"I Believe - Suffered, Crucified, and Living"

Scripture: 1 Corinthians 15:12-34

"For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate; he suffered death and was buried. On the third day he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures;
he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end."

Until now, our creed has been one of praise and glory raised up to our Almighty God. We proclaim his power and majesty. We remember that he is the Creator of all things, whether we understand what that is all about, or not. We rejoice in Christ’s eternal existence, his being God from God, Light from Light, God incarnate, our Salvation.

But now, the words change from celebrating the Lord’s majesty, wonder and awe, into ones of suffering, and rejection, and death! For ages, civilizations have known of godly visits to earth, so Christ’s coming isn’t all that difficult to imagine. But gods, in general, only experience opposition from other gods, and because of the perceived power that they possess, they never have to worry about challenges from humanity.

But Jesus – he was different than all the others. He didn’t just come to earth in the guise of a human – he came as a human. The gods of earth were proven to be nothing by his presence, but there was one other – a dark one - who would try to depose him. But since he wasn’t able to make any headway against Jesus, he began to work through the humans who came into his life.
What kind of God could be tormented by humans? Where was the demonstration of his power? Why didn’t he end it, once and for all, right then and there? This has been the question that people have asked for centuries, and only a few would ever be satisfied with the answers.

Read 1 Corinthians 15:12-19

Paul wasn’t making these questions up – they were the ones he was hearing every day of his ministry. Israel knew the stories surrounding the Lord’s teaching, healings, and suffering, and over time, the gentiles began to hear them, too. And they understood very well the dichotomy surrounding the hatred and distrust that had been shown to Jesus. Was he truly a God or not? And if he was, why didn’t he do something about the animosity that was directed toward him? And if he can’t, why should they even consider following his way?

The answers were fairly simple – hatred had been directed at Jesus because he had been overturning Jewish religious traditions, some of which had stood for over a thousand years. But the traditions had been leading the people away from their great Jehovah, not closer, and the Lord came to restore truth to faith. All of the authority and respect that the religious leaders had in those days, and in ours for some, was based in the laws of secular faith that they had so rigorously developed and zealously protected through the years. And they felt betrayed by Jesus.

And that “dark opposer” worked within their arrogance and pride and fear, and they, too, began to take a stand against the Truth and Light and Promise of God. But their hatred, and their scheming, only paved the way for Christ’s mission of ultimate sacrifice on behalf of all people. The plan of earthly authority, to take the life of Jesus to achieve their own goals of self-preservation, could never prevail against heavenly authority, but the plan of God, to give the life of Jesus to gain the divine goal of salvation for the people of earth, could only succeed, and only in glorious ways.

The darkness of Death can never win when we allow God to be at work in our lives.

Read 1 Corinthians 15:20-28

Death is one of those false “gods” who can never defeat the Life that comes through our true God. While earthly authority believed that they could use Christ’s death to secure their purpose and position, preserving earthly ways has never been in the divine plan.

But since death came through the sins of humanity, the healing must also come through human penalty and sacrifice. But since earthly sacrifice could never be a permanent solution to earthly sin, God came, as a man, to become the eternal solution to our death. And Jesus would be the first to know the glory of resurrection from finality into eternity. And not only is death conquered, but all who oppose the salvation of God will also discover how limited and ineffective, and personally destructive, their “god of self” truly is.

But until the day of eternity appears, until the day of Christ’s return to earth, hatred and persecution and disbelief and false teaching, and yes, death, will still try to come against Christ’s new life, but their failure has already been assured.

This is the hope of Christ. It is ours by faith in Jesus Christ; it is ours through our receiving redeeming grace – the Godly gift that comes to us in his sacrificial blood; it is ours by trusting in his word and way. And in the receiving of his salvation, we are also called to share his hope with those who have yet to know the truth of Jesus for themselves.

Read 1 Corinthians 15:29-34

And then there’s that issue of the resurrection. Doubters still hesitate to believe – after all, it doesn’t make much sense in an earthly and human context. It contradicts all physical laws of science, and so far, only one person has ever experienced this all-perfecting of life and the overturning of death. And admittedly, without faith in God, believing is quite a stretch!

But without a bodily resurrection, first for Jesus, and one day for all who call him Lord, how can any of the rest of Christ’s promises be valid? Without resurrection, our creed must end in death – “he suffered death and was buried.” Period. No glory, no hope, no heaven, no judgment, no Holy Spirit, no forgiveness, no Church, no Life – basically, we are left with a worthless faith - without resurrection, Christ is nothing more than a charlatan!

If we believe anything about Christ’s mission and teaching and salvation for earth, we have to believe totally. A partial faith is no faith; a limited faith is a hollow faith; a faith that has an ending is a useless faith and does nothing for us.

The Church exists because of the hope and promise of resurrection. The resurrection occurred because of the faithful service of Jesus. And Christ’s incarnation to the flesh came about through a merger of God’s eternal plan and the faithful acceptance of a human couple who weren’t even married – yet! And our salvation exists simply because we believe and rejoice in all that Jesus did and taught and won for us.

So what are we, the Church, supposed to do about the death that can be overturned by faith? First, we believe in it and rejoice in it and worship in it and be the Church in it, and second, we share its glory with others so that they, too, can become part of Christ’s holy Church, and when they come seeking answers to those questions that have existed for centuries, and continue to burden our human brothers and sisters, we look to the Holy Spirit to give us the fullness of Christ’s truth.

And the Holy Spirit? What about him? Next week!