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