Thoughts for the Day

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.

(Lectionary, New Revised Standard Version)

Thoughts

It was Easter morning in the 1990s and I started my sermon to the packed church by holding up a daffodil. Nothing unusual so far, daffodils are often used on Easter cards after all. But then without a word I began to eat the petals. There was an audible gasp from the congregation as I began to eat. Finally I stopped, and asked them, if they went out of church into the village and told the first person they met that "The Vicar had eaten a daffodil!" would they be believed? There was general agreement that they would not, though if all the congregation talked about it, they would probably be believed. (Preachers, if you try this, do not eat the stem or the bulb as they contain lycorine, which can be lethal in large doses).

When Mary Magdalene told the disciples that Jesus had risen, she was not believed, and it took a few hundred of people to see the risen Christ before the message spread around the world, by word of mouth. In Paul's letter to the Corinthians he is still dealing with a congregation who doubt that Jesus rose from the dead. He really can't put it any plainer, He says in effect:

• If Jesus did not rise from the dead, then death has defeated Him.
• Therefore Jesus is not God.
• Therefore He cannot save us from our sin.
• Therefore we are not put right with God.
• Therefore we are still sinful.

Paul ends his message with the great cry "Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died". As the 'first fruits' of the harvest were offered to God as a sign of what was to come, so Christ was raised as a sign of what was to come for us, His people.

Lord Jesus,
we believe You died and rose again for us,
that we might be free from our debt of sin,
and offered life eternal.
May we cling to this hope
no matter what challenges life brings,
and do all we can to amend our ways.
Amen.