In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Last Sunday, we explored the notion that each one of us has a worldview whether we think about it or not. And we looked specifically at the Christian worldview which includes the dimension of the sacred, the divine, God. This morning we are going to explore another central aspect of our worldview and that is the resurrection of Christ. For without the resurrection of Christ there is no Christianity. We might have a wonderful series of ethical teachings from a first century Jewish rabbi but it would not be Christianity.

Now even thought Easter is still some ways off in our Christian year, it is interesting that one of the lectionary readings for today nonetheless focuses specifically on the resurrection. It is refreshing in some ways to be able to look at the resurrection of Christ outside of the Easter season with all of its cultural baggage that still remains in a our secular society.

For the resurrection is so often simply equated with the idea of going to heaven when we die that we can think of it having no other meaning. And so I imagine that this reading has been included to remind us that we are called to live as resurrected people in the present, in the here and now. We are a resurrection people, an Easter people because we share in the death and  resurrection of Christ through the sacrament of baptism. This dying and rising with Christ marks our lives as Christians. The old self is put off and we become “new beings” in and through the Christ.
Now as we turn specifically to our reading from 1 Corinthians chapter 15 we need to keep in mind the original context of this letter. The Christian congregation in Corinth lived and worshipped in a cosmopolitan setting. The city of Corinth was a natural trading center for goods between East and West. The citizens of Corinth were not only Romans and Greeks but also Jews and peoples from the middle and far East.

Each of these groups imported its own religious beliefs, philosophies, customs and rituals. In our passage we find the Apostle Paul defending the resurrection of the body against the common Greek philosophical view that only the soul survives death. It seems this philosophical view was still very strong in the congregation.

This Greek philosophical view comes from Plato. Plato wrote that as human beings we are made up of a body and a soul. And it is the soul that survives death, escaping the earthly prison of our body and winging its way to the eternal. Through the influence of Plato, the Greeks saw the body as an impediment to the true freedom of the soul and consequently found it difficult to see why the resurrection of the body was even desirable.

Now I realize that even within the church the resurrection of the body and the immortality of the soul are sometimes seen as synonymous. But they are not the same thing. As Christians we do not believe in the immortality of the soul but rather we believe in the resurrection of the body because of the resurrection of Christ.

The theologian Karl Barth put it this way, “What is the meaning of the Christian hope in this life?... A tiny soul which, like a butterfly, flutters above the grave and is still preserved somewhere, in order to live on immortally? That is how the heathen looked on life after death. But that is not the Christian hope. “I believe in the resurrection of the body.”

Now here in 21st century Canada, we also struggle with another misunderstanding concerning the resurrection. It is a misunderstanding formed not by ancient Greek philosophy but by a modern scientific one. Our challenge is not so much that the resurrection of the body is not desirable but rather that it’s scientifically impossible.

From the scientific perspective, the resurrection, if it is believed at all, is considered to be a symbol or a metaphor rather than something that refers to a worldview or reality. Like a rainbow after a storm, or a butterfly emerging from a cocoon, the resurrection has come to symbolize maintaining hope in a bad situation, that it is always darkest before the dawn.
Look at hymn #674 in our Book of Praise, “In the bulb there is a flower”. “In the bulb there is a flower, in the seed an apple tree, in cocoons a hidden promise: butterflies will soon be free.” While the imagery is lovely it fails to capture the essence of the resurrection of Christ. For the resurrection of Christ is not simply a symbol for something else but a reality in itself.

The resurrection of Christ is God acting in the midst of history on our behalf and on behalf of all of creation. In our reading, the apostle Paul describes how he has experienced God’s resurrection in his own life, “For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am,”

Paul has been transformed. He has shared in the dying and rising with Christ. A new being, no longer Saul but Paul, through God’s action in his life. Like Paul, the resurrection is about God creating us to be a new people here and now. That is why the resurrection can never be only about going to heaven when we die.

However, this new creation is of course not flawless. More often than not most of us live as members of the old creation, as if the resurrection of Christ makes no difference. We cling to old forms because they give us comfort and security.

But in and through the resurrection of Christ, death the last enemy has been defeated. This “Culture of death” in which we inhabit with its endless wars and environmental destruction is not the last word. For the God of life has acted and is creating a space so that death itself does not determine how we live our lives in the present. No longer do we need to anxiously hoard God’s gifts. Now we are free to give to those in need for the God of life has raised Christ from the dead.

And as the body of the risen Christ, we are to witness to this good news not because of any particular merit on our part. But because the God of life is fashioning something new through the power of grace, a new people, and a new earth. 
THANKS BE TO GOD, AMEN.