Resurrection of the Body

The resurrection of the body is something we say in the Apostle’s Creed but how many of us truly understand what it is we are professing to believe? It seems an impossible proclamation and indeed, there were some even in Jesus’ time that did not believe we would be raised from the dead. There are people in modern times that joke that the resurrection of our bodies means we will all be zombies, and we all know zombies are not real; therefore the resurrection of the body cannot be real.

Many of you probably think the resurrection of the human body began as a belief because Jesus Christ was raised from the dead. That is true, but that is not the whole story. To understand why the resurrection is such an important and vital part of our faith as Christians, we must start at the beginning of the story. It began with a man named Adam who was given the blessing of being the first human created by God. When Adam disobeyed God and ate the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, his sin condemned all of humanity to death. He broke the covenant God had made with humanity.

The Old Testament is full of covenantal stories between humanity and God with the same results. Humans fail to keep up their end of the covenant and they put their salvation in jeopardy.  God did not give up on us though. We are his beloved creation and God was continually trying to save us despite our best efforts to destroy ourselves through sin. Finally, God sent his Son to form a covenant that could not be broken because it was forged in the blood of Jesus Christ. It was forged in the blood of the Son of God. Through Jesus’ sacrifice we are freed from death.

This covenant will always exist. Does that mean everyone will be raised from the dead? I cannot answer that, what I can tell you is that every person has the potential to be raised from the dead to live in harmony with God because of what Jesus Christ did for us.

Perhaps during Communion you have uttered the words like, “Christ is died, Christ is Risen, Christ will come again” and your pastor will say that is the mystery of our faith. It is indeed an amazing mystery that we proclaim in our creeds. Resurrection from the dead. Life after death. Look around this room for a moment and look at all the different people in here. Some are young, some are old. Some are fit and some are not as fit. Some of us have gray hair, some of us don’t have gray hair yet, and some of us cover up our gray hair. The mystery of our faith is that because of Jesus’ sacrifice for us and his victory over death, we are given the assurance of life after death. The form we are given is what we call a resurrected or glorified body.

What will these glorified bodies of ours look like? We know they won’t be exactly like the body we have on the day we die. It won’t be completely different, but we know they will be changed.  I’d like to put in for a 5’10 frame and the ability to run long distances without getting winded – but I know that isn’t realistic. We know our body will change in some way because every person that first sees Jesus after he is Risen does not recognize him right away. When he encounters Mary she thinks he is the gardener until he says her name. When he encounters the two men on the road it is not until he breaks bread with them that they see it is Jesus with them.

So something will be different. I think we all hope for a body that will not give out on us and one that will be healthy and fit. We know we won’t be completely different because Jesus still had the marks on his body from his death. Thomas put his hands in Jesus’ side and touched the wounds on his hands. We won’t be unrecognizable, but we will be changed.

Why is it so important to believe in the Resurrection of the body? Paul tells us exactly why in 1 Corinthians. He tells us that without Jesus being raised from the dead, there is no hope for us. There is no life after death without a resurrected Jesus. Jesus promises to us that everything he has done, everything he has been given as the Son of God has also been given to us – which is why we can call ourselves children of God.

That means that if Jesus has been raised from the dead, then we too shall be raised from the dead. They go hand in hand and the moment we try to say no to one, we say no to life after death. We take away our hope. The resurrection of Jesus and us is a reassurance that death, entombment, and conflict are not the end of all things, and that life has meaning over and above our individual lives and attachments.

The reality of life on earth is pain. Pain and incompleteness are human conditions that we can never overcome on our own. In Jesus’ resurrection and in stating our belief in our own resurrected bodies, we are acknowledging that healing, fullness of life and perfection are only achieved through the divine. In Jesus we have both the human and the divine. Jesus brings us together; Jesus takes the painful human existence and defeats our hopelessness by rising from the dead, and promising us that we too will be raised. Death does not defeat us; there is life still to be lived. IN OUR BODIES there is life to be lived. We will be perfected, we will be made whole and we will be given glorified bodies to live in.

Paul reminds us that without this belief we are left hopeless with no promise of eternal life. Salvation comes through the forgiveness of sins in the form of a resurrected body. We are told what Jesus has we too will be given. What Jesus has is a resurrected body.

Amen.