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 proclaimation 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 .... If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.

(Church in Wales Lectionary, New Revised Standard Version)

Thoughts

Paul is having problems with the Corinthians who claim: "Dead men do not rise again". So he says, if you believe that, you are saying that Jesus did not rise again, and in that case you have destroyed the Christian faith. If the resurrection is not a fact then our faith is built on a lie. The resurrection proves that love is stronger than death. The most innocent life was taken by those who were evil, but it did them no good, all they did was spread the seeds of love further as the Christian faith sped through the Roman Empire. This story explains that:

'In World War II a church in London was all set for its harvest service. At its centre was a sheaf of corn. But the service was never held for an air raid laid the church in ruins. The months passed and the spring came, and on the bomb site there were shoots of green. In the summer the shoots flourished and in the autumn there was a patch of corn growing in the rubble. Not even the bombs and destruction could kill the life of the corn and its seeds.'

That seed of love (or of corn) is still alive today in us, we just need to let it flourish.

Lord Jesus Christ,
You gave Your life to save us
from eternal death.
May we have faith
to move forward in our lives
and cotinue to grow in faith,
taking that faith to other people
and spreading the green shoots
of love to those around us.
Amen.