Guest Sermon by
Rev. Robert D. Shofner
St. John's UCC Boonville
In the late 1990’s, a group of liberal biblical scholars got together to review the Gospels and determine whether Jesus actually said those things the Gospel writers claimed He said. You know, all those verses in red print. They decided He didn’t say much of anything at all. And although these scholars used highly subjective criteria to make their evaluation … criteria which since has been discredited … the media loved it … naming the gathering the “Jesus Seminar” … and lauding them as the new leading authorities on the Christian faith.
One of the seminar leaders, Marcus Borg, had this to say about Christ’s resurrection: “As a child, I took it for granted that Easter meant that Jesus literally rose from the dead. I now see Easter very differently. For me, it is irrelevant whether or not the tomb was empty.”
Recently, the History Channel announced that its director-for-hire, James Cameron, actually discovered … after all these long two thousand years … the tomb of Jesus … and His body, along with the body of His wife (supposedly Mary Magdalene) and the body of a child, supposedly their son, named Judas. Wow!
A colleague commented to me about the discovery, and pretty much echoed the thoughts of Mr. Borg. To which I replied, in effect, “If that’s really Jesus’ body in the tomb, then I’ve wasted my life. I might just as well as quit my job, close the church, go out and party hardy until I drop dead!”
If that’s really Jesus’ body in that tomb, then the disciples, and generations of Christian martyrs, wasted their lives, too. They faced terrible, painful, excruciating deaths for a lie.
If that’s really Jesus’ body in that tomb, then you’ve wasted your lives, too.
The Apostle Paul wrote: “If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins … [and] we are to be pitied more than all men” (1st Corinthians 15:17,19).
Notice that Paul doesn’t say that if there’s no Heaven, the Christian life is futile. He clearly says that if there’s no resurrection of the dead, then the hope of Christianity is an illusion, and we are to be pitied for placing our faith in Jesus Christ. Because if Christ didn’t physically rise from the dead, we’re still in our sins – meaning we’re bound for Hell, not Heaven. All our faith and striving for the Lord would be in vain. So why bother?
The Apostles’ Creed, the first of the so-called catholic, or universal, creeds, plainly affirms: “I believe in the resurrection of the body.” But do we really? Many Christians tend to spiritualize the resurrection of the dead. They don’t reject it as a doctrine, but they don’t fully realize its essential meaning. As John Updike wrote: “Make no mistake: if he rose at all is was as His body; if the cells’ dissolution did not reverse, the molecules re-knit, the amino acids rekindle, the Church will fail. Let us not mock God with metaphor, analogy, sidestepping transcendence; making the event a parable, a sign painted in the faded credulity of earlier ages; let us walk through the door.”
Two-thirds of Americans who believe in a resurrection of the dead believe that they will not have bodies after the resurrection. But that is a contradiction of terms on at least two levels.
First – Genesis 2:7 says, “The Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.” The Hebrew word for “living being” is nephesh, often translated as “soul.” Question. At what point did Adam become a nephesh? Answer. When God joined his body (made out of the dust of the ground) and spirit (the breath of God) together. This makes it clear that the essence of humanity is not just spirit, but both spirit joined with body. Our bodies don’t just house our spirits, like a hermit crab inhabits a seashell. Our bodies are as much a part of who we are as are our spirits.
Second – the empty tomb is the ultimate proof that Christ’s resurrection body was the same body that died on the cross. If resurrection meant the creation of a new body, Christ’s original body would have remained in the tomb. When Jesus said to His disciples after His resurrection, “It is I myself,” He was emphasizing to them that He was the same person – in spirit and body – who had gone to the cross (Luke 24:39). His disciples saw the marks of His crucifixion, unmistakable evidence that this was, indeed, the same body.
And think on this. The Romans knew where Jesus was buried … they placed a guard around it. Yet when the disciples started this new religion by claiming that Jesus had risen from the dead … all the Romans had to do to stop this nonsense was to march to that tomb, retrieve the body and put it in the town square for all to see. But they didn’t. Why not? Because there was no body in the tomb. Jesus had risen … He had risen, indeed!
Of course, there are many who would say this is all just wishful thinking on our part. Is it really?
While climbing a cliff one day, two little boys found a nest of eagles’ eggs. They put the eggs under a turkey-hen in the barnyard and in due time, the young eaglets hatched with the chicks. The mother turkey-hen cared for them as though they were her own.
One day after the eaglets had grown, a great eagle swooped down over the barnyard and something stirred within the young birds. Day after day the great eagle came. Day after day something stirred within the young eagles, and their wings felt the awakening of potential strength within them.
Then one day when the great eagle came and swooped down over the barnyard, the young eagles dared - they flapped their wings and flew! Their destiny to be eagles, born within them would not be denied. They were born to fly!
So with us. Most of our days we live in a barnyard we call our world, knowing all the while there is more, because, though we are in a barnyard, we are not of it.
And we may live like turkeys - even sometimes act like turkeys, but we were born at the font to be eagles!
This is not mere wishful thinking. We know this to be true in the deepest part of our hearts. We desire a resurrected life on a resurrected earth. And that desire is planted in our very being by God Himself. It is God who “set eternity in the hearts of men” (Ecclesiastes 3:11). It is God who designed us to live on a resurrected Earth which will contain the presence of glory of God … thus becoming the true and final Heaven.
And all this because of what Jesus Christ did for us on the cross. All this because Jesus Christ, the perfect, sinless, God-man, took on the Curse of all our sins upon Himself, satisfying the righteous judgment of God. God, therefore, removes the Curse, the penalty for our sin, not only from us, as individuals, but also from the entire creation.
Isaac Watts’ magnificent hymn, “Joy to the World” sings:
No more let sins and sorrows grow
Nor thorns infest the ground;
He comes to make His blessings flow
Far as the curse is found.
How far does Christ’s redemptive work extend? Far as the curse is found!
And all of this is made possible by Christ’s resurrection … His bodily, physical resurrection … His victory over death!
As Paul writes to the Corinthians (1st Corinthians 15:20-22): “But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.”
And Paul warns of us the dangers of belittling this resurrection of the body. He continues in his letter: “Now if there is no resurrection, . . . why do we endanger ourselves every hour? I die every day--I mean that, brothers--just as surely as I glory over you in Christ Jesus our Lord. If I fought wild beasts in Ephesus for merely human reasons, what have I gained? If the dead are not raised, ‘Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.’ Do not be misled: ‘Bad company corrupts good character.’ Come back to your senses as you ought, and stop sinning; for there are some who are ignorant of God--I say this to your shame.” (1st Corinthians 15:29-34)
Norman Vincent Peale tells of sharing a crowded taxi on the way to preaching a sermon at a large conference. The taxi driver was complaining about all his problems and troubles. He was convinced that the whole world was filled with crooks, and everything and everybody was rapidly going to hell.
"Tell 'em that at your rally, reverend," the cab driver said.
Beside Dr. Peale there was a heavy-set, jolly lady with a big happy face. She leaned over to Dr. Peale and said, "Don't do it. We all know that. Tell them instead about Jesus and how he came to give us all God's gift of a resurrected life."
Then the lady reached over and tapped the complainer on the shoulder, saying, "Young man - what you need is to get resurrected!"
To those who would deny the physical resurrection of our Lord, Jesus Christ, I would repeat the warning of Paul: “Come back to your senses as you ought, and stop sinning.” And add the sage advice of the jolly lady, “You need to get resurrected.”
Thank God that we are! So, let’s act like we know it’s true.
He is risen! He is risen, indeed!
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