We Believe in the Resurrection of the Body and the Life Everlasting

Ken Davis writes about a woman who looked out of her window and saw her German shepherd shaking the life out of a neighbor's rabbit. Her family did not get along well with these neighbors, so this was going to be like a disaster. She grabbed a broom, pummeled the dog until it dropped the now extremely dead rabbit out of its mouth. She panicked. She did not know what else to do. She grabbed the rabbit, took it Rooted: IN THE RESURRECTION inside, gave it a bath, blow dried it to its original fluffiness, combed it until that dead rabbit was looking good, snuck into the OF THE BODY AND THE LIFE neighbor's yard, and propped the rabbit back up in its cage. An hour later she heard screams coming from next door. She went EVERLASTING over and asked her neighbor, "What's going on?" "Our rabbit! Our rabbit!" her neighbor cried. "He died last week. We buried him, and now he's back!" When something dies, it’s supposed to stay dead, right? I Corinthians 15:35-44 People in the ancient world knew dead rabbits tend to stay dead. They also knew dead rabbis tend to stay dead. History tells us that there were many so-called Messiahs in the first century. One by one they were all executed by Rome, some by crucifixion. But in no other case do we hear about the disappointed followers claiming their master was raised from the dead. They knew At the end of the road of faith better. Except for One.1 The Apostles’ Creed, the most historic confession of the lies a heavenly home. Christian faith, affirms two instances of resurrection. First, there’s Jesus: “He was crucified, dead, and buried. The third day he rose from the dead.” Then there’s us: “I believe…in the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting. Amen.” There you have it. Not everything that is dead stays dead. But what does that mean—the resurrection of the body and life everlasting? What does that tell us about life beyond death? Where is all this headed? I have good news and bad news. A sermon preached by First the bad news: WE DIE. Every single one of us will Rev. Dr. William O. (Bud) Reeves someday pass from this earth. Life as we know it will end. It’s First United Methodist Church not something we like to think about, yet it should be a fact we Fort Smith, Arkansas live with every single day. We all have a terminal condition. May 8, 2016 Chaim Potok was a Jewish novelist who wrote My Name Is Hang him in the sun for six hours. Run a spear through his heart. Asher Lev. Asher is a young artist who remembers his first Embalm him. Put him in an airless tomb for three days. Then encounter with death at the age of six: see what happens.”3 “I drew… the way my father looked at the bird lying on its Jesus died, and so do we. But that was not the end of the side against the curb near our house. ‘Is it dead, papa?’ I was six story for him, and it’s not the end of the story for us, either. The and could not bring myself to look at it. Good News is, WE WILL EXPERIENCE RESURRECTION. ‘Yes,’ I heard him say in a sad and distant way. When we die, if we believe in Christ, we will live again! This ‘Why did it die?’ life matters because this life is not all there is to life. There is ‘Everything that lives must die.’ another greater life waiting for those who believe. Resurrection ‘Everything?’ is not merely resuscitation; death is not a sleep from which we ‘Yes.’ wake. And we’re not talking about some sort of escape of the ‘You, too, Papa? And Mama?’ immortal soul from the prison of the body. Other religions ‘Yes.’ believe that. We believe in the resurrection of the body, ‘And me?’ meaning that we die—body and soul—and then God acts in a ‘Yes,’ he said. But then he added in Yiddish, ‘But may it be wonderful, glorious, radical way to give us new life in eternity. only after you live a long and good life, my Asher.’ The body we lose to death will be replaced by a spiritual I could not grasp it. I forced myself to look at the bird. body in heaven. This is the point Paul is making in our Scripture Everything alive would one day be as still as that bird? ‘Why?’ I text today. He compares resurrection to a plant growing from a asked. seed. The seed enters the ground and apparently dies. But then ‘That’s the way [God] made his world, Asher.’ it bursts forth in new life, not as a new and improved seed, but as ‘But why?’ a plant, which has grown from the seed, yet is radically different ‘So life would be precious, Asher. Something that is yours than the seed that was planted. forever is never precious.’”2 In the same way, the physical body that dies is replaced by a That’s a fact that we all need to deal with and get used to: spiritual body that has personal continuity, but yet is radically we’re going to die. But that makes every moment precious, different from the flesh it once inhabited. Paul says, “So it is doesn’t it? with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable, In this respect, Jesus was no different from us. He truly died, what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor, it is so that he could pioneer the way for us to overcome death and raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. It live eternally. He was not awakened from a fainting spell by his is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a disciples. He didn’t come out of the tomb on Easter and say, physical body, there is also a spiritual body.”4 I don’t have any “I’m feeling a little better now.” Jesus truly died. idea what a “spiritual body” looks like; all I can conceive are A woman once wrote author J. Vernon McGee and said, “Our versions of my physical body. I’ll tell you the truth: when I die, I preacher said on Easter that Jesus just swooned on the cross and don’t want this one back! I want a spiritual body, and I know that the disciples nursed him back to health. What do you from Scripture that it will be different and better and not subject think?” to the limitations that currently afflict humanity. McGee replied, “Dear Sister, beat your preacher with a So what exactly happens when we die? That is the big leather whip for thirty-nine heavy strokes. Nail him to a cross. question, isn’t it? Even people who are very successful by the world’s standards have to confront this question. Just yesterday be, when we die there will be instantaneous judgment and entry there was a quote from Keith Urban, one of the top stars in into our place in God’s eternal Kingdom—wherever and country music. He has a new song out called “Gone Tomorrow,” whatever that may be. Those who believe can have complete which is his attempt to make sense out of the deaths of his father peace about what happens at death; however God has it and father-in-law. But Keith Urban said, “All these people, engineered, it’s going to be wonderful. We can trust him on that. where do they go? Forgetting all those spiritual beliefs, they Bishop Warren Chandler of the Episcopal Church was on were here, then they’re gone.”5 his deathbed when a friend came to him with a question. “Tell My suggestion to Keith Urban and to anyone else is not to me frankly, Bishop,” the friend said, “do you dread crossing the forget the spiritual beliefs, because that is the only way to make river of death?” sense of the mystery of death. The old bishop smiled weakly but spoke with conviction: So how do we make sense of death? Do we experience “My Father owns the land on both sides of the river. Why resurrection immediately when we die, or is it something we should I be afraid?”6 have to wait for? There are different images in Scripture, The believer has nothing to fear from death, because WE different scenarios describing the same thing. Some Scriptures, BELIEVE IN EVERLASTING LIFE. At the end of the road like I Corinthians 15, the rapture scene in I Thessalonians 4, and of faith lies a heavenly home. Everlasting life will not be as the Book of Revelation depict more of a general resurrection at boring as it sounds. Someone said to me one time, “I can’t the end of time. This was the idea that grew up in the late Old imagine anything more tedious than standing around playing Testament period, that there would be a day of the Lord at the harps and singing songs forever and ever.” That’s not how it’s end of history, and everyone would be resurrected at that time going to be. I love to sing, but after two or three millennia, even and be judged for eternal reward or punishment. I would be looking for a golf course! Life everlasting will be an On the other hand, there are Scriptures that indicate that we eternal moment of spiritual ecstasy, unbound by the human will immediately experience the presence of Christ when we die. limitations of time and space. We will be in the Presence of the Jesus told the disciples in John 14 that he would come and take Eternal, Almighty God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We will them to himself. He told the thief on the cross in Luke 23:43 that be in continual awe and worship, yet without a sense of the he would join him that day in paradise. In Philippians 1:23, Paul passage of time. It boggles the imagination! What heaven will says his desire is “to depart and be with Christ.” be like is indescribable in human terms. We just cannot do Here’s how I make sense out of the various images in justice to the glory we will experience. Scripture. I believe that when we die, there will be an immediate The Book of Revelation attempts a description at the very experience of eternal life. When we cross over the threshold of end of the Bible. John says, “Then I saw a new heaven and a death, we change zones into eternal time. Eternity is not endless new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed time; it is timelessness. So our resurrection may occur when we away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, the new die or at the end of worldly time. For those in eternal Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a timelessness, it is all the same. If by human calculations, we bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from have to wait until the Kingdom comes, it makes no difference to the throne saying, ‘See, the home of God is among mortals. He those in eternity. There will be no consciousness of waiting to will dwell with them as their God; they will be his peoples, and get into heaven. (I hate standing in lines anyway; a loving God God himself will be with them; he will wipe every tear from their would not do that to me!) Whatever the human perspective may eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.’ And the One judge the living and the dead? Do you believe this? Do you who was seated on the throne said, ‘See, I am making all things believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic Church, the new.’” 7 communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of This vision of everlasting life gives us peace and hope when the body, and the life everlasting? we face the final enemy, which is Death.8 When we wonder If you’re not sure today what you believe, let me just ask you what happens when we die, when we lose a loved one to death, —and encourage you—to give as much of your heart as you can when we experience the pain of grief, when we face our own to as much of God as you understand. You don’t have to get all death, we can have assurance because we believe in the the finer points in order to love the Lord. But you can find joy resurrection and eternal life. for today and peace for your pain and hope for your future. You I wrote in this month’s newsletter column about my mother, can be sure of your salvation, and when you die, you will Johnnye Reeves, who passed away in January. This is my first experience the resurrection of the body and life everlasting. This Mother’s Day ever without a living mother. It’s been a little sad is the historic faith of the Christian church, and this is where we and strange. I am grateful for so much that my mom was and are rooted! taught me and gave to me. I was truly blessed with a wonderful mother. But I am most grateful that I don’t have to worry about where my mother is today. I have the complete assurance of faith that the moment she breathed her last in that hospice room in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, she saw Jesus, and Jesus welcomed her home to heaven. And he said, “Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter into the joy of your Master!”9 Her life did not end when she died; she received a spiritual body and began to live again! That assurance of faith gives me peace and hope today, and it inspires me to live my life so that one day I will make that same transition into glory. As Paul wrote to the Philippians, “I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead.”10 The question today for us, as we end this series on the Apostles’ Creed, is “Do you really believe this?” Are you rooted in this faith? Are you willing to put your life on the line—your life on either side of the transition of death—for this creed? Do you believe in God the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth? Do you believe in Jesus Christ, His only Son our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried; that on the third day he rose again, ascended into heaven, is seated on the right hand of the Father, and will come again to 1 John Ortberg, "The World's Greatest Step," Menlo Park Presbyterian Church, April 4, 2010. 2 Chaim Potok, My Name Is Asher Lev (N.Y.: Knopf, 1972), n.p. 3 Robert Russell, “Resurrection Promises,” Preaching Today, Tape No. 151. 4 I Corinthians 15:42-44. 5 Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, May 7, 2015, p. A.2 6 Quoted in sermon 5/13/1990. 7 Revelation 21:1-5. 8 I Corinthians 15:26. 9 Matthew 25:21. 10 Philippiams 3:10-11.