I grew up watching the Sonny and Cher Show, along with Carol Burnett and Donnie and Marie. A time of varieties shows like no other. I loved Cher’s wild and sexy outfits, Sonny’s dry humor and of course the music; the closing theme, “I’ve Got You Babe.” This unlikely duo brought clean entertainment into our homes from 1971 -77, my preteen years. But then Sonny and Cher go their separate ways and we lose track of them. Fast forward twenty years to 1998, Cher releases “Do You Believe in Life after Love?” A dance hit that resurrects her career. It plays on the phrase “Life after Death” morphing it into “Life after Love.” I remember singing along and thinking how powerful it is to adapt this phrase because we all have strong feelings and beliefs about both death and love and whether there is life afterwards!
Valentine’s Day just passed; a time we celebrate love. Romantic dinners, flower, chocolates; all to appreciate the one who holds our heart. But for those of you who have lost your one true love, your life partner, beliefs about life after love and life after death matter. If I ask you, “Is there life after death?” What would you say? Most I think believe in our eternal life with Christ, a life that is beyond this world, a heavenly experience.
But if I ask you will your body be resurrected? Beliefs might vary.
Our logical minds, our scientific understanding, give us cause to wonder and doubt.
Listen now for God word as Paul addresses this very issue!
Resurrection of the body is not my strongest belief. When reciting the Apostles Creed, the earliest of the faith statements, I am right there with them on, “the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins, and the life everlasting.” But “the resurrection of the body,”
I want to gloss over. But grappling with this text this week I am faced with this shortcoming. Without belief in the bodily resurrection I am “misrepresenting God,” “the most to be pitied” and “Faith is futile and in vain.” Paul is addressing the doubt of the people in Corinth inspiring them to hold a united faith. For Paul, everything stands or falls on the resurrection. Their disbelief in the resurrection of the dead runs directly counter to the heart of his proclamation. I imagine that they might say well I am good with the Easter message that Jesus is raised from the dead, but I am not so sure about my own body being resurrected. To this Paul says NO! You cannot have one without the other.
Paul explains, “For since death came through a human being, the resurrection of the dead has also come through a human being; for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ” (1 Cor. 15:21-22). Adam is the archetype for humanity, bringing sin, while Christ is the one who has victory over death and grants us new life and new bodies by the grace of God. For inasmuch as all who are united with Adam by birth and by sin die, all who are united with Christ by rebirth and faith will, like him, be made alive.
I can still hear you say, but my scientific and empirical mind doesn’t understand. Two points from Paul. First there is a physical body and a spiritual body (15:44). Physical body is of the earth and the spiritual body is of heaven (47). Paul supports this again talking about Adam and Christ. “The first man, Adam, became a living being; the last Adam (meaning Christ) became a life-giving spirit” (15:45). Secondly, Paul states, “Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, calling this a mystery (50).
So, could the bodily resurrection be one of a spiritual body?
A body like our risen Lord who was able to move through locked doors and suddenly appear.
This is a mystery, and faith is believing in things we cannot see.
I know God can do anything. I know God raised Jesus from the dead, so what makes me doubt God will resurrect my body? I think Jeremiah can help.
When we read Jeremiah what stood out? I was stopped cold by the line, “The heart is devious above all else.” The word devious comes from the same word as Jacob, the deceiver, the trickster who would stop at nothing to get what he wants. This follows a comparison between those who believe in mere humans and are cursed or the ones who trust in God, being blessed. So I wonder, do our hearts get deceived by science? Hear me out. I believe in science, our growing understanding of the world. But as people of faith we must ask whose world is it? Who created it? Rather than say one negates the other. Even Jeremiah wrote, “If the heavens above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth explored (doesn’t that sound like science) then I will reject the offspring of Israel because of all they have done, says the Lord” (31:37). Prophets often anticipated what humans would do and then make God be the agent of change. I am not asking you to forget science, I am just asking you to consider trusting in God more.
Jeremiah says the human heart is devious, but he is also the only prophet who then makes this case for God. “Thus says the Lord, I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God and they shall be my people” (31:33).
Covenantal love between God and God’s people.
God wants to dwell in your heart!
God writes on our hearts, not the law of the Old Testament, but God writes the law of Christ’s love and the promise of new life in Christ and of bodily resurrection!
We have a choice. Do we trust in mere mortals who make only what they can see, touch and count, their God? Who say science is real; God cannot be proved? If so, we are then like a shrub in the desert with no hope for survival.
Or do we trust in God, so that our “trust is the Lord” (17:7). When we do, we have roots of faith that reach deep into the living water that sustains us in our wilderness times. So many of you have said, I don’t know how people without faith get through the tough times?
You know the power of those roots of faith which are keeping you alive in the droughts to your life. You know the blessing God is in those difficult times. The sad part is that those who are in the desert without trust in God do not even know there is a living stream nearby that could sustain them. That is the curse.
Recently a friend of mine had a stint put in her heart. She had lacked energy, was getting out of breath, and just did not feel well. But after the operation she has a new lease on life. She is exercising more up, to several times a day, is more committed to a healthy diet and making plans with friends. That stint changed her life. She has a resurrected life, a resurrected heart.
Even if you have never believed in bodily resurrection you can have a resurrected heart. You can place your trust in God more fully,
you can believe in science and still trust ultimately in God.
You can nurture those roots of faith that sustain you in your difficult times.
God wants to be in a covenantal love relationship with us. Where we trust in God and God blesses us with the roots to get to the living water. Roots that help us reach beyond our doubt, roots that help us to believe in bodily resurrection, roots that hold fast even when we have moments of a devious heart. We make our commitment to God and we live in that loving relationship. Do you believe in life after love? In life after death? When we do it is like we sing to God, “I Got You Babe!” God sings right back. Let us joyfully sing, “I’ve God you God!” Amen.
