April 5, 2015

Background Scripture: 1 Corinthians 15:1-11

Devotional Reading: John 11:20-27

When I was a child, and probably into my teens, I eagerly anticipated Christmas. My anxious expectation began considerably before Advent. But no promise of Easter eggs and chocolate bunnies created the same excitement.

No choruses of “Christ The Lord Is Risen Today” could stir an “Easter spirit” comparable to “Away in a Manger” and “Silent Night.” Jesus in the manger of Bethlehem was much more meaningful to me than Christ on the Cross and absent from the Tomb.

It wasn’t until I was in seminary that I began to grasp the meaning of Easter, albeit slowly, and gradually for the past 60 years. I have eventually come to realize that without Easter, Christmas would be meaningless, another bright promise ending in failure and grief.

Along the way, I found many Christians share this experience, particularly as we begin to consider our own mortality and experience the first questions regarding what lies beyond this mortal life.

The Sunday school class I attend is experiencing what happens even to the best of classes when the majority of class members enter their seventies, eighties and nineties. It seems there is a memorial service every week.

Those of us who have survived to date cannot help contemplating, as never before, the personal meaning of Easter. We know Christians believe Jesus was resurrected, but what is the relevance of that belief for us? When ruminating on this question, we are blessed to have Paul’s moving writing in 1 Corinthians 15.

First importance

Paul doesn’t approach the resurrection of Jesus as mere belief. The resurrection is at the very heart of the Good News – The Gospel of Jesus Christ. We approach it with belief or faith, but it is more than an idea: It is the way to live and die, and anticipate what lies beyond.

His  challenge to the Christian community in Corinth is a charge for all who would follow Jesus: “Now I would remind you, brothers and sisters, of the good news that I proclaimed to you, which you in turn received, in which you stand, through which also you are being saved, if you hold firmly to the message that I proclaimed to you – unless you have come to believe in vain” (1 Cor. 15:1-4).

Paul is telling us not only did he learn of the resurrection from disciples who preceded him, but that he personally experienced the resurrected Christ while he, a persecutor of Christians, was on his way to Damascus. In 1 Cor. 15:5-7, Paul tells us: “Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me” (15:9).

Paul’s words are significant because, as he writes this letter, it is at least 20 years after the first resurrection experiences. Paul is telling us the resurrection of Jesus is not just a peripheral part of the Gospel, but the very foundation stone of it.

I have friends and acquaintances who tell me although they regard themselves as Christians, followers of Jesus, they do not necessarily believe there is any existence beyond death. Is it really possible to accept the Gospel without believing that in some form, Jesus returned to this world and his disciples? And is it possible to follow Christ without the assurance for us in a life beyond death?

Would it not appear that both God and Jesus willfully deceived us? Without a “beyond,” Genghis Kahn, Hitler, Stalin and Jack the Ripper would be the winners – living lives of demonic power and sin without any justice. Life without a beyond would be a life without God, and “Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die” would be our best offer.

Life’s questions

The promise of a “beyond” assures us although the world said “No” to Jesus, God said “Yes.” William Barclay also holds that the resurrection demonstrates “truth is stronger than falsehood,” “good is stronger than evil,” “love is greater than hatred” and “life is stronger than death.”

Dag Hammarskjold, the late Secretary-General of the United Nations, in his book, Markings, writes: “No choice is uninfluenced by the way in which the personality regards its destiny and the body its death. In the last analysis, it is our conception of death which decides our answers to all the questions life puts to us.”

So, what we believe about death affects and controls our beliefs about life in the here and now. It is not enough, then, to ask ourselves what Easter means for us as disciples of Jesus Christ, but even more, what does that faith require us to do about it?

A saying I picked up somewhere says: “They’re praising God on Sunday, but they’ll be all right on Monday, it’s just a little habit they’ve acquired!” Easter demands more from us than a vapid “habit we’ve acquired.” On Easter Sunday many of us will sing Easter hymns and listen to sermons that assure us of Christ’s return to his disciples, and is here for us today.

Beyond the Easter promise, however, there is an Easter challenge to walk or run through our lives embodying the Easter message in our day-to-day living and our church’s life in this world. Easter is a day not only of assurance of a life beyond, but a call to live a lifetime of loving witness to the Savior through whom we may share in that eternal life.

So, what does Easter require of you?

The views and opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of Farm World. Readers with questions or comments for Rev. Althouse may write to him in care of this publication.