Good News For Good Living
Sermon
You Have Mail From God!
Second Lesson Sermons For Advent/Christmas/Epiphany Cycle C
The weather that Sunday was beautiful in Augusta, Georgia. The middle-aged minister and his wife, after being away eleven years, returned to their perch by the sixth tee at the Masters Golf Tournament on the Augusta National Golf Course. It was their spot. They'd sat there in former times, when they were younger, healthier, and, perhaps, less wise. Sitting beside them were two young college students. The young man was blonde and well-built. He was holding hands with a pretty coed. She was well-tanned, and had a ribbon in her long pony tail. They made a cute couple.
The minister noticed a huge ring on the right hand of the younger fellow. It was exquisite, like a World Series ring. Finally, the minister inquired about the ring. The student informed him that it was a ring given to him for playing on the conference championship football team at a certain university where he was currently a student. The young man went on to introduce the girl beside him who was a cheerleader at the same institution.
The minister's wife leaned over and whispered to him, "This is eerie. They are the same age as we were when we first met and they attend the same college from which we graduated. It's like we are sitting beside ourselves as we used to be."
The minister cleared his throat and spoke to the young man: "I used to play football at that school, too." The young man responded, "Yes, sir." The wife interjected, "And I used to be a cheerleader there." The coed looked around and said, "Yes, ma'am."
The conversation kept going and the minister winced at all the "yes sirs, no sirs, yes ma'ams, and no ma'ams." In a strange way the minister and his wife felt as if they were sitting beside their replacements in life, those who would stand in their spots after they were gone. For a brief moment amid the shouts and sounds, life was frozen by a stark revelation.
The minister forgot the golf tournament and focused for a moment in his mind on the message of the resurrection of Jesus and its claims. No longer was it fodder for a message for those who had lost loved ones so they could apply hope to their skeptical doubts. No longer was it a ready resource for counseling techniques that could bring assurances to complex biomedical decisions about when is the time to let go of a loved one.
The preponderance of the claims for the resurrection of Jesus Christ had a new-found urgency. The question was no longer, "What's going to happen to you when you die or what happened to my parents when they died?"
All it took was a chance meeting with potential replacements in life and a few "yes sirs" and "no sirs" to snap the issue around to, "What's going to happen to me when I die?"
Unfortunately during the season of Epiphany there is a tendency to view today's text as suitable only for an Easter proclamation. Yet we do well to remember that it is the "made revealed" and "recognized" nature of the resurrection faith that gives meaning to Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany.
Today's text, which reminds us of the dramatic initiative God takes in confronting us with the claims of resurrection, can become an urgent revelation for our own human condition. Just as others preceded us and remain after us in time, Paul readily acknowledges that the Easter faith preceded us and remains after us in time. In a strange way, today's text, with its loud assertion that "he was raised on the third day," can "neither be measured nor contained by time and history in any ordinary sense."1 The Easter faith creates us; we do not create the Easter faith.
? Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures.
? He was buried.
? He was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures.
? He appeared to Cephas, to the twelve, to more than five hundred people at one time, to James and all the apostles, and last of all, to Paul.
This Pauline repetition of the good news is not only one of the earliest creeds of the church, it is also our Rosetta Stone for unlocking the secrets of the human condition.
You might remember that Rosetta, now called Rashid, was a little Egyptian town, near Alexandria, at the head of the most westerly channel of the Nile Delta. During Napoleon's Egyptian expedition in 1799, a French officer discovered a piece of black marble near Rosetta. On it were words written in three languages -- in Greek; in a vernacular form of Egyptian; and in hieroglyphics. For decades the Rosetta Stone meant little, if anything, to anyone. Then, in the 1820s a French archaeologist got hold of the stone. Using it as his key, he was able to read all the previously baffling hieroglyphics on monuments all over Egypt. Mysterious secrets were understood and translated through the Rosetta Stone.2
Today's text has been the Rosetta Stone of God for many Christians. It translates in common, everyday language some of the greatest mysteries of the universe. It is a revelation, an Epiphany, par excellence. And it speaks to all generations. Ancient Corinth is not far removed from our international world.
Essentially Corinth, a rather urbane place, was divided among five divisions of folks quite similar to those who populate our world. Gnostics believed in salvation through knowledge of God but couldn't agree with each other on their knowledge.3 Epicureans were regarded as atheists because they believed that we "came into being out of atoms and the void ... no God had created or ruled over human beings."4 Stoics held that the universe was a living creature animated by divine reason. Cultic people were commonly known as secular pagans. Adding to this Corinthian stew were new converts to Christianity who might have accepted baptism as a rite of passage, but may not have understood what it meant to live a Christ-like life.
Sounds all too familiar, doesn't it? People who believe but can't agree on what one must believe; those who worship objective scientific criteria as sole truth; angel worshipers who feel there is a vapor-like being animating everything in existence; thoroughly modern secularists; and those who accept but do not know how to follow Christ. We are Corinth and Corinth is us!
Paul touches all the bases. Like us, he implies that he has had no earthly contact with Jesus. Paul calls the list of those who witnessed the resurrection and asserts that "some have died." Obviously witnessing the resurrection doesn't grant immediate immortality. He notifies his charges that "last of all he appeared to me." Apparently resurrection appearances are over. The exact nature of the appearances is not Paul's concern. He is arguing for the reality of the resurrection. He is transmitting a tradition which is a summary of the proclamation of the early church:
? Christ died and was buried;
? Christ was raised and appeared.
The burial confirms a death. The appearances confirm the means by which the resurrection is perceived. In essence Paul's creed affirms two profound aspects of Jesus -- his total humanity, and his intense closeness to God. These two things are bound together inextricably and are our Rosetta Stone for unlocking the mysteries of human life. We, like Christ, are human, mortal. The death rate is still one in one, in spite of every medical advancement. Our replacements are already upon the earth. As Camus says, "The human being is the only animal that knows it's going to die."
But we who are to die and be buried are, through Jesus, intensely close to God. And it is the love of this Christ that lives in the hearts of those who will one day share in his resurrection.
To reflect on Christ as risen is to reflect upon his life. The resurrection, as Paul labors to preach it, is not just a physical appearance that is the Main Event until which Jesus was just killing time with his ministry of teaching and healing. Quite the opposite. The resurrection becomes filled with meaning precisely because it is illuminated by everything Jesus had taught with his words and actions as a human being who died and was buried.
One hopes the Corinthians caught the revelation in the creed: resurrection is a matter of truly having God within each of us. Like the Corinthians of old, you and I are sometimes prone to what Bruce Bower calls "a pre-occupation with our own postmortem fate."5 Actually we all live in everlasting communion with a loving God who exists beyond all human knowledge and all human death.
Resurrection, then, is not about bringing people into spiritual conformity with God or anyone else. Resurrection is making people feel close to God and loved by God.
The Revelation of the "grace of God" working harder than ever through human hearts (v. 10) is the logical outcome. If a human being is a creature born to die and be raised through the love of Christ, then each human being is sacred. Humans violate God when they make a slave or a serf out of that person.
It is an epiphany, a magnificent recognition. It is this creed, not economics, science, or knowledge that predicates a free society!
Paul restates the tradition to the divided Corinthians -- "This is what we preach and this is what you believed" (v. 11). It is the ultimate hope of the world. There is a new way of living in the world. It's called "good news" for "good living"!
Too often have we focused on the good news as good news for dying. Human dignity is the ever present appeal for a "good" death. A line from an old song sums up the notion: "I want to die easy when I die." Death certainly gathers in its sweep all our fears and anxieties. All of us want to die easy when we die. But is not life a vital part of that ebb and flow of existence? Is not life without dignity as crucial a blow to the human spirit as a meaningless or painful death? A good life also transcends all boundaries and horizons. As Howard Thurman states, "Life and death are identical twins."6 A good life is made up of the same elements as a good death. The death and resurrection of Jesus redeem our living as well as our dying. That good news saves our living from the tyranny of present wants, present hungers, and present threats. The private life in its living is radically changed when the private will is infused with the will of God for God's world. The good news of Jesus is not only the Rosetta Stone that unlocks the mysteries of death. It is also the key that unlocks the deeper mysteries of how to live. Good news for good living. This is truly an Epiphany to the Gentiles in every age! So be it!
____________
1. As quoted in Fred Craddock, John Hayes, Carl Holladay, and Gene M. Tucker, Preaching Through the Christian Year (Valley Forge: Trinity Press International, 1994), p. 97.
2. Robert Cleveland Holland, Robert Holland at Shadyside (Pittsburgh: The Shadyside Presbyterian Church, 1985), pp. 87-88.
3. George A. Buttrick, The Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1962), p. 685.
4. Paul J. Achtemeier, Harper's Bible Dictionary (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1985), p. 274.
5. Bruce Bower, Stealing Jesus (New York: Three Rivers Press, 1997), p. 45.
6. Howard Thurman, For The Inward Journey (Richmond, Indiana: Friends United Meeting, 1984), p. 70.
The minister noticed a huge ring on the right hand of the younger fellow. It was exquisite, like a World Series ring. Finally, the minister inquired about the ring. The student informed him that it was a ring given to him for playing on the conference championship football team at a certain university where he was currently a student. The young man went on to introduce the girl beside him who was a cheerleader at the same institution.
The minister's wife leaned over and whispered to him, "This is eerie. They are the same age as we were when we first met and they attend the same college from which we graduated. It's like we are sitting beside ourselves as we used to be."
The minister cleared his throat and spoke to the young man: "I used to play football at that school, too." The young man responded, "Yes, sir." The wife interjected, "And I used to be a cheerleader there." The coed looked around and said, "Yes, ma'am."
The conversation kept going and the minister winced at all the "yes sirs, no sirs, yes ma'ams, and no ma'ams." In a strange way the minister and his wife felt as if they were sitting beside their replacements in life, those who would stand in their spots after they were gone. For a brief moment amid the shouts and sounds, life was frozen by a stark revelation.
The minister forgot the golf tournament and focused for a moment in his mind on the message of the resurrection of Jesus and its claims. No longer was it fodder for a message for those who had lost loved ones so they could apply hope to their skeptical doubts. No longer was it a ready resource for counseling techniques that could bring assurances to complex biomedical decisions about when is the time to let go of a loved one.
The preponderance of the claims for the resurrection of Jesus Christ had a new-found urgency. The question was no longer, "What's going to happen to you when you die or what happened to my parents when they died?"
All it took was a chance meeting with potential replacements in life and a few "yes sirs" and "no sirs" to snap the issue around to, "What's going to happen to me when I die?"
Unfortunately during the season of Epiphany there is a tendency to view today's text as suitable only for an Easter proclamation. Yet we do well to remember that it is the "made revealed" and "recognized" nature of the resurrection faith that gives meaning to Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany.
Today's text, which reminds us of the dramatic initiative God takes in confronting us with the claims of resurrection, can become an urgent revelation for our own human condition. Just as others preceded us and remain after us in time, Paul readily acknowledges that the Easter faith preceded us and remains after us in time. In a strange way, today's text, with its loud assertion that "he was raised on the third day," can "neither be measured nor contained by time and history in any ordinary sense."1 The Easter faith creates us; we do not create the Easter faith.
? Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures.
? He was buried.
? He was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures.
? He appeared to Cephas, to the twelve, to more than five hundred people at one time, to James and all the apostles, and last of all, to Paul.
This Pauline repetition of the good news is not only one of the earliest creeds of the church, it is also our Rosetta Stone for unlocking the secrets of the human condition.
You might remember that Rosetta, now called Rashid, was a little Egyptian town, near Alexandria, at the head of the most westerly channel of the Nile Delta. During Napoleon's Egyptian expedition in 1799, a French officer discovered a piece of black marble near Rosetta. On it were words written in three languages -- in Greek; in a vernacular form of Egyptian; and in hieroglyphics. For decades the Rosetta Stone meant little, if anything, to anyone. Then, in the 1820s a French archaeologist got hold of the stone. Using it as his key, he was able to read all the previously baffling hieroglyphics on monuments all over Egypt. Mysterious secrets were understood and translated through the Rosetta Stone.2
Today's text has been the Rosetta Stone of God for many Christians. It translates in common, everyday language some of the greatest mysteries of the universe. It is a revelation, an Epiphany, par excellence. And it speaks to all generations. Ancient Corinth is not far removed from our international world.
Essentially Corinth, a rather urbane place, was divided among five divisions of folks quite similar to those who populate our world. Gnostics believed in salvation through knowledge of God but couldn't agree with each other on their knowledge.3 Epicureans were regarded as atheists because they believed that we "came into being out of atoms and the void ... no God had created or ruled over human beings."4 Stoics held that the universe was a living creature animated by divine reason. Cultic people were commonly known as secular pagans. Adding to this Corinthian stew were new converts to Christianity who might have accepted baptism as a rite of passage, but may not have understood what it meant to live a Christ-like life.
Sounds all too familiar, doesn't it? People who believe but can't agree on what one must believe; those who worship objective scientific criteria as sole truth; angel worshipers who feel there is a vapor-like being animating everything in existence; thoroughly modern secularists; and those who accept but do not know how to follow Christ. We are Corinth and Corinth is us!
Paul touches all the bases. Like us, he implies that he has had no earthly contact with Jesus. Paul calls the list of those who witnessed the resurrection and asserts that "some have died." Obviously witnessing the resurrection doesn't grant immediate immortality. He notifies his charges that "last of all he appeared to me." Apparently resurrection appearances are over. The exact nature of the appearances is not Paul's concern. He is arguing for the reality of the resurrection. He is transmitting a tradition which is a summary of the proclamation of the early church:
? Christ died and was buried;
? Christ was raised and appeared.
The burial confirms a death. The appearances confirm the means by which the resurrection is perceived. In essence Paul's creed affirms two profound aspects of Jesus -- his total humanity, and his intense closeness to God. These two things are bound together inextricably and are our Rosetta Stone for unlocking the mysteries of human life. We, like Christ, are human, mortal. The death rate is still one in one, in spite of every medical advancement. Our replacements are already upon the earth. As Camus says, "The human being is the only animal that knows it's going to die."
But we who are to die and be buried are, through Jesus, intensely close to God. And it is the love of this Christ that lives in the hearts of those who will one day share in his resurrection.
To reflect on Christ as risen is to reflect upon his life. The resurrection, as Paul labors to preach it, is not just a physical appearance that is the Main Event until which Jesus was just killing time with his ministry of teaching and healing. Quite the opposite. The resurrection becomes filled with meaning precisely because it is illuminated by everything Jesus had taught with his words and actions as a human being who died and was buried.
One hopes the Corinthians caught the revelation in the creed: resurrection is a matter of truly having God within each of us. Like the Corinthians of old, you and I are sometimes prone to what Bruce Bower calls "a pre-occupation with our own postmortem fate."5 Actually we all live in everlasting communion with a loving God who exists beyond all human knowledge and all human death.
Resurrection, then, is not about bringing people into spiritual conformity with God or anyone else. Resurrection is making people feel close to God and loved by God.
The Revelation of the "grace of God" working harder than ever through human hearts (v. 10) is the logical outcome. If a human being is a creature born to die and be raised through the love of Christ, then each human being is sacred. Humans violate God when they make a slave or a serf out of that person.
It is an epiphany, a magnificent recognition. It is this creed, not economics, science, or knowledge that predicates a free society!
Paul restates the tradition to the divided Corinthians -- "This is what we preach and this is what you believed" (v. 11). It is the ultimate hope of the world. There is a new way of living in the world. It's called "good news" for "good living"!
Too often have we focused on the good news as good news for dying. Human dignity is the ever present appeal for a "good" death. A line from an old song sums up the notion: "I want to die easy when I die." Death certainly gathers in its sweep all our fears and anxieties. All of us want to die easy when we die. But is not life a vital part of that ebb and flow of existence? Is not life without dignity as crucial a blow to the human spirit as a meaningless or painful death? A good life also transcends all boundaries and horizons. As Howard Thurman states, "Life and death are identical twins."6 A good life is made up of the same elements as a good death. The death and resurrection of Jesus redeem our living as well as our dying. That good news saves our living from the tyranny of present wants, present hungers, and present threats. The private life in its living is radically changed when the private will is infused with the will of God for God's world. The good news of Jesus is not only the Rosetta Stone that unlocks the mysteries of death. It is also the key that unlocks the deeper mysteries of how to live. Good news for good living. This is truly an Epiphany to the Gentiles in every age! So be it!
____________
1. As quoted in Fred Craddock, John Hayes, Carl Holladay, and Gene M. Tucker, Preaching Through the Christian Year (Valley Forge: Trinity Press International, 1994), p. 97.
2. Robert Cleveland Holland, Robert Holland at Shadyside (Pittsburgh: The Shadyside Presbyterian Church, 1985), pp. 87-88.
3. George A. Buttrick, The Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1962), p. 685.
4. Paul J. Achtemeier, Harper's Bible Dictionary (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1985), p. 274.
5. Bruce Bower, Stealing Jesus (New York: Three Rivers Press, 1997), p. 45.
6. Howard Thurman, For The Inward Journey (Richmond, Indiana: Friends United Meeting, 1984), p. 70.
