twice. He did it at the beginning of his ministry (as John says) and he did it at the end as well (as Matthew, Mark and Luke testify). He did it twice because it needed to be done twice.

At the beginning of his ministry, Jesus visited the temple on his pilgrimage for the Passover, was incensed by what he saw and turned the tables over. This is what Erin just read for us. But I think that all the corruption gradually crept back in again and after three years the temple shambles was just as bad as before, so Jesus did it all again.  

Just as Jesus cleansed the temple on more than one occasion, because he had to, we too need continual cleansing from him. Just like the temple leaders, we let things slip. From time to time our worship goes stale and tired and it needs renewal.

Or busyness and hyperactivity creep back into our spiritual lives. Our priorities get muddled. Our focus on Jesus becomes obscured by other things. Our hearts need to get into line again. AW Pink said, “The Christian who has stopped repenting has stopped growing.” So we need to let Jesus walk round our lives individually, and our life as a church, and let him clear out all that is not right.

Every year, at the beginning of the school term we used to go through our children’s hair looking for head lice. It’s strange, but Kathie never once said, “Wow, pediculosis capitis, almost indestructible, feverishly burrowing into human scalp, laying eggs and sucking my child’s blood – what a marvel!” Some of you are going to start itching now… No, we feverishly applied potions and poisons to clear them out.

It’s the same with worship! When we ask God to comb through our spiritual life and bring to light all coldness of heart so we can repent of it, we receive the Lord’s cleansing and we can welcome the power of the Holy Spirit to live a transformed life.

In each instance of Jesus cleansing the temple, he got upset. Why was he so angry about selling livestock and changing money? Everyone has to go shopping and visit the bank.

He was angry because temple sacrifices had become a racket. It was an organised rip-off. You couldn’t bring your own lamb from the farm to offer to God. Someone on the door would inspect it, find something wrong with it and say, “Oh no, that’s not temple standard, you’ve got to offer one of these instead.”

So you went and got yourself an official temple-approved lamb or pigeon to bring to the altar and this authorised merchandise would set you back up to 20 times the market price. And of course, they made a tidy profit off you to garnish their lavish lifestyles.

Oh, and you couldn’t pay for the lamb with the cash in your wallet either. Oh no. You could only use special temple coins to pay. And the money-changing cartel stung you with extortionate commission charges. The gospels say that the Pharisees and Sadducees who controlled all this were lovers of money. It stank. Ordinary people were getting fleeced by the system. That’s why in Luke’s gospel Jesus calls the whole outfit “a den of robbers.”

Thank God that has all gone now!

• We don’t need a priest to pray on our behalf; Jesus has opened the way for us all to meet God face to face.
• We don’t need an altar to cut the throat of an unblemished lamb on; Jesus’ innocent shed blood has made all those sacrifices obsolete. All we need is a table to share a meal remembering it.
• We don’t need to pray towards a temple in Jerusalem; Jesus has replaced it and we can face him wherever we are.

In the Old Testament there were predictions that when the Messiah came he would come to his temple like a launderer’s soap or a refiner’s fire. And here he did come to cleanse and to burn with indignation.

And it says here that when they saw Jesus like this they remembered the prophecy; “zeal for God’s house burns me up”. They watched Jesus put God’s house in order and they said, “that’s what the Messiah is going to do.”

Jesus did not come with holy half-heartedness. And he doesn’t want spiritual indifference in his church either. He wants zeal in his people. He expects to see a bit of fire, a bit of enthusiasm.

The great preacher W. E. Sangster once interviewed a shy young man who was evidently short of self-confidence for the Methodist ministry. “Oh,” he said, “I'm not the sort of man who'd set the Thames on fire.” Sangster just looked at him and said; “My dear young man, I'm not interested to know if you would set the Thames on fire, what I am interested to know is this: if I threw you in the river would it sizzle?”

He wanted to see a bit of passion! All he needed was evidence of the fire of the Holy Spirit in his belly. You could throw some Christians in the Thames; they're so cold, they’re so dead, they'd actually lower the river temperature when they hit the water!

Are you ablaze with passion and zeal for God’s honour? Do you want this house of prayer to be filled with his presence and power? Do you want this church to be a meeting place where heaven and earth touch, where people encounter Jesus in salvation, in healing, in wonder, in praise?

This building was put up in about 1905 not as a monument to human achievement, but as a showcase for the glory of God. Over the years, as the ministry has grown and changed, the building has been modified. Bits have been added and taken away. It is a living space.

As you know, the PCC has been thinking and praying for some time now about how this building can more than ever be a house of prayer, a place of encounter with God.

This led to a week of prayer and fasting and a vision day in February in which – anyone who was there will testify - there was a tangible sense of spiritual unity. We unanimously agreed to seek architectural expertise to develop our basic vision for a reordered and extended church.

The PCC has formed a steering group (myself, Jenny Lewis, Simon Honeywell, Richard Spratt, Jennifer Brown and Martin Howard) and we met with an architect last Thursday. He hopes to have a study with drawings offering several possible projects for us to pray through and discuss by the summer holidays. We will aim for an Extraordinary General Meeting in September and we will decide then whether we push ahead or not.

We are not interested in change for change’s sake. We are considering inspirational modifications that will

·         put prayer at the heart of this place

·         provide more space for a growing congregation

·         give flexible options for outreach throughout the week

·         replace what has become unsafe or degraded

Why are we contemplating this? Because zeal for your house consumes me.

This year, there are several special events coming up.

The week of 9-15 May is being set aside as a national week of prayer. Our archbishops have written to every church in the land saying “Come on! Let’s pray for a great wave of prayer across our land. Let’s ask almighty God for the renewal of the Holy Spirit on the church nationwide and for the confidence to rise up with a fresh commitment to proclaim the gospel of Jesus.” So the Prayer Team are working on helping us do that with passion and enthusiasm. Because zeal for your house consumes me.

On 12 June we will celebrate the Queen’s 90^th birthday with a street party at which we will offer our neighbours and guests these superb commemorative booklets on the Queen’s reign and the centrality of her faith in Jesus Christ. I can’t wait for this. We want people in our neighbouring streets to know how good the Lord is and how joyful his people are. Zeal for your house consumes me.

From 21-27 June we will be hosting the Life Exhibition. I am so excited about this. It’s a multimedia, interactive exposition about Jesus to which we will be welcoming hundreds of schoolchildren from local schools over seven days. We want to proclaim the greatness of the Lord from one generation to another. So we are going to pray that children meet with Jesus here and begin a journey of discovery and faith. Zeal for your house consumes me.

We had a spectacularly good Alpha course last autumn where people came to faith in Christ, were filled with the Holy Spirit, and joined the church. We are running it again in September and we will pray for another spiritual harvest. The organisation, cooking, speaking, group leading is really hard work. But zeal for your house consumes me.

And there is so much else going on in this place week after week.

To pick just three; our youth work is growing. Our Connect ministry to retired people is bursting at the seams and the team is having to consider moving to two lunches a month. Messy Church has actually had to turn people away because it was unsafe to cram any more people into the building.

Jesus said, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few.” That’s right. We need more people who can say “I’m getting involved because zeal for God’s house consumes me too.”

At the New Wine Leadership conference in Harrogate last month the staff team were among the 2,700 delegates to hear the Archbishop of Canterbury say these words:

“I believe from the bottom of my heart that the long years of winter in the church are changing. The ice is thawing, the spring is coming. There is a new spring in the church.”

With all respect to Justin, who I love, I did think when I heard it that it sounded just like a politician’s conference speech waffle.

But, you know what? It’s happening. I can feel the ice thawing too. And as I listen to other church leaders all over Teesside I keep hearing that the church is growing. May this recent season of growth be just a modest beginning to a great and sweeping move of the Holy Spirit in our region and nation! Zeal for your house consumes me. May it consume many!

So let’s rejoice over the past, let’s revel in the present, but let’s reach for a greater vision and greater experience of the Lord’s glory in the future. May it be said of us in future generations, “Zeal for God’s house consumed them.”

Sermon preached at All Saints' Preston on Tees, 17 April 2016

Ifs and Buts (1 Corinthians 15.12-19)

Introduction

Sometime in the mid-fifties, two trainee nurses at Westminster Hospital called Gillian and Sylvia were talking together about a party that had been organised that week. They were very excited but all the nurses being women, there weren’t enough men so Gillian was trying to round a few up including her brother Michael to help make up the numbers.

Well, Michael was no dancer and it was a little inconvenient because he was busy packing his things before getting on a ship to emigrate to Canada later that week. So he wasn’t all that keen. But Gillian was nothing if not persuasive and in the end, as a favour to his sister, Michael gave in and he grudgingly turned up to the party.

Sometime that night, Michael and Sylvia got to dance and the chemistry between them was instant and explosive. They fell in love. Michael arranged a refund on his boat ticket for Canada. They started courting, then they got engaged and finally married. In 1961 they had a son. This story is meaningful to me because Sylvia and Michael are in fact my mum and dad. I owe my existence to a random dance, to the fact that there hadn’t been enough men, and to the insistent nagging of my Auntie Gill.

Every one of us could probably tell a similar story this morning. Your mum just happened to meet - of all the 3.5 billion men on this Earth - your dad, think about that. The chances of any of us being here today are vanishingly small – but here we all are.

There’s a genre of literature called alternative history. It’s where authors imagine how things might have transpired if some significant event had turned out differently. And they go back to what is called a point of divergence – it’s the turning point - then they change that event to create an alternative future.

There’s actually a book called “If It Had Happened Otherwise” written in 1931 in which several authors, including Winston Churchill, imagine how the world would have turned out if… for example, Napoleon had avoided surrender to the British at Waterloo and escaped to America instead.

What If the Resurrection Had Happened Otherwise?

But the question I want to ask this morning is the one that has the greatest bearing of your life and it’s this: what if the resurrection had turned out differently? The answer to that question determines what eternity can look like for you.

What if we could go back in time and find the point of divergence on that first Easter Sunday morning on 5 April 33AD - or whenever it was - and monkey with the outcome of the story of the resurrection?

What if we could rework the narrative so that Matthew, Mark, Luke and John have the women allowed into the tomb by those guards, to find a bloodstained, badly lacerated, body like butchered meat, lying cold and still in that tomb the way they left it the previous Friday? What if they wash the body down, apply their embalming spices, and then leave quietly…? What if Jesus stays dead and his corpse just begins to rot over the next few days and weeks? What if the gospels were the story of Jesus’ amazing life and tragic end?

That’s what 1 Corinthians 15 is about. Seven times in our little section, v12-19, we find the little word “if.” This is that genre of alternative history. Verses 14 and 17 actually ask the question, “What if Christ has not been raised?” “What if the fallen hero stayed dead?”… And it spells out the consequences.

We’ll come to all that in a minute, but first of all I need to give you a bit of background.

Immortality of the Soul v Resurrection of the Body

Every culture has its way of thinking about death and the afterlife. In India, most people say you get reincarnated as something else, so you come back as a stray dog if you behave badly, or as a Bollywood star if you live well.

In traditional parts of Africa people believe you become godlike when you die and control the destiny of the living – that’s what Mufassa tells Simba in The Lion King.

In our culture some people think you just die and that’s the end of you. This week, I was reading the words of a guy from the British army who had done tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan and he said this; “I’ve carried fallen comrades home to our base. I’ve picked up bits of my mates blown up by IUDs. They don’t come back. Nothing more to say.”

In the early days of Communist Russia, they used to indoctrinate children from infancy telling them, “Lenin knows everything. Lenin is always with us.” But on January 21 1924 Lenin died. Lenin shuffled off this mortal coil. Lenin kicked the bucket. Lenin fell off his perch and became an ex-Lenin.

You can go to Moscow today and look at him in his glass coffin in Red Square. If you did, you would notice that the only sense today in which Lenin is always with us is that his motionless corpse is soaked in formaldehyde and stored in a vacuum for people to stare at.

There used to be an engraving on the base of his coffin that said “Vladimir Lenin – the Saviour of the World.” But the truth is that he couldn’t even save himself and within 70 years of his death his miserable Communist utopia had collapsed altogether.

Some people say, “Look, I’m very happy in life. I’ve got everything I need; a great house, a good family, nice holidays, a new car – why do I need Jesus?” But whenever people say this, they act as though their lives will go on forever, even though we know deep down that this simply isn’t true. We may well live a few years longer than our parents, but none of us has an infinite supply.

This is why wealthy Californians spend a fortune on cryonic suspension, having their brains preserved in a frozen state just in case some future technology manages to bring them back to life.

On a more modest scale, anxious people hold back the inevitable advance of age with Botox injections, anti-wrinkle cream, nip and tuck surgery, vitamin supplements and hair dye.

Desperate men in mid-life grow their hair long, tattoo their arms, have hair transplants or try and attract a younger woman, all in an attempt to try and prolong the illusion of youth a bit longer.

Other people in our culture talk about nan being taken by God to be one of his angels or Uncle Fred looking down on us. Can I just say that there’s nothing in the Bible at all about nan being one of God’s angels or Uncle Fred looking down on us.

This letter in the Bible was written to new Christians in the city of Corinth in Greece. They had their own take on death and the afterlife. The Greeks said that your body rots away, never to function again, but your inner self, your personality, your consciousness, floats away in a kind of ghost-like state forever. It’s called the immortality of the soul.

Practically everyone thought that way. And absolutely no one expected or even imagined what the gospels say happened to Jesus. The idea of a resurrected, physical body was totally left-field. No one thought that way at all. It was like asking the question “What colour is grass?” and getting the answer “first on the left, past the post office.” It just didn’t compute with people at all.

Resurrected bodies are different to immortal souls. The resurrection is physical, not spiritual. It means after your old body has rotted away, the atoms and molecules get put back together by God, and you get a brand new body that doesn’t get old, or go grey, or become wrinkled, or need glasses, or require hearing aids, or droop, or get weaker or… what was the other thing? Oh yes, or become forgetful.

The resurrection of the body means that one day, God will do away with every aspect of frailty in our bodies. We will have sharper eyes to enjoy greater beauty. We will have brighter minds to perceive deeper wisdom. We will have clearer ears to render every heavenly sound more glorious.

Our legs won’t ever get tired from standing or dancing. Our vocal chords will never get hoarse from singing. We’ll feast on the choicest menus but never feel bloated or sick. Our arms will never get weary from lifting in praise. We’ll be able to grasp God’s greatness and respond in worship to like never before.

Every person who has trusted in Christ will be an honoured guest at heaven’s feast. Looking around, we’ll see table after table stretching endlessly beyond what our eyes can see. Men and women of every background, every ethnicity and every nation will be eating, laughing, just overflowing with joy and an amazing sense of being loved.

We’ll notice people there whose faith we questioned in this life. We’ll sit side by side with individuals who annoyed us, who bored us to tears, but we’ll find their company exhilarating. We’ll see people we thought had no chance of eating at that table. And before any hint of self-righteousness rises up in our hearts, we’ll just be speechlessly grateful for it all.

That’s what’s coming to us. But some of these Christians in Corinth were saying, “No, I don’t believe any of that! No, you die, your body decays, your consciousness just floats around in the ether, and that’s that.”

So this is why God has made sure these words are in his book. Verse 12; “How can some of you say there is no resurrection of the dead?” “What are you talking about?” it says. Four times in this short paragraph there is an unbreakable link between Jesus rising physically from death and us being given new bodies one day.

And it says you can’t have one without the other. Jesus rising from the dead and us living physically in eternity are two sides of one coin. If you don’t agree that the afterlife for us will be fully physical, then Christ’s afterlife was not physical either and the resurrection of Easter Sunday is a useless fantasy. That’s what it says here.

And going back to v1, this is of first importance. Christianity without the resurrection is not just Christianity missing the last chapter. Christianity without the resurrection is not Christianity at all. If there is no resurrection, Christianity is fantasy, praying is futile, Jesus is fake, the Bible is forged and death is final.

It says here in v14 that if Christ has not been raised our preaching is useless. You might think my preaching is useless anyway… No, but if Jesus’ skeleton is hidden away somewhere in Jerusalem, every sermon, every book, every presentation of Christian faith you have ever heard is just hot air. It has no value, no point, no power, no meaning, and no importance. It is of no interest, has no basis in fact, and offers no benefit. Every preacher you’ve ever heard has wasted your precious time.

Because it means what it says here in v17 that if Christ has not been raised your faith is vain; you are still in your sins. That’s right. If Jesus’ remains were still lying in some shrine somewhere in Jerusalem there’d no forgiveness, no freedom from the past, and no new life, just guilt and shame and condemnation. Just the burden of knowing you’ve messed up and no one can ever undo what’s done.

If Christ did not rise then you are still lost in your sins and your Bible is worthless. 

There’s an old rabbinical myth about the Jewish festival of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. Apparently, one year, the High Priest went into the sanctuary and offered sacrifices for the nation’s sins. Everybody waited outside with scarlet cloths and as they waited outside for the High Priest to reappear, the scarlet cloths turned as white as snow. That’s just a fable. But when Jesus reappeared, out from the grave, on Easter morning all your sins and mine were cleansed. All the charges against us were annulled and we are set free from the sentence of eternal death.

If the resurrection is made up then Christianity is a scandal, it is a rip-off, a con, the worst scam ever and should be held in contempt because it is built on false testimony.

Christianity without the resurrection is futile, it’s pointless, it’s ineffective, it’s impotent, it’s inane. It’s like a shelter without a roof. Or a toaster without a plug. Or a toilet without a flush.

In fact, v19 says that if all our hopes end at the grave then Christians are actually worse off than anyone. As The Message paraphrases it; “If all we get out of Christ is a little inspiration for a few short years, we’re a pretty sorry lot.” 

What a sad, miserable, wretched waste of a life Christians have if Jesus has been dead all along. Paul knew that more than most. He spent his life in and out of prison, stirring up riots and getting beaten to within an inch of his life – he didn’t care, he thought it was worth it, because he knew Jesus had been raised from the dead and he met him personally on the road to Damascus.

It’s why there is no trace of any kind of pilgrimage to the place of Jesus’ death or burial for about 300 years. There’s no point! Christ is risen. Christ is king. Christ is Lord.

The Big But…

That’s a lot of “ifs” in this reading. However, in v20 there is a “but”. It’s one of those turning point “buts” you find from time to time in the New Testament. There is a “but” that changes everything.

Like in Ephesians 2 where it says, “All of us… were by nature deserving of wrath. But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ.”

Like in Romans 3 where it says, “No one will be declared righteous in God’s sight... But now… the righteousness that God gives has been made known.”

And here in v19-20 it says, “If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied. But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead...”

Ending

Jesus’ resurrection from the dead changes everything.

I was listening to one of the speakers at New Wine last year and he was talking about an old lady he’d got to know when he was a curate. He’d walk into the care home where he did monthly visits and every time he walked in to the shared living space this lady would say in a loud voice, “get that man away from me!”

He found out after a few visits that it wasn’t personal at all. She didn’t mean to be rude or inhospitable. It was to do with his role. For her, he was Reverend Death. She was a very old lady. In her mind, his visits meant one thing; this must be about the funeral (which is not why he was there at all). But she wasn’t a person of faith, she’d never been inside a church or anything like that, and she was terrified at the thought of dying.

Well, over time, somehow he got to know her, and they actually became good friends. Until one day the curate got a phone call from the lady’s son. He said, “You’ve got to get down to the care home as soon as you can; my mum has something really important she needs to say to you.”

So he went down there and she said, “Oh, I’ve had a glimpse of heaven. It is the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen. And I’ve seen Jesus. He’s indescribably wonderful. I felt loved, I felt safe, I felt like I’ve never felt before. Ooh,” she said, “I can’t wait to go now.”

Little by little, she had come to have a simple faith in Jesus and in his grace he showed her a preview of eternity before she went there. Anyway, about a year later, she did go. She was ready. There was no fear at all. She slipped away peacefully. And the funeral was a great celebration.

If Christ has not been raised, she would have gone to her death in fear and dread and loathing. But she faced the end of this life utterly at peace. I’ve watched a good half a dozen people in my time here face death with complete serenity. Because Jesus is Lord over death.

Let’s stand to pray…

Sermon preached at All Saints' Preston on Tees, 3 April 2016