The Missionary and the Tuna Fish Sandwich
Back in the mid 1800’s there was this missionary serving in the darkest of Africa. One day he was out on his circuit
going from village to village
preaching the Gospel. In one place he had to travel through this very dangerous and heavily wooded area. As he was walking down the narrow path a lion - a very vicious and hungry lion came out of the bush and with a quick snap of his mighty jaw the faithful missionary was with the Lord.
Well, at least his spirit was with the Lord. His body went inside the lion giving this creature strength for another day. The missionary’s bones formed a calcium bed around the base of a tree. The missionary's molecules went through the animal's normal digestive track.
A day or two later the lion eliminated the missionary giving much needed nutrition to the great trees that grew in that part of Africa. In the weeks that followed the rains helped to filter the missionary's chemicals along with his bones down into that tree's root system.
Soon the missionary was feeding the great tree - indeed becoming a part of the tree.
A few years past by when this lumber man from the coast came and cut down the missionary tree and spit it into fine lumber and fashioned it into a ship.
A great ocean-going vessel.
It crossed the Atlantic many times with precious cargo. One day there was this awful storm, and the great steamship went down to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. There the fine African wood rotted for many years mixing with the chemicals of the ocean floor. There it fed the abundant plant life in that dark and murky world. The plant life in turn fed the plankton. And the plankton fed the smaller fish. The smaller fish in turn fed a Tuna fish that came by.
By now it was the early part of the twenty first century. The great tuna was hungry and so he ate of the small fish that had eaten the Plankton that had fed on the rotten wood from the missionary tree and thereby grew big and strong. In time, sadly, the great Tuna was caught and killed and canned. And in Costco a young university student from Kelowna brought the Tuna fish because it was on sale. Took it home made a sandwich and for some strange reason felt the call of God to be a missionary to Africa.
"How are the dead raised?"
The greatest chapter in the Bible on the subject of the resurrection is 1 Corinthians 15 which was just read in our hearing. Paul tackles this question. "How are the dead raised?"
It’s one thing to answer that question when you are looking down at a friend or loved one in her casket. Where they have been laid out beautifully. But how do you answer that question in the face of cremation? Or dismemberment? Or the missionary turned tree turned tuna fish? How are the dead raised? How many of you remember what you were doing 57 years ago today? (November 22, 2020) Both C. S. Lewis and John Kennedy died 57 years ago today. Lewis died of prostate cancer. Kennedy died of a bullet through his brain. It much easier to answer our question: How are the dead raised? When we consider C. S. Lewis than when we consider President Kennedy. How does God reconstruct a brain that has been severed by the mad man’s bullet? The Bible gives us an answer to this question in 1 Corinthians 15.
This is the great Resurrection chapter of the Bible. Apparently, there were some people in the church at Corinth who had a hard time with the idea of the resurrection of the body. Perhaps they could believe like their pagan neighbours that the spirit went off to be with God but not this decomposing corpse. Surely, that is the end of the body. So, the Apostle makes several points that are extremely valid even after 2,000 years.
What happens to us after we die? What happens to our bodies? I want you to see several things in 1 Corinthians 15.
I. Humans are not complete without a body.
1. The whole inference of this chapter - indeed the entire New Testament is that person needs a body to be truly human. It is unchristian to take a low view of the body - to suggest that what really matters about us is what's inside. The Greeks made that mistake. They taught: The Body is evil, matter is evil. What really matters is the spirit. So I will ignore my body, punish my body, or give into the body’s every whim.
But the Bible teaches that our bodies are also holy. The Bible teaches that the body is the temple of the Spirit of God
It is fearfully and wonderfully made.
It’s true many of us have bodies that are running on about three cylinders. We are prone to colds,
and flues
and rheumatism
heart trouble
cancer.
And finally, death.
Saint Paul knew the feeling. He, too, drug his body around most of the time. Yet, he still insists that we need a body to be fully human. He insists that God is going to resurrect our bodies from the dead. He considers it foolish to think of life after death without a body.
2. The questions he raises in verse 35 echoes the cynic’s sneer. "How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come?
In other words
How can a missionary eaten by the lion eaten by the Tuna Fish ever be restored to a missionary again?
Verse 36 is Paul's response to this kind of thinking:
The NIV is very polite
Paul wasn't
The NIV says How Foolish!
The ESV is much closer to the Greek, "You Foolish person!"
That's pretty strong language.
But Paul felt very strongly about this. You are a fool if you think resurrection is impossible with God.
A fool in the Bible means a person who does not take God into account. And that is what some of these Christians in Corinth had done.
They had ruled out the resurrection of the dead because they had ruled out the power of God.
Friends:
If God could,
in the first place,
create a man from dust
Can He not recreate a man from the dust of his remains?
In fact, is not that the way most of life perpetuates itself?
II. Our new body will come out of our old like a tree comes out of an acorn
1. In the latter part of verse 36 Paul says, What you sow does not grow unless it dies. Everybody knows that
if you have done any gardening at all. You know that. The little seed dies. We used to plant seed potatoes back on Prince Edward Island. You would put this seed potato in the ground. Cover it up. And it would die
it would rot.
but out of that repulsive hunk of potato would come next year's crop.
2. Life comes out of death. The seed that is planted must die first before there is new life. That is true in all creation.
And it will be true of us.
God will fashion our new bodies out of the remains of our old bodies. Look upon your body as a giant seed, Paul says. It walks around for a few years,
than it dies,
it's planted
and from that dead seed comes new and eternal life.
III. The change will come about much faster.
1. The change from this body to our eternal body will take place much faster than the seed picture would lead us to believe.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if you were sitting at home and said,
I feel like a bacon and tomato sandwich. So you look in the frig and there is some bacon but no tomatoes. Someone ate the last one for lunch. No problem.
You run down to the store and buy some tomato seeds
Plant them
Speak a word and within 10 seconds you’ve got full grown, delicious tomatoes.
Scores of them. But you only need one for your sandwich. No problem these tomatoes last forever. They never rot. Never go bad. Never need refrigeration. Forget about Genetically modified foods
Wouldn’t it be great to invent a seed like that! Sorry, but God’s already got the paten on it. Look around you. See all these funny looking seeds.
When we are planted, we will lie dormant for a time but as soon as God speaks the word we will push through the ground and produce a new body which will never die.
He says that this resurrection is going to happen in a flash. Verse 52. This change from death to life is going to happen in a flash. In a twinkling of an eye. This will be no long-drawn-out affair. It will happen in a moment, in the blink of an eye.
3. In a Flash,
in a twinkling of an eye,
at the last trumpet. Back in the Old Testament they used to blow a trumpet in Zion when the Year of Jubilee was about to be launched. I think this may be the same trumpet.
The Year of Jubilee came every 50 years in Israel. People who had gone into slavery because of debt were set free.
People who had lost property because of mismanagement had their ancestral lands restored.
It was a time of freedom and deliverance. And the trumpet sounded to alert the people that the year of Jubilee had begun.
Well friends,
there is coming a day
in a flash
in the twinkling of an eye
• The trumpet of God will sound and those who had been choked by death will be set free
• Those who were bound in a handicap body will be loosened.
• Those who have lost loved ones will be reunited once more.
The trumpet will sound
And the missionary turned tree turned tuna fish will walk in splendor upon the earth once more.
The Trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable.
We shall be changed.
No more pain.
No more sickness.
No more fear.
No more growing old.
No more death.
Death has been swallowed up in victory
So, what about this missionary turned tree turn tuna fish sandwich?
How are the dead raised?
What does the Bible teach about these important matters?
First of all we know that the missionary is going to have a body in heaven. He will not be just a spirit floating around. He will have a body.
It will be a recognizable body. If you knew the person while he was on earth you will know him in heaven. Thomas knew Jesus in His resurrection body: My Lord and my God, he cried. We will be given bodies like unto the resurrection body of our Lord, Paul tells us in Philippians.
So the missionary is going to have a body - a recognizable body.
Secondly, this missionary, whose body ended up in somebody's tuna fish sandwich, is going to be given his new body out of the substance of his old body. Like the acorn tree comes out of the acorn seed so we are taught here that our new, eternal bodies will come out of our old bodies.
Paul does not tell us how God can turn tuna fish back into human flesh
but nothing is impossible with God.
If He could make a man, the first time from dust than surely, He can make man a second time from tuna. The building blocks of the universe are in the tuna just as much as they are in dust.
And finally, we learned the wonderful news that our missionary friend will be given a body that will be able to stand in the splendor of God's presence; a body that will never know death.
In fact, that missionary will lie down with the lion
and there will be peace in the valley
forever.
And the glory of the Lord shall cover the earth as the waters cover the sea.
