I think it was a Tom and Jerry cartoon from when I was growing up that became the picture of the afterlife for most of my youth. It could have been a different cartoon, or a collection of cartoons, but the scene is the same. The character gets hit with something and falls over dead. A non-physical form of the character rises from the body wearing a white robe, a halo, wings, and playing a harp. This was more or less what I pictured when I read scriptures like 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 where Paul says, “the dead in Christ will rise first…we will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.”
When the Gospels describe Jesus in his resurrection, he eats with people, touches them, and is a fully physical presence (to hundreds of people). He also moves through locked doors, appears, and disappears from people’s presence. We don’t have words to describe what Jesus is able to do and what he is like in his resurrection. This is apparent in the ample descriptions of what he was like where it seems like the writers are dancing around how to talk about it. So, when I say anything about the resurrection, I do so fully aware that anything I say is foggy and one day will be made clear (1 Cor. 13:9-12). What I know is this. The more I look at the Resurrection of Jesus, the more I question my views of a harp-wielding, non-physical, shadowy rising of the dead.
Take a moment to read through 1 Corinthians 15 where Paul makes his argument for the Resurrection. There is a tone to this part of his letter that appears he sees belief in the Resurrection as central to the Gospel itself. There were some in Corinth who denied that there would be a Resurrection for those who are in Christ (15:12-14). “If Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith.” When the Gospel is articulated, most of the time the focus seems to be solely placed on Jesus dying to save us from our sins. While this is true, there is often no mention of the Resurrection. This Sunday, we’re going to talk about the resurrection:
What role does the Resurrection of Jesus play in the process of salvation?
What is the Resurrection?
What does Jesus’s Resurrection tell us about what will happen to us when we die?
Does it even matter?
Jesus didn’t just come to save us from our sins. He came to conquer the enemy that has subjected the world to suffering. The final enemy to be destroyed is death. He came to bring restoration to a world broken by sin and death. When God created his perfect creation, it seems to have the physical and spiritual perfectly together as one. In the brokenness of the creation, there seems to be a separation between the physical and the spiritual. Jesus’s conquering of death, and the divisions that it brings, brings a reuniting of the physical and spiritual together in the Resurrected body. Look at how Paul articulates it in 15:42-49. This broken, perishable body, we see as “natural” will be planted (buried) and when it is raised by the power of the Spirit (the same Spirit that raised Jesus) it will be raised imperishable in the same way Jesus was raised.
There are a lot of directions we can go and a lot more ground that needs to be covered in this discussion. So, I’m going to make you do some of the work. Here are some questions to wrestle with as you read and re read 1 Corinthians 15:
If the tomb was empty, then what will happen to our bodies when we are raised with Christ?
Same question from a different view – If our hope is for our souls to leave our bodies to go to heaven, why was the tomb empty?
What does it mean that our bodies will be raised spiritual?
Jesus’s Resurrection is the firstfruits of those who will be raised. His Resurrection is what we have to look forward to. We are given a glimpse, a taste, of this Resurrection to come through the indwelling of the Spirit within us. The Resurrection has already begun its transformation in you through the Spirit. Therefore, we are people who live life in the Spirit because of Jesus’s Resurrection as we anticipate the Resurrection promised to us in his return. As people of God, we live our lives as a testimony that Christ has Risen by bringing redemption to the brokenness we see in the world around us and breathing life into people.
Throughout this passage, Paul refers to Jesus as a “new Adam.” What implications does that imagery have when we see Christ’s mission as ushering in the “new heavens and new earth” and restoring God’s creation back to the goodness he created it to be?
Other passages to read and reflect on:
2 Corinthians 5
1 Thessalonians 4:13-18
2 Peter 3