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A little girl lived near a cemetery and often had to walk through it after dark. When someone asked her about being afraid in such a place, she answered, "Oh, no! My hope is just on the other side."

The best way to describe, or to detail, what the little girl was talking about, is to first ask a question, "Do you think that your home, your eternal home, is just on the other side?" Is your hope a forever thing? Does your sense of hope extend beyond the boundaries that we set for ourselves in this material world? As you walk through the valley of the shadow of death, do you, or do you not, fear what is on the other side of that valley? Our hope as Christians is not only that we will reach the other side, our hope resides in the one who will hold our hand on the journey.

Our world is filled with pie-in-the-sky ideas of what may be. With the dearth of new age religions or simply new age thinking comes a sort of spiritual blindness that may even seem like a good thing. Spiritual blindness means you never have to see what is right in front of your face. It means finding temporary bliss in the here and now and never fully coming to grips with the here-and-there part of life. But, it all comes down to knowing that when your journey is complete you will continue walking hand in hand with the one who came to give us life and that, eternally, is Jesus Christ our Savior. Intimately, without that eternal assurance our hope would be without foundation.

It is so easy to get caught up in thinking that we will be one with the cosmos -- that maybe we will come back in another form in another life. Or conversely, that when we finally end our life's journey, we are dust and nothing more. In fact, that is the blindness that has already been mentioned. It is easier on an intellectual level to simply be convinced that when you die, you're food for the worms. If that is true, then you need not worry about how you live your life among the living. You could pretty much do and say whatever you wished because in the end all there would be was the end!

Christian hope gives us a different and much more meaningful interpretation of life now and forever. Christian hope says that a man by the name of Jesus came into the world, lived, died, was resurrected, and came to tell us about "the other side" that the little girl spoke of. Only one person has ever been there and done that, and that person tells us that we can expect the same thing in our eternal life. Only Jesus, and no other, has ever even claimed such a thing. Indeed, resurrection is that one thing that separates Christianity from all the other religions in the world.

In Paul's letter to the church in Corinth, chapter 15, he speaks to some in that early church who say there is no resurrection. Paul understands fully that without that firm foundational belief the early church will stumble and fail. The early church would lose hope! Paul, understanding the eternal consequences of this mistaken notion, asks this knowing full well that these people carry with them their own history, their own set of beliefs that were in place long before they ever heard a word about Jesus. Not only that, but these same people lived in a city and in a world that was filled with alternate ways of living and believing.

It is truly difficult to paint an accurate picture of what Paul and the other early church leaders faced when they first converted these early followers. Remember that for some, religion was based upon the satisfying of their earthly needs first. For others, the idea of such a dreadful thing as sacrificing children did not seem all that bad! Some thought that temple prostitutes were a necessary part of religion. In other words, they brought the word of the Prince of Peace into a world that more than likely thought it all sounded a little too good to be true. They may have considered Christianity a way of addressing how to live a more normal life.

The more you look at it, the more you understand the people and times, and the more you can see analogies to our world today. There is no question that almost all people in our country, if not most of the world, have at least heard of Jesus. But, it is not fair to say that they have understood the hope that is found in his ministry. Into this complex world, Christ was introduced and it is in this complex world that Paul raises the question, "What if there is no resurrection?" What would it mean to be a Christian without the resurrection and the hope that is such an integral part of being a follower of Jesus? What would the church mean without the resurrection? What if there was no hope of a resurrection?

First of all, all the focus of a people without the hope of resurrection must be centered on the things that are right in front of you. Since there is no hope for anything after death, then Christianity is reduced to being a religion that needs to provide something to satisfy your hunger today. What is it that Christianity can provide today that will make my day better and will assure me that it will happen again tomorrow? Again, these same questions are germane to our world today in the twenty-first century.

Hopeful people have a place to live. A simple statement, but an essential element to life. The most logical place to start in terms of a place to be, is the building of a church, a house dedicated to the God they were going to worship. In the world in which there is no resurrection, this house would have to be pretty impressive. The building would have to compete with the other houses of worship that people attend. The larger the congregation, the larger the need would be to have a structure that would show the world how important this religion was and therefore, how important were the people who came to this house to worship. This house would be in direct competition with the other places that served the same purpose and because there would be no hope of resurrection, we would constantly need to be upgrading the building with all the latest "stuff" so as to impress visitors and neighbors. We would need better music than the competition and when necessary, we would have to adjust our thinking. More to the point, we would have to insure that our philosophy met with the approval of more than that of our competitors. In essence, we would need to provide a place of comfort and personal satisfaction, so that members would stay and new people would be impressed enough to come and join us.

Another important factor in our no-resurrection world would be that we would need to have good and easy-to-follow rules. These rules would have to be flexible because people would move to the place where the rules best suited their lifestyles. For some, the rules would be pretty strict, for others, not so much. Elasticity of these rules would become absolutely essential. A person may prefer a church where musical instruments were encouraged, or conversely where no musical instruments would be tolerated. But none of these decisions would be based on solid convictions. This would be all there was. There would be no real ramifications for the things we said or did, so why worry about being in compliance with a set of rules? Why worry?

For example, if there is no hope beyond today, why worry about how we treat one another? If my father has become old and difficult to care for, why worry about it? Without the resurrection we would never see one another again, so why should I go out of my way caring for him? My hope is based on what is happening today, so if the old man has no hope, that is not my problem. You see, without hope, our responsibility to our sisters and brothers in creation becomes a pick-and-choose kind of event in life. If the person in question can do us some good, then maybe that person should be taken care of.

On the other hand, if the person is of no consequence, then like the traveler on the road who passes by the man in the ditch, we also pass by without pause or worry. The question becomes: Without any sense of hope, what am I willing to do to get what I want in life? If there is no resurrection, then when it comes right down to it, the only consequences I bring upon myself are those I wish to have as part of my life. In fact, if there is no resurrection, then who cares?

To take it to an extreme, without hope without a sense of possible ramifications good or bad for my future, why not just kill people I don't like? Conversely, when I have hope, when I understand that Jesus is with me all the way, I will treat people as if I am going to spend an eternity with them! What an enormous change that would bring into all facets of life. All of our decisions would then be made in the light of Easter morning.

Listen to what Paul said about this subject. Please remember that when Paul wrote these things, he was writing them to people who could easily have refuted his claims, had his claims not be factual.

Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say there is no resurrection of the dead? If there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation has been in vain and your faith has been in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified of God that he raised Christ whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised. If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have died in Christ have perished. If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.

But in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died.
-- 1 Corinthians 15:12-20

There are many biblical and historical texts that must be taken into consideration when talking about the resurrection. For any person to simply dismiss them out of hand is ignorant! Paul, in verses just quoted, sets forth a well-thought-out argument. Intended to both stimulate and challenge anyone who would deny the reality of the resurrection. This is an argument that intended to set the stage for any future challenge.

Those who were out to prove that Jesus was just another carpenter never actually challenged the resurrection itself. They said that Jesus' disciples had taken his body from the tomb to make it look like he had been raised. By saying that, they affirmed that the tomb was indeed empty. But when you think about it, would it not have made more sense for them to go and open the tomb themselves? But that did not happen. If they really believed that the disciples had stolen the body, then why did they not have the disciples arrested and have their homes searched for the body? Why not encourage Pilate and his troops to torture them until they told the truth that they wanted to hear? But that was never done!

Our resurrection hope helps us to see through the smoke screens that are set up by those who wanted then, and still want today, to convince us that Jesus did not rise from that rocky cave.

When we speak of hope, we have to talk about those who authored the gospels. What about these people? If they were trying to deceive people, they certainly could have done a better job of it. If the story of Jesus is nothing more than a fabricated tale told to fool people, the story would have been much more colorful and filled with many more exciting details.

When you think about it, what good writer of fiction would not include at least one person who could be put on the stand and be a credible witness? You know, someone who could talk about thunder rumbling so loudly that it shook the ground, or a blinding light from the sky, or angels singing while God spoke and Jesus emerged from his tomb? A true weaver of words would most certainly have had Jesus appear first to the person designated to build the church: Peter. And, if not Peter, then John, but not a reformed prostitute, Mary Magdalene, in the quiet of the garden.

Doesn't it make more sense to think that one of the disciples would be sharpening his sword in anticipation of the battle to come? This is all to say that the gospels, in and of themselves, do not offer the kind of descriptive scenes one would have thought would have been present in such a dramatic story. If the gospel writers wanted to prove the resurrection, they could have done so simply by painting a much more descriptive picture of the event that has shaped the world as we know it.

The hope found in the resurrection of Jesus comes to us despite our misgivings, whatever they may be. Hope and resurrection go hand in hand. Jesus' resurrection assures us of our own new day, our day of hope, and that is eternal. "But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who are asleep" (1 Corinthians 15:20).

Talk about hope, can there be any greater hope than that found in the promise of life eternal? It is important to understand that this hope is not like waiting for something to happen. It is, rather, a hope which is also an assurance, a confidence, found in the risen Lord, both now and forever.


Questions For Your Consideration

1. Describe your sense of what, if anything, happens following death.


2. How does the resurrection influence you in your day-to-day living?


3. How, if at all, does hope and eternal life change your view of other religions that do not adhere to the same beliefs as we, who call ourselves Christians?


4. What qualities do you think are given to humankind because of the resurrection?


5. How do you think a lack of hope can change a person or nation?


6. Conversely, how does hope influence the individual who finally embraces that hope, particularly if that person is a Christian?


7. Do you have to be Christian to have hope?


8. Why did the apostle Paul go out of his way to remind people that without the resurrection there is no life?


9. Are the gospel accounts believable because they are accurate, or are they believable because they are true?


10. Define what the resurrection means in terms of how it influences hope.