Time after Pentecost- Lectionary 32
Job 19:23-27a, Luke 20:27-38

Dear friends in Christ,

If you were here last week you know that in the month of November our focus is on end things. November is the month of endings in this part of the world. The warm days of summer have ended. The long hours of daylight have ended and the growing season has come to an end. But, of course, there are also beginnings. It is the beginning of deer hunting season. It is the month of the first snowfall. The holiday season begins.

In the church year, November is a month of endings as well. The long season of Pentecost, that began on May 27th, comes to an end in two more weeks. It is followed by a new beginning, the season of Advent.

Last week we began our focus on end things by remembering the saints, being reminded that no one goes it alone as a Christian. We are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses that have gone before us, supported by fellow believers today in the body of Christ, and passing on the gospel message to those that are following us. This morning’s focus is on another end things topic, the resurrection of the dead.

This is a fairly serious and challenging subject, which is why our adult enrichment team invited a seminary professor, Dr. Alan Padgett, to be with us during the adult class today. What do we mean when we confess in our creed that we believe in the resurrection of the body? Hopefully in the class we can discuss that in a more thorough way than in this message. What I’d like to do in this sermon is suggest three things about resurrection that come from our lessons today. First, resurrection is a message of hope. Second resurrection is a promise of wholeness. And third, resurrection is a promise of home. I pray we can all walk away this morning feeling a bit more hopeful and encouraged because of our understanding of the resurrection of the dead.

Before I go any further, I want to be sure that you all understand what is meant by the resurrection of the dead. This is not something that is talked about in most daily conversations. The resurrection of the dead is the Christian belief that when Christ comes again at the end of time, all who have died in Christ will be raised from the grave, receive a new spiritual body, and be united with God and all believers in heaven. As Christ himself was raised on what we now celebrate as Easter morning, so will all that believe be raised in Christ.

For me, this teaching on resurrection is first of all a message of hope. In the gospel lesson, the Jewish Sadducees, who did not believe in resurrection, wanted to discredit Jesus and the belief in resurrection by using a hypothetical case of a woman, widowed seven times, married to seven brothers. Which of the seven brothers is her husband in heaven?

But Jesus won’t get into an intellectual argument with them. The next life is entirely different than this one. There we live eternally. There is no longer a need for marriage and to bear children. Jesus focuses on the hope and promise of the resurrection, not on the details. In the resurrection, all are alive with God, who is God of the living and not the dead.

We hear this same message of hope shine through in the words of Job in our first lesson. “For I know that my Redeemer lives, and that at the last he will stand upon the earth; and after my skin has been thus destroyed, then in my flesh I shall see God.” The resurrection teaches that death does not have the final say. It is not the end. It is the gateway or passage to eternal life with God our maker.

There was a young man who left home to work for the Del Monte Company packing peas. The others he worked with were a pretty rough bunch. The field work was demanding and difficult. One afternoon, the young man came across a nest of baby hawks and secretly removed the nest to save the birds from the other workers. He took it to his bunkhouse. During his breaks he would feed those baby hawks with the grasshoppers he collected as he worked.
One of the rough men he worked with was named Tex. Tex was quiet and liked to drink by himself. One night Tex came to the bunkhouse so drunk he passed out in the middle of the floor. He was known to become violent, so no one wanted to move him out of the way. The boss finally asked the young man to move him. As he grabbed Tex, Tex pulled out a knife and slashed at him. The young man slapped the knife away and moved him anyway.

Not too long after the incident, the young man heard some noise coming from where he kept his birds. He went out and saw Tex walking up the ravine and dumping the birds out of the cage and over the side of a cliff. He thought for sure the young birds would fall to their deaths on the rocks far below. Running to Tex the young man cried out, “My hawks! You killed my hawks!” But as he came to the ravine he looked in wonder at what arose- hawks, one after another, ascending to the skies. They had not died, but had been released to fly!”

And so it is for us in the resurrection. Because Christ has been raised, what appears to be the end, is not. Rather, we are released to fly, raised to eternal life with God. The resurrection is a message of hope.

The resurrection is also a promise of wholeness. This is an important distinction that many, I might even say most Christian believers, don’t fully grasp. There were Greek religionsthat taught that within every person there is a soul that is good. The body around the soul is just a shell. It’s really not very important. When we die, the good soul goes to God, the useless body stays behind. Makes some sense. This is a very common understanding that is still the thinking of many today. But that’s not the Christian understanding of resurrection. In the resurrection, the whole person, in some manner, is united with God. The whole person is saved, body and soul if you will. Our bodies are not evil, useless shells. They are part of God’s good creation for which Christ died. The resurrection is our belief that at the end of time, the dead in Christ are raised from the grave, receive a new body, and are united with Christ.

Heaven, then, does not consist of nebulous, indistinguishable souls floating around. It is persons, changed, to be sure, but still persons, that live eternally with God. In this life our bodies do wear out over time. Disease, accidents, the aging process, all take their toll. We’ve all seen this, people that because of cancer or some other illness or simply old age seem to waste away. But the resurrection promises wholeness once again. The suffering, the pain, the injuries, the memory loss, whatever it is, is made whole again in a new way in heaven. There’s no way to fully explain this. We walk by faith. We trust the promise. But resurrection is a promise of wholeness, and we find comfort in that as we see the suffering that so often occurs.

And then, finally, resurrection is a promise of home. Because the dead are raised, because it’s not just a soul, but the whole person is made whole and united with God, there is the promise of a homecoming in heaven. In the lesson, Jesus seems to affirm this. There’s no marriage in heaven, that is no longer needed, but he does speak of the raised as children of the resurrection, together, in what we call heaven.

Last summer I was given a book to read, 90 Minutes in Heaven, by Pastor Don Piper. It is a very honest and moving book about a man who was declared dead in a terrible car-truck accident, but who 90 minutes later had his life return. The book is, in small part, a description of what he experienced during those 90 minutes, but even more so about his recovery and how he came to understand what he had experienced. We’ve all probably heard something about near death experiences and maybe read about people experiencing being drawn to the light, often through a tunnel, and so on. But Piper’s experience was quite different. Here is what he writes. “Joy pulsated through me as I looked around, and at that moment I became aware of a large crowd of people. They stood in front of a brilliant, ornate gate. I have no idea how far away they were; such things as distance didn’t matter. As the crowd rushed towards me, I didn’t see Jesus, but I did see people I had known. As they surged toward me, I knew instantly that all of them had died during my lifetime. Their presence seemed natural. They rushed towards me, and every person was smiling, shouting, and praising God. Although no one said so, intuitively I knew they were my celestial welcoming committee. It was as if they had all gathered just outside heaven’s gate, waiting for me.”

That’s quite an image, a celestial welcoming committee, waiting for us and welcoming us into this new place, this place where we have been made whole, this place where we are united with God forever. That’s also a promise of the resurrection, a promise of home. Because we will be raised with Christ, we can look forward to such a welcome.

Now when will this all occur? What’s the timeline? Are we with God as soon as we die, or do we have to wait until whenever Christ comes again? Our finite minds want to know such things. There are clear teachings in the Bible that say when we die we will never be separated from God. Paul says in Philippians 1:23 his desire is to depart and be with Christ. There is no sense that he will have to wait somewhere until Christ returns. Jesus says to the thief on the cross, “Today you will be with me in paradise.” In Revelation the martyrs who die are already around the throne of God praising God, before Christ returns. But there are also passages that show the resurrection to eternal life occurs at the time of the second coming. That is when the dead are raised and given new, spiritual bodies.

I honestly don’t worry much about the timeline. When we fall asleep at night, and awake in the morning, has there been a passage of time? Yes, but we’re not aware of it. We fall asleep, and then we awake. Perhaps that’s the best we can do in understanding death and resurrection, falling asleep to this life and awaking to something quite new. Paul says it best. “Lo, I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall all be changed.” And that is the hope and promise of the resurrection. Amen