In life, in Death, In Life Beyond Death... (Newsletter Piece)

We have come to the pinnacle of the Christian Year. This is the time when we tell again the story that lies at the center of what it means to be Christian. Easter, the story of the world’s powers doing their best to shut down the hope and the story of a God who still plays the trump card. It is a story of hope beyond hope, of life beyond death. It is a time to remember that somehow life still wins.

There is a mystery at the heart of Christian faith. There is an unanswerable question. How, in the face of all evidence to the contrary, can we proclaim that life wins? After all, everything we see tells us that death is the final step in our lives. But faith tells us there is something more. Faith tells us of the God who shatters the power of death – as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15 “The last enemy to be destroyed is death.”. Faith tells us of the God who prepares a place for us. Faith promises us that there is life, and death, and life beyond death.

Followers of Jesus have been trying to understand what life beyond death might mean since the first reports of a stone being rolled away and an empty tomb. Almost 2000 years later we continue to ponder what it means. We continue to try to trust in the reality of that promise. We continue to ask ‘but what will it be like?” and have discussions about whether our hearing will return or what our bodies will look like,

When I ponder questions like these my mind is almost always drawn to 1 Corinthians 15. There is so much in that chapter of Paul trying to process and explain the Resurrection of Christ and what it means for us. Some year I might take the whole 7 weeks of the Easter Season and preach through that chapter. As I re-read it today I was drawn particularly to some verses near the end:

⁵¹Listen, I will tell you a mystery! We will not all die, but we will all be changed, ⁵²in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. ⁵³For this perishable body must put on imperishability, and this mortal body must put on immortality. ⁵⁴When this perishable body puts on imperishability, and this mortal body puts on immortality, then the saying that is written will be fulfilled: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.” ⁵⁵“Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?”

For Paul, the resurrection of Christ was the first fruits, it pointed to a more general resurrection that was to come. The resurrection of Christ showed that God had more power than death. It showed that God was in the business of life.

Our hope is in the promise that life wins. Somehow, even if it does not seem to make sense, life will always win in the end. If it looks like the end and life has not yet won then it must not be the end.

Consider our Core Christian story. On Friday and Saturday it sure looks like the great Messianic experiment has come crashing to a tragic end. Jesus is dead and buried. The powers of death have won. But again – if it looks like the end and life has not yet won then it must not be the end. Sunday morning comes and we hear the words “why do you look for the living among the dead?” (Luke 24:5). The story continues with the promise of life. It is the promise of life, the reality of life, the encounter with life that opens the grave and rolls the stone away, that gives us the hope and strength to keep calm and carry on.

There has been a lot of grief this past year of pandemic. There have been lots of deaths – some small, some large. At various points in the year it has seemed easy to lose hope, to give up, to believe that death was winning. But we are called to be people of hope. We are children of God who is “God not of the dead, but of the living” (Luke 20:38). Life still wins. Life finds a way to fight back. There is sure to be grief and struggle along the way, just as there has been thus far but beyond the grief and the pain and the struggle and the deaths (big and small) there is life.

God is with us in life, and in death and in life beyond death. Yes there is life beyond death. That is our promise. We don’t know a lot more than that, maybe we know nothing more than that. But we are people of life. Easter reminds us of that every single year.

Life wins. In the end life will win. Thanks be to God!

Blessed Easter friends,
Gord