(This was the last in our series "The Upside Down Teachings of Jesus" and to emphasize that theme, we played the video "Blindness" found through sermoncentral. If you’ve not seen it it is worth the time to prevue it’s powerful message).
OPEN: His name was Roger Williams and he was a famous 17th century religious leader.
He died in 1683 and was buried in a poorly marked grave in the backyard of his home.
Nearly 200 years later (in 1860) one of his descendents ordered his body exhumed and moved to a more suitable location. But when they excavated the grave they didn’t find a body. All they fond were a few badly rusted coffin nails and few scraps of rotten wood.
But they did find something else in the grave that amazed them.
It seems an apple tree had grown up next to the burial site and one of roots had grown into the spot where Roger Williams had been laid to rest, taking the shape of William’s body – from its head to its heels.
As it grew, the root apparently had encountered Williams’ skull and followed the path of least resistance inching down the side of his head, backbone, hips and legs, molding itself closely to the contours of his body.
The corpse itself was gone, absorbed into the tree through its roots.
The tree had eaten Roger Williams
And over the years, it had produced numerous apples that had been eaten by people in the community.
Now, the Bible tells me that – when Jesus returns - we’ll all rise from the dead and have a new body… but HOW is God going to put Roger Williams’ body back together again?
It’s a mystery to me. But it’s not a mystery to God.
ILLUS: Back in 1994, Brian Kelly, a fireworks handler, went out with a bang during the grand finale at a convention of fireworks technicians near Pittsburgh. As he was dying he told family members he wanted his ashes loaded into a fireworks shell and exploded - scattering his remains across the sky
Now how is God going to piece that man back together again?
I don’t know. I’s a mystery to me. But it’s not a mystery to God.
ILLUS: Years ago, a painter died and was cremated. His friends mixed his remains with white paint and the paint was used to paint the white lines along U.S. 50 somewhere between Cincinnati and St. Louis.
Now how God is ever going to get that man up out of that paint?
It’s a mystery to me! But it’s not a mystery to God.
When the trumpet sounds and Jesus descends – if need be He’ll come down with a celestial scraper and scrape that man up off of the pavement and – if he’s a Christian he will zoom up to meet Jesus in the air. But if he’s not – he’ll go someplace else.
(With grateful acknowledgment to Ed Bousman)
The idea that our bodies will be resurrected from the dead - even hundreds of years after we’ve died - is difficult for some people to accept.
ILLUS: On my computer, my home page is msn.com.
Since this was the Easter season, they decided to run a couple of articles on the resurrection of the dead and their articles seemed to be in agreement that Christians down through the ages have had difficulties accepting the bodily resurrection of the dead.
One of the articles was by senior religious editor of Newsweek magazine - Lisa Miller (the article was posted on March 25th to be published in Newsweek April 5, 2010). Commenting on the idea of the physical resurrection, Ms. Miller called the idea a “conundrum” for believers. “Conundrum” was a $20 word she used to express her sentiment that “You really can’t believe this!”
Several times in her article she said that the idea of a physical resurrection was
· “Unbelievable”
· It “strained the credulity of even the most devoted believer.”
· It “presented credibility problems”
· And, she concluded: “For my part, I don’t buy it.
Now, this was from an article by Newsweek’s senior editor of the religious section of magazine” and she blatantly rejected the belief of that there would ever be a bodily resurrection.
Now to be fair – she’s not the first to have problems with the idea.
· The Sadducees of Jesus’ day rejected that anybody’s body would rise from the dead
· When Jesus spoke to His disciples and told them that He would die, be buried and rise again, Peter couldn’t believe it (Mt. 16:22)
· And when the other disciples heard the news “they were filled with grief” (Mt. 17:23)
· After Jesus rose from the dead, when Peter and John raced to the tomb and found it empty, John 20:9 tells us “They STILL DID NOT UNDERSTAND from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.”
· Several years later - when Paul wrote his first letter to the congregation at Corinth - he had to deal with individuals who were bringing that very same heresy into the church there.
So, when the senior religious editor of Newsweek dismissed the concept that there is going to be a bodily resurrection of the dead, she wasn’t saying something unusual.
She was just wrong!
As I read her article (written for the Easter season) I found it odd that she didn’t appear to be attacking the resurrection of Jesus as much as she was questioning the possibility of believers like you and I being able to rise from the dead.
But the Bible counters that by asking: “… if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? 1Corinthians 15:12
The resurrection of the body is one of THE major teachings of Jesus’ ministry.
Repeatedly He told His disciples that He Himself would rise from the dead on the 3rd day.
In Matthew 16:21we’re told that “From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be RAISED TO LIFE.”
In Matthew 17:22 “When they came together in Galilee, he said to them, ‘The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into the hands of men. They will kill him, and on the third day he will be RAISED TO LIFE.’”
And in Matthew 20:17-19 we find Jesus repeating (for AT LEAST the 3rd time)
"We are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and the teachers of the law. They will condemn him to death and will turn him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified. On the third day (guess what) he will be RAISED TO LIFE!"
And the Bible assures us that since Jesus rose from the dead… we will too.
Jesus rose from the dead to prove it can be done.
Now since that is true, why would people (like the religious editor at Newsweek) struggle with such a clear Biblical teaching?
Well, 1st – they reject the idea of a bodily resurrection because they can’t understand it.
· Ms. Miller said it was “unbelievable”
· It “presented credibility problems”
· And, that she didn’t buy it.
For people like her the bodily resurrection doesn’t make any sense.
People like her have never seen it done before, therefore it can’t happen.
But Paul tells us that we actually have seen this kind of thing… many times over.
Paul writes: “someone may ask, "How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come?" How foolish! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies.” 1Corinthians 15:35-36
How many of you have worked in a garden? Ever planted a seed in the ground?
What Paul is saying here is that every time you planted a seed in the garden… that seed died
But it doesn’t stay dead.
It was buried, it died… but because of the power that God placed in that seed it comes to life.
It rose from the ground and bore fruit.
In the same way, when we die, our bodies will be buried.
And when Jesus comes again, all the dead shall rise… whether they want to or not.
ILLUS: I’m told that in a cemetery in Hanover, Germany, there’s very unusual grave.
On top of the grave are huge slabs of granite and marble cemented together and fastened with heavy steel clasps.
It belongs to a woman who did not believe in the resurrection of the dead.
Yet strangely, she directed in her will that her grave be made so secure that if there were a resurrection, it could not reach her. On the marker are inscribed these words:
"This burial place must never be opened."
Well…. It didn’t work.
In the dirt beneath those slabs of marble and granite was a seed.
And in time – even though it was covered with those huge blocks of stone, it began to grow, and it slowly pushed its way through the dirt and out from the slabs. As it forced its way up and the marble and granite were gradually shifted so that the steel clasps that held them were wrenched from their sockets.
A tiny seed had become a tree that had pushed aside the stones.
AND THE GRAVE WAS OPENED.
When Jesus comes again, all the dead shall rise – whether they want to or not.
Folks won’t have to understand it.
They might have thought it was unbelievable and not credible… but it’s just going to happen.
Now there are two other reasons why people might reject the resurrection of the dead:
In Matthew 22 we’re told about the time the Sadducees approached Jesus.
These were men who refused to believe in the resurrection and they intended to trap Him with a puzzle they just knew He couldn’t answer.
Back in the days of Jesus, the Law of Moses decreed that if a woman married a man and he died without having any children by her, that man’s brother (if he wasn’t married) was obligated to marry her and make sure her part of the family inheritance was protected.
So the Sadducees wove a story of a woman who’d been married, her husband had died, and she married the brother. But that brother died and she then married another brother… and so on until she ended up marrying seven brothers in all.
It would seem she was a very hard woman to live with.
Smugly, the Sadducees then asked “in the resurrection, who’s wife will she be?”
And Jesus only shook His head and explained that they didn’t know what they were talking about. “At the resurrection (He said) people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven.” Matthew 22:30
But before He explained that to them, He touched upon the two major reasons why the Sadducees refused to accept the idea of the resurrection:
"You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God. Matthew 22:29
There were two reasons why these religious Sadducees rejected the resurrection of the dead
1st - They didn’t know the Scriptures.
When confronting the Sadducees, Jesus quoted from Exodus 3:6 and said, “even Moses showed that the dead rise, for he calls the Lord ‘the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.”
And then Jesus smiled and said: “He is not the God of the dead but of the living.” Luke 20:37-38
Essentially, Jesus was saying: why would Yahweh be the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob if they were dead and never coming back?
The Old Testament Scriptures is just loaded with promises that there would be a bodily resurrection
· Ps 16:10 said “You will not abandon me to the grave, nor will you let your Holy One see decay”
· Job declared “I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God; I myself will see him with my own eyes— I, and not another. How my heart yearns within me!” Job 19:25-27
· Isaiah prophesied: “… your dead will live; their bodies will rise. You who dwell in the dust, wake up and shout for joy. Your dew is like the dew of the morning; the earth will give birth to her dead. Isaiah 26:19
· And in Hosea 13:14 God declares: "I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death. Where, O death, are your plagues? Where, O grave, is your destruction?"…
The problem for the Sadducees wasn’t that they didn’t have Biblical proof of God’s promises. It was just that God’s Word didn’t say what they thought it should say, so they chose to ignore the Scriptures they didn’t agree with.
The 2nd reason the Sadducees rejected the resurrection of the dead was because they didn’t know the power of God.
Their God wasn’t big enough to raise people from the dead.
Their God didn’t have the power.
Their God wasn’t the master of the Universe… He was the slave of their puny imaginations.
He was a small, pathetic deity who just sat on the shelf and was brought down when they wanted to polish him up and bow before his wretched image. Then they’d put him back on the shelf and go about living their lives the way they chose to do.
But the result of their faith in this pathetic god was a hopeless future.
As Sigmund Freud observed “And finally there is the painful riddle of death, for which no remedy at all has yet been found, nor probably will ever be!”
Or as the Apostle Paul put it:
“If the dead are not raised, "Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die." 1 Corinthians 15:32
For people who refuse to believe God’s promise of the bodily resurrection… death is the ultimate enemy.
On man put it this way: "Fear of death makes us … act foolishly, committing ourselves to self-destructive habits, enslaving ourselves, because we see that our bodies are deteriorating.
We anaesthetize ourselves with drugs and alcohol.
We try to act younger than we are and make fools of ourselves sometimes even destroying our families in the process of trying to reverse the irreversible process of aging.
Because we are perishable, we try all kinds of potions and products we even become involved in sexual misconduct to try and escape the inevitable.”
For these folks Death is an inescapable hole in the ground - all because their god has no power.
Their god can’t raise the dead because their god isn’t real
But our God is real.
Our God has the power to do whatever He wants to do.
And our God proved His power by raising Jesus from the dead.
And in the last day – He’ll raise you and me too.
Paul writes: “Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed— in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.” 1 Corinthians 15:51-52
Dwight L. Moody once declared: Someday you will read in the papers that Moody is dead. Don’t you believe a word of it. At that moment I shall be more alive than I am now. I was born of the flesh in 1837, I was born of the spirit in 1855. That which is born of the flesh may die. That which is born of the Spirit shall live forever.“
That is the promise of the resurrection.
It’s a promise that God has given us.
And God included that promise into the very act of our salvation.
When someone wants to become a Christian we baptize them into Christ.
We put them down into the water – as into a grave.
But do we leave them there?
Of course not!
We bring them back up as in a resurrection from the dead.
Romans 6 puts it this way: “We were therefore buried with (Jesus) through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.” Romans 6:4
Because we’ve joined Jesus in His death and burial… we are also raised up to a new life
And in baptism God has reinforced His promise that in the last Day we will be raised from the dead.
And because of that promise we don’t fear death like the rest of the world does.
CLOSE: Kathryn (one of our members who’s now in her 90s) once told me that she had a sister who died while still a young child. Her death was devastating for her father. Every year, on his daughter’s birthday, her father went out to the graveside and wept, and wept and wept. His baby girl was buried beneath the dirt of that grave and she would never return.
But then one day he became a Christian. And from that day on everything changed.
He still went out to the cemetery every year and he’d lay flowers at the grave… but he no longer wept. Because now he knew the hope of the resurrection.
