1 Corinthians 15.1-11
The church at Corinth is losing its way. Paul’s response is to call them to remember where it all began for them. ‘Remember’ is a key command in the Bible. It is more than having a good memory. The opposite of remember is not forgetting but to be dis-membered – to be broken off from the whole. To re-member is to reconnect. Paul urges them, and us – reconnect your life in the history of faith. Don’t waste all this! Christ died for our sins, was buried, was raised and appeared to his followers.
The list of resurrection appearances of Jesus given here is selective. One recorded here does not appear anywhere else. For every story we are told, there are countless more: the witness of unnamed men and women through Christian history whose lives are changed by the risen Christ.
Picture an unbroken line of people across history, across the world – all in their turn receiving, embracing firmly and handing on the word and gift of the new life of Christ. Remember them well, Paul says.
Today, as then, in our age and world, on this side of the empty Easter tomb, Jesus still meets and transforms his world. Christ is risen!
1 Corinthians 15.12-19
We only have one side of the correspondence here. But there is a lively debate going on between Paul and some church members at Corinth about the resurrection. That in itself is not surprising. The resurrection is so mind-blowing that if doesn’t raise big questions, we surely haven’t understood it. It may come as a relief to find the first Christians asking awkward questions about what they believe. It is a healthy Church that lives honestly with its questions. Christian faith is an enquiring faith, and that means being willing to be pulled and stretched beyond what we can immediately understand or make sense of.
It needs some detective work to clarify why some are having a problem with the idea of resurrection. It is very doubtful that they are dismissing it totally – though it would have sounded a very strange idea to the world of their day. Traditional Jewish belief was of a general resurrection at the end of time. But Paul is emphatic that through the resurrection of Jesus, new life and forgiveness is breaking in now. It is no longer a distant hope.
When Christ was raised from the dead, the power of sin and death was broken for ever. The stone has been rolled away. A door to new life stands open for ever.
1 Corinthians 15.20-28
‘Life is difficult’, wrote Scott Peck in the first sentence of his book The Road Less Travelled. And so it is for many people. The pressures upon modern living are heavy. Stress is now a major cause of health breakdown. We find ourselves pulled in many different directions, overwhelmed by choice but powerless to choose. Counsellors and pastors report a common story that, despite working very hard, people speak of feeling overwhelmed and of the struggle to know who they are and where they belong in it all.
Paul’s words are good news. This world is being brought back into its true shape. The story that went so catastrophically wrong in the first time has now started again. What ended in death the first time – is now the way to life. Jesus is the second Adam. He is the first of a new humanity.
Order is being restored in the midst of chaos. Not an order imposed by an oppressive power. The language is strong here. That is the deathly rule and authority Christ came to destroy. The new order is one in which all things find their true place – because Christ is in his true place, to the glory of God the Father. Life is restored to its original shape in the love and grace of God through Christ.
1 Corinthians 15.29-34
Paul is struggling to contain his impatience with those who are arguing with him. Baptism on behalf of the dead was apparently a local practice at the time that was not continued by the Early Church. More dramatically, the truth of the resurrection leads Paul to be willing to face the most appalling suffering and death – even being eaten alive by the wild beasts in the theatre at Ephesus. His life and ministry are so costly. Why, if the resurrection is not true, does he put himself through all this? (We should note that religious fervour is not in itself an argument for the truth of the faith. Paul is not claiming it is. It can easily lead to intolerance and violence – of which the suicide bomber of our day is an example. But it always presents a tough challenge. What matters to me enough to give my life for it?)
Paul never separates doctrine from action, faith and life. Believing in the resurrection changes your whole life. Now he even quotes a pagan poet to make this point. If the dead are not raised, then nothing has changed. If nothing has changed, nothing really matters. Live as you please. He writes as to people who really should know better. Drop these distracting arguments and return to resurrection faith!
1 Corinthians 15.35-50
Just when Paul thought he had dealt with the issues and hauled his followers back onto the truth that really matters – another question turns up (v.50)! (But not such a stupid one, surely?) Despite exploding in frustration, Paul, ever the teacher, barks out a terse but very helpful reply.
We live in a world of extraordinary variety, he says. Each part has its own uniqueness. Nature never repeats itself. Take that as a starting place for imagining the new life of the resurrection at the end of time.
Paul is not teaching that this physical world is naturally immortal. This age is perishable. But in Christ we are offered something imperishable. ‘Spiritual’ here is not the opposite of material. That is a common and unhelpful misunderstanding. The Christian resurrection hope is unashamedly physical. Rather, this physical, perishable nature becomes ‘spiritual’ as it encounters the risen life of Christ. ‘Heaven’ here refers to the transformed earth (and no doubt much more).
Paul again uses the image of a new Adam who takes the tragedy of the first creation story and gives it a new beginning and new ending. Quite simply, where Christ goes we will go. That is his gift. This is our destiny.
1 Corinthians 15.51-end
In my church graveyard, there is a tombstone of a man who ‘fell asleep’ in 1873. ‘Falling asleep’ is a popular phrase that softens the sting of the word ‘death’. But Christians use the word ‘sleep’ to describe death in a very precise way. It is not to hide from the brutal reality of death – which is yet to be finally defeated.
But we live in an overlap of two ages. There is the present age bound by time and mortality. But there is a new age breaking in now that will be fully revealed when Christ comes again – and then death itself will be destroyed.
For the first Christians, the sense of the nearness of the coming age was so real that it was quite a shock when death continued to happen among them.
For Paul, ‘falling asleep’ was a way of expressing a mystery. For both the Church on earth and the saints who have died, the final end is still yet to be. But, says Paul, it is coming. Though we have no natural hereditary right to it, it will be ours as a gift. All history is flowing towards that moment.
So, a chapter that begins with confused questions of faith and life leaves us on the threshold of the coming kingdom that will be our destiny. Take heart. Stand firm.