Death is swallowed up in Victory
1 Corinthians 15: 54
Reading for The New Testament lesson – 1 Corinthians 15: 12-22, 54b-57 (3 readers: 1 and 2 plus a Narrator)
1 We proclaim that Christ has been raised from the dead,
2 How can some of you say there is no resurrection of the dead?
1 If there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised;
2 And if Christ has not been raised from death, then our proclamation has been in vain and you have nothing to believe. More than that, we are shown to be lying about God, because we testified that He raised Christ from death
1 But if it is true that the dead are not raised to life, then He did not raise Christ. For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised.
2 And if Christ has not been raised, then your faith is futile and you are still lost in your sins. It follows that those who have died within Christ’s fellowship are utterly lost.
1 If our hope in Christ is good for this life only and no more, then we deserve more pity than anyone else in all the world.
2 But the truth is that Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died.
1 For since death came through a human being, the resurrection of the dead has also come through a human being.
2 For as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ.
Narrator – Death has been swallowed up in victory. 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, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
The Sermon
I’ve come to the conclusion that St Paul in his many letters is almost arguing with himself, he’s rambling again, and the more I thought about it the more I became convinced that this was the case.
After all that’s what a letter is – a response to either something you have heard or a letter you have received.
Paul wrote a number of letters to the Church in Corinth and the 2 we have today is an amalgamation of what’s left, but unfortunately we don’t have the letters written to him.
Tonight’s 2nd lesson from 1 Corinthians 15 is a classical example of Paul arguing with himself, and what an argument, it’s something that periodically goes through all our minds –
death is swallowed up in victory? - it’s a phrase difficult to swallow, something very hard to get to grips with, sometimes even hard to believe especially when death hits you in the face.
Paul is writing to the Corinthians defending the core of the Christian faith to counteract and to explain that however hard it might be the Resurrection of the dead is fundamental to our belief.
The feedback he got from Corinth is in that verse: ‘How can some of you say there is no resurrection of the dead?’
And Paul’s response hits it on the head: If there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised.
Christ the 1st Fruits from the dead… and so we follow… death is swallowed up in victory.
A young child was diagnosed with terminal cancer and the parents knew that he would soon die; the child also knew that his death would be soon.
One night he was sitting in his mother’s lap watching television with her and he looked up into her eyes and said, “mummy does it hurt to die?”
The young mother was overcome with grief and had to leave the room for a moment to gather her emotions, she stood in the bathroom and prayed, “God what can I tell him?”
She felt that the Lord gave her a word for him, so she went back into the room and said, “honey do you remember how so many times you have fallen asleep in front of the television and then the next morning you wake up in your bedroom?
Well I will tell you what happens - When you go to sleep your father comes in and with his strong arms he picks you up and carries you into your room.
And then the next thing you know you wake up in your bedroom.
Well death is just like that - When you die, you fall asleep and Jesus gathers you up in His strong arms and carries you to heaven.
And then you wake up in another room!” (1)
This heart reaching story paints a vivid picture that brings beauty within the ugliness of death.
It speaks of a loving father who fulfils His promise of John 14:1-3, “don’t let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, and trust also in me.
There is more than enough room in my father’s home. If this were not so, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you?
When everything is ready, I will come and get you, so that you will always be with me where I am.”
Our death is swallowed up in victory – YES - and it’s because of Christ’s glorious Resurrection.
Paul attacks the central position of his opponents at Corinth, they said flatly, "Dead men do not rise again."
Paul's answer is, "If you take up that position it means that Jesus Christ has not risen; and if that is so, the whole Christian faith is wrecked."
Why did Paul regard a belief in the Resurrection of Jesus as so essential?
What great values and great truths does it hold?
What difference does a belief in the Resurrection hold for us as we live here and now and in a life hereafter?
(i) The Resurrection proves that truth is stronger than deceit and lies.
Jesus came with the Good News and the truth about God and of what goodness was all about.
His enemies procured his death because they did not want their own false views destroyed and if they had succeeded in finally obliterating Him, falsehood would have been stronger than truth.
This truth has stood the greatest test of time, 2000 years and 1000s have given their lives as a testimony to this truth.
The Resurrection is the final guarantee of the indestructibility of the truth – the truth always prevails.
This underpins our scripture in the Bible and indeed in the Quran it states: 17.81. "The truth has come, and falsehood has vanished. Surely falsehood is ever bound to vanish by its very nature. "
(ii) The Resurrection proves that good is stronger than evil.
The forces of evil crucified Jesus and if there had been no Resurrection these forces would have been triumphant.
A great historian once wrote, "One lesson, and only one, history may be said to repeat with distinctness, is that the world is built somehow on moral foundations.
And shows that in the long run it is well with the good, and in the long run it is ill with the wicked."
If the Resurrection had not taken place, that very principle would null and void.
And we would never again be certain that Good over comes evil.
(iii) The Resurrection proves that love is stronger than hatred. Jesus was the love of God incarnate.
"Love’s redeeming work is done;
Fought the fight, the battle won."
Those who procured Jesus’s crucifixion was through ultimate hatred and malice.
So bitter that in the end it was capable of killing all that is lovely and gracious and throwing it to the power of the devil.
If there had been no Resurrection, it would have meant that hatred in the end conquered the love of God and that just cannot happen.
The Resurrection is the triumph of love over all that hatred can do, indeed whatever the world or life itself can throw at us and Paul illustrates this so beautifully in his letter to the Romans – the triumph of love. (Rom. 8:34-end)
With God on our side like this, how can we lose?
If God didn’t hesitate to put everything on the line for us, embracing our condition and exposing himself to the worst by sending his own Son, is there anything else he wouldn’t gladly and freely do for us?
And who would dare tangle with God by messing with one of God’s chosen?
Who would dare even to point a finger?
The One who died for us—who was raised to life for us!—is in the presence of God at this very moment sticking up for us.
Do you think anyone is going to be able to drive a wedge between us and Christ’s love for us? There is no way!
Not trouble, not hard times, not hatred, not hunger, not homelessness, not bullying threats, not backstabbing, not even the worst sins listed in Scripture:
They kill us in cold blood because they hate you.
We’re sitting ducks; they pick us off one by one.
None of this disturbs us because Jesus loves us.
I’m absolutely convinced that nothing—nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable—absolutely nothing can get between us and God’s love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us. (2)
The Resurrection is the final proof that love is stronger than hate.
(iv) The Resurrection proves that life is stronger than death.
If Jesus had died never to rise again, it would have proved that death could take the loveliest and best life that ever lived and finally break it.
During the 2nd world war a certain city church in London was all ready and set up for harvest thanksgiving the next day.
In the centre of the gifts was a sheaf of corn.
The service was never held, for, on that Saturday night, an air raid laid the church in ruins.
The months passed and the spring came, and someone noticed that, on the bomb site where the church had stood, there were shoots of green.
The summer came and the shoots flourished and in the autumn there was a flourishing patch of corn growing amidst the rubble.
Not even the bombs and the destruction could kill the life of the corn and its seeds.- ironically St Paul has a similar illustration.
The Resurrection is the final proof that life is stronger than death.
Paul insisted that the Resurrection of Jesus was a fact – otherwise the whole Christian message was based on a lie.
"Take away the Resurrection," he said, "and you destroy both the foundation and the fabric of the Christian faith."
For all of us this can be summed up in one word – HOPE
• Hope that the truth will always prevail - whereas lies are soon found out
• Hope that Good will always overcome evil
• Hope that Love is the strongest emotion and cannot be destroyed, far stronger than hate
• Hope that Life has a purpose in this world and in the world to come and is stronger than death
Hope is the essence of it all – after all a life without HOPE isn’t a life at all!
Many see Good Friday as a day when a good and innocent man was executed.
There’s nothing new in that, many innocent men and women have been executed in the past and probably will be in the future – most of them totally forgotten and not even in the pages of history.
About 72BC there was a slave rebellion against Rome led by the gladiator Spartacus, eventually this rebel army was captured, and 1000s were crucified by the Romans along the Appian Way as a warning to those who would rise up against Rome.
No one is remembered by name, only the number – we are more than a number – God our loving Father knows each one of us by name, our Christian name.
But this death, the death of Jesus has never been forgotten, even though He was innocent, someone from a backwater province in the middle of nowhere.
And why? - Because of His victory over death on that 1st Easter Day.
Christ’s glorious resurrection earmarked that Friday as a good day, where Good defeated evil – Good Friday
Where in the despair and bleakness of death - life triumphed.
In the gloom of that tomb the light of the resurrection bursts forth.
Jesus Christ is unique, He is the Son of God, the conqueror of Sin and Death.
death IS swallowed up in victory – Thanks be to God for our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
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references
1.. Looking Forward to Our Death by Charles Mallory
2.. The Message translation
3.. (i) - (iv) Corinthians - The Daily Study Bible - William Barclay
