After school each night my friends and I would gather at the vacant lot on the end of our street to play ball. On one particular evening we were playing baseball when suddenly my friend Chris noticed a field mouse racing through the grass. In a moment of impulsivity we all gave chase to the mouse. It was so quick and agile. It easily outmaneuvered us.
But the chase came to abrupt end when I threw my baseball bat at the mouse. Before I even knew what had happened, the mouse lay inanimate in the grass. My aim that afternoon was just a little too accurate. The mouse was instantly dead. My friend Chris immediately began working me over saying, "Why did you do that? What did the mouse do to you? You're a big jerk!"
Now Chris was a little bit eccentric. He would walk around the neighborhood scooping up dead birds so that he could bury them in a special bird graveyard he had built in his backyard. But none of that changed how I felt that day. Never again in all my life would I feel so guilty and remorseful for killing a field mouse.
I can remember returning to the lot that night hoping against hope that somehow that little mouse would still be alive. But the mouse was not alive. It was truly and forever dead. It was not sleeping. It was not in a coma. It was not temporarily unconscious. The mouse was the same as we had left it earlier that afternoon.
On that day, in a seemingly trivial way I was forced to come to terms with a reality that I have revisited many times since. This is a reality that we are all too familiar with. It is the reality that there is an irreversibly cold and chilling finality to death. When God's creatures die and when our bodies die, it is forever.
Biologically speaking, when our lungs stop taking in air, when our heart stops pumping blood, when our veins collapse and our brain is no longer supplied with oxygen, when our organs seize up and when our bodies begin to decay, the result is permanent and irreversible. Sure, doctors and scientists have learned to delay death for a time. But they cannot nor will they ever be able to recreate, restore, or resurrect an expired body. Physical death is irreversible just like that mouse was irreversibly dead.
Today we are going to challenge our culture's conventional thinking about death. In Hebrews 6:2 the writer mentions the resurrection of the dead in his list of Christian basics. The resurrection of the dead is a foundational teaching upon which we are to build our lives. It is also one of most exciting and extraordinary truths found in all of scripture.
Did you know that the scriptures teach us that God has a plan for our physical bodies? A lot of times I think we are guilty of overly spiritualizing our Christian faith. For example, consider repentance. We often define repentance as an inward experience, an experience of the heart, soul, mind, and emotions. Likewise we typically define faith as an inward experience. We see it as a mental conversion or an intellectual ascent to certain truths. And let's not forget baptism. Many teachers question the need for baptism and instead emphasize the more internal experiences of faith, trust, repentance, belief, and hope.
God wants our faith to work itself out in physical bodily obedience.
If anything, this series has been a reminder to us that God has a plan for our bodies. He wants our faith to work itself out in physical bodily obedience. He wants our repentance to prove and validate itself with physical bodily obedience. He wants our inward faith to express itself outwardly and to pledge itself by submitting to Christ in the waters of baptism. He wants our spiritual gifts to find expression in real ministry. But there is more. Let us not forget the resurrection of the dead.
Throughout the years I have participated in dozens of funerals, enough to observe that many Christians do not know that God has a plan for their body after death. I have with me this morning a minister's manual that contains various readings for weddings, funerals, and graveside services.
Here is a typical graveside reading. "Here we commit the body to its kindred dust; earth to earth, ashes to ashes, and dust to dust. The spirit we leave with God, knowing that the judge of the all the earth will do right." Or, "We come today to lay to rest this body that has toiled through the years, knowing that we here commit to the earth only that which is of the earth. The spirit is in the hands of the same loving God who tenderly cared for him (or her) in life."
From these readings, one is given the distinct impression that the body is being laid aside and virtually forgotten in God's plan. The focus is on the spirit that has left and gone on to be with God. Meanwhile the body, which has served its useful purpose, is buried and laid aside. To be sure, at death our spirit is truly and completely with God. But is decay the only plan that God has for our bodies?
This morning I would submit that God intends to raise our bodies from the grave. He has in his plan a physical and biological resurrection, a resurrection that is a foundational hope off of which we are to live our lives. God has a plan to resurrect our bodies from the grave. God has a plan to raise our inanimate bodies back to life again. God has a plan to restore our feeble, aging bodies to health and wholeness. God has a plan to one day breathe new life into our airless, ground-trapped bodies. Make no mistake about it!
Let's take a few moments to establish several truths.
Our bodies will one day be raised from the grave.
In 1 Thessalonians 4:16 (NIV) Paul says, "For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first." In Philippians 3:10-11 (NIV) Paul says, "I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead."
As you travel you will notice many country churches that are surrounded by cemeteries. When I first noticed this as a kid I thought to myself, "How morbid! Why would anyone ever attend a church that is surrounded by gravestones? Why would a church surround itself with the message of death? It is hard enough to get people to attend church as it is!" But then one day I was foolish enough to blurt out my thoughts and someone cared enough to share a much different perspective with me.
On that day I discovered that those white, fading gravestones were not in any way a testimony about the power of death. Rather, those gravestones were a deafening proclamation of hope and life. In many cemeteries the headstone and body is laid with the head and feet facing east. For centuries Christians have believed that Christ will return in the eastern sky. Therefore they wanted to be buried in such a way that they would be raised from the grave facing the coming Christ.
The scriptures teach that our bodies will one day be raised from the dead just as Jesus Christ's body was physically resurrected from the tomb. I much rather prefer this graveside reading in the minister's manual. "Forasmuch as it has pleased Almighty God, in His wise providence, to take out of this world the soul of our brother (sister), we therefore commit his (her) body to the ground, earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust; looking for the resurrection at the last day."
When Christ returns, we will be given new bodies.
A second truth worth our consideration is that when Christ returns we will be given new bodies. In Philippians 3:20-21 (NIV) Paul says, "But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body."
Our bodies in their present state will not resemble our final resurrected body. In 1 Corinthians 15:36-38 (NIV) Paul uses the analogy of the seed to explain the transformation our bodies will receive when Christ returns. He says, "When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed, perhaps of wheat or of something else. But God gives it a body as he has determined, and to each kind of seed he gives its own body." The seed provides the perfect analogy for our resurrection hope.
Most if not all of us have planted flowers or vegetables in a garden before. My Dad was an avid gardener. Every spring we would till our enormous garden and carefully plant row after row of corn, green beans, peppers and lettuce. The seeds we planted came in all shapes and sizes and colors. The seeds were always shriveled up and dried out. For all practical purposes the seeds looked dead. But it never ceased to amaze me how those same seeds, when buried in the ground and watered, would spring to life and color our garden. Spring after spring we would witness the miracle of the seed.
Paul tells us that one day we will experience firsthand the miracle of the resurrection. Our bodies will be resurrected from the earth and will be given a new, more glorious body. We will be given a body that is exceedingly superior and glorious to the present body. In 1 Corinthians 15:42-44 (NIV) Paul says, "So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body."
One day all of us will receive new resurrection bodies. Our present bodies are tainted by the effects of sin. Our present bodies are perishable and are marked by impermanence. James says that we are like a mist. Our present bodies lack the original glory and honor they had at creation when we were created in the image of God. Our present bodies are natural and earthly, being controlled by the sinful nature. Our present bodies are full of weakness and are subject to illness, hardship, temptation, and disease. Our present bodies are mortal and are subject to death. Death is the inevitable conclusion of life. That's why in Romans 7:24-25 (NIV) Paul exclaims, "What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God-- through Jesus Christ our Lord!"
I'm thankful that I will spend eternity with a different, more glorious body. Our perishable bodies will be transformed into imperishable bodies. Our dishonorable bodies will be transformed into bodies that bring honor to God. Our weak, failing bodies will be transformed into powerful, healthy bodies. Our natural sin-biased bodies will be transformed into spiritual bodies that are completely controlled by God's Holy Spirit. Our mortal bodies will be transformed into immortal bodies that will no longer be subject to suffering and death.
For many people who do not have hope, death is a cold, impersonal, chilling reality. But for the Christian, death marks a transition point. Among Christians there is an acknowledgement that when we die, a body or seed has been planted. There is an acknowledgement that the best is yet to come. And this brings us to a last truth.
For the Christian, death has been swallowed up in victory.
Listen again to Paul's words in 1 Corinthians 15:51-54 (NIV). "Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed-- in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: 'Death has been swallowed up in victory.' "
Our resurrection will be such that we can taunt death with the words of 1 Corinthians 15:55-57 (NIV). "Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting? The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." Death is never the final word for the Christian. Death is never the final word for the person who trusts Christ.
Recently someone sent me an e-mail about a woman who was diagnosed with a terminal illness and who had been given just three months to live. As she was getting her things in order she contacted her pastor and asked him to come to her house to discuss some of her final wishes. She told him which songs she wanted sung at her funeral service, what scriptures she would like read, and what outfit she wanted to be buried in. She requested to be buried with her favorite Bible.
As the pastor prepared to leave, the woman suddenly remembered something else. "There's one more thing," she said excitedly.
"What's that?" asked the pastor.
"This is important," the woman said. "I want to be buried with a fork in my right hand."
The pastor stood looking at the woman not knowing quite what to say. The woman explained, "In all my years of attending church socials and potluck dinners, when the dishes of the main course were being cleared, someone would inevitably lean over and say, 'Keep your fork.' It was my favorite part of the meal because I knew something better was coming, like velvety chocolate cake or deep-dish apple pie. So when people see me in that casket with a fork in my hand and they ask, 'What's with the fork?' I want you to tell them, 'Keep your fork. The best is yet to come!' "
For the Christian, death is never the final word. For the Christian, death never has the victory. For the Christian, death has been swallowed up in victory. This morning we have everything to look forward to. We have a resurrection hope that reminds us that the best is yet to come. "Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?"
Do you have this hope?