Sunday, February 17, 2019 ~ Epiphany VI

Sermon: “It All Hangs on the Tomb”

Epistle Lesson: 1 Corinthians 15:12-20

© 2019, Dr. Tamilio

Easter is nine weeks away, but here we are: reading Paul and talking about the resurrection of Jesus Christ.  You could ponder the corpus of the Apostle’s writings and would be hard-pressed to find a passage that points to the core of his theology more than 1 Corinthians 15 does.

It’s all about the resurrection.  Paul makes this plain.  It is as if he is saying, “Look, the resurrection either happened or it didn’t.  Jesus was not kinda raised from the dead.  He either rose from the grave or his bones are rotting in it.”  But it goes beyond that.  To continue the paraphrase: “If Jesus, didn’t rise from the dead, then you are wasting your time being a Christian.”  Again, this is a paraphrase, but this is the gist of his argument.

I may have shared this story with you before, but years ago, when I was serving a UCC church in Kansas City, I went to a clergy support group.  It was a monthly meeting that was held for ministers in our Association.  We would get together and swap sermon ideas, complain our kids and the two or three parishioners who made our lives Hell (thank God I don’t have any of them here).

One Lent we met to share ideas about the Easter season and one of the members of the group said the following — and I quote: “The problem I face is that most of my congregation still believes in the resurrection.”  This drew laughter from everyone in the room — everyone but me.  I felt as if I was in the Twilight Zone.  I was waiting for Rod Serling to come walking out of the corner of the room with his trademark cigarette.  “What?  I am in a room full of preachers who do not believe in the resurrection?  Am I the only one here who does?” I asked myself.  I also thought, “If none of you believe in the resurrection, then why are you ministers?”  Call me crazy, but if I did not believe in this pivotal moment in the Christian story, I wouldn’t be a Christian, let alone a pastor.  But maybe that’s just me.

In that moment, I thought about Paul.  “If Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith.”  It’s useless preaching about something that didn’t happen — and you are a hypocrite if you stand in a pulpit and proclaim a miracle that you do not believe occurred.

To me, the resurrection lies at the heart of my faith.  If I were ever to reject it, then I would become a member of a different religion (at best) or an atheist (at worst).  Put it this way: I do not worship my high school principal, the mayor of my hometown, or the guy who makes the best pizza in downtown Canton, because none of them rose from the dead.  I wouldn’t worship Jesus if he didn’t either.

The resurrection is central to Christianity.  We can debate about a number of issues regarding the faith — such as what happens to the bread and wine at Holy Communion, can infants be baptized, and what is the best model for church governance.  However, if we throw out the resurrection, we undermine the essence of Christianity.  Without Jesus rising from the dead, we are a just a group of folks who follow the lessons of good moral teacher.  Now don’t get me wrong: the teachings of Jesus are vital, as is his Incarnation, miraculous healings, and crucifixion.  But we read all of this in-light of the resurrection.

The Methodist sacramental theologian Lawrence Hull Stookey writes about this in depth in his book Calendar.  Stookey reminds us that the New Testament was written looking backwards.  All of the events it details — other than prophetic pieces about Jesus’ return — all of these events already occurred.  So, for example, as the Gospel writers recount the events of Jesus’ earthly life, they do so from the vantage point of the empty tomb.  That already occurred when they put quill to parchment.  Therefore, they are interpreting everything in his life from the light of this event.  Reflecting on this at length, Stookey writes, “Without the Resurrection, Good Friday commemorates simply the death of a martyr, a noble but tragic figure; and Christmas is simply the birth of this same ill-fated teacher.”[1]

Why is this significant?  There are several reasons.  One of them being that the adversity Jesus faces will be re-envisioned once we have the whole story.  Being rejected by his own people, teaching about the kingdom of God by reversing assumptions (“You have heard it said…but I say…), and the horrific execution all take on new light when looked at in retrospect from the empty tomb.

But the resurrection is more than a chapter (albeit significant) in the life of Jesus.  It is a chapter in our lives as well.

Paul writes that if Christ was not raised from the dead, then we will not rise either.  This isn’t so much about a bodily resurrection, but it is about eternal life.  One of the core beliefs that Christians hold is that we will go to heaven when we die.  There is an afterlife.  There is a place where we will be reunited with everyone we ever loved and will bask in the majesty of God.  None of that is possible if Jesus was not resurrected.  Millard J. Erickson writes, “the doctrine of salvation has particular appeal and relevance, since it pertains to our most crucial need.”[2]

One of the arguments made by atheistic philosophers and psychologists say that human beings created the idea of God, because we cannot fathom that we will cease to exist when we die.  Jesus rising from the dead blows that theory our of the water.  Many others, like Lee Strobel, have argued in the validity of the resurrection based on numerous factors.  One being that the Bible purports that the resurrected Jesus appeared to hordes of witnesses.  If it didn’t happen, odds are that someone would have written something to refute this claim.  Another claim has to do with the first witnesses.  The Gospels tell us that some of the women who followed Jesus were the first to find the empty tomb.  If this story was made-up by Paul and the Gospel writers, they wouldn’t have women as the first witnesses.  Why?  Women had no status in first century Palestine.  No one would believe them.  Their word wouldn’t hold up.  Therefore, if the story was fictitious, male witnesses would have been used, because they would have been more believable.

And of course, there are many other proofs.  There are many things that we believe about history (including ancient history) that are based on less reliable information.  The point?  An intelligent person can trust the Gospel accounts.  And at the center of those accounts is the story of a man, who wasn’t just a man, who rose from the dead.

Ultimately, it’s a matter of faith — and it all hangs on the tomb.  It was empty or it wasn’t.  If it wasn’t, then our faith is in vain.  But if it was, what glory is ours!  New life.  Life everlasting.  Glory and love and light and eternity and a peace beyond compare.  Christ is risen, my friends.  He is risen indeed.  Alleluia, and Amen.

[1] Lawrence Hull Stookey, Calendar: Christ’s Time for the Church (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1996), 27.

[2] Millard J. Erickson, Introducing Christian Doctrine, 3d ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2015), 332.