Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about 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, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied. But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. (1 Corinthians 15:12-22)
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No one wants to waste their time. I think that’s a given. We all want to feel useful, and to feel as if what we’ve devoted our life to is useful and helpful and meaningful - not just to ourselves, but also to others. I mean, if we don’t make a difference by what we believe and by how we live, then what’s the point of it all? I think back into the Old Testament and into the Book of Ecclesiastes - a book that we really don’t generally pay much attention to. It’s a very fatalistic book (with a sort of “que sera, sera, whatever will be, will be” kind of attitude) and in some ways it can come across as a rather cynical book with a not very positive view of the world around us and a not very meaningful view of life. “Meaningless, meaningless, everything is meaningless,” laments “the Teacher” - who some believe to have been King Solomon himself. Truthfully, maybe we should pay more attention to Ecclesiastes - if only because the author (whoever he or she actually was) seems to me to be connecting on some level with our own society. People today are making a lot of similar statements and asking a lot of similar questions: Is there a point? What’s the purpose? Where’s the hope? Can things get better or will they only get worse? These are questions not unlike what we read in Ecclesiastes, but they’re questions that get asked regularly in contemporary society. So, Ecclesiastes may speak to us.
My message today isn’t based on Ecclesiastes, of course, except in the sense that I hope it’s a bit of a response to the attitudes we see depicted in Ecclesiastes, just as in the same way I suspect that at least a part of what we heard from Paul today was a response to an Ecclesiastes. He would have been familiar with Ecclesiastes, and what he saw happening in Corinth perhaps made him reflect a little bit on those words. It was as if that kind of attitude had already infected the Corinthian church even in those very early years of the Christian faith, long before cynicism should have had the opportunity to take root! Why would it have happened? Why did the church in Corinth start to drift? From our perspective - I wonder why the church today often seems to drift? I wonder if it isn’t because we’ve lost the anchor that keeps us from drifting; the foundation that holds us in place?
We’ve largely come to the end of our journey through 1 Corinthians. There’s another chapter, but except for one thing - that I’ll mention in closing - that’s mostly personal material from Paul. The letter was written to address the disturbing reports Paul had received of infighting within the church. The issues were diverse, and the reason they had caused such trouble was because the Corinthian Christians had lost sight of what was really important and of what gave their faith meaning. Something had drawn the eyes of the Corinthians off of God. The principalities and powers that Paul sometimes writes about had done their work in Corinth. They had distracted the Corinthians, convincing them to fight over various side issues even while they ignored the most important thing their faith should have given them - the hope of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. This is what it all led up to: Christ died, but Christ lives! It’s not just a message for Easter, because that would suggest that the resurrection of Jesus only matters for a few weeks every spring and after that we can get on with other “stuff.” But that’s not true. Whatever other “stuff” there may be, if we don’t engage that “stuff” in the light of the resurrection of Jesus then we inevitably either pull ourselves down or we tear ourselves apart. Corinth is an example of that. By allowing itself to be distracted from the truth of the resurrection the Corinthian church was destroying itself. The resurrection is a simple, complex, mysterious and faith-filled proposition that the church cannot be the church without. Christ is alive! This is what matters. This is why we live. This is what has enabled the church to survive - sometimes against the odds - for 2000 years. We don’t exist just to do good works. We do good works because we exist and because we are called and because we are the body of Christ in the world today and because we are empowered to do them as a way of bearing witness to the love of Christ that has touched us and that God calls us to share - and Christ cannot touch us with love and ask us to touch others with love unless Christ is alive.
How can any of that be futile? Far from futile, this is the most important message of all. We can’t solve all the problems we see around us; we can’t meet all the needs we see around us. That’s not possible. We can solve some problems - and we should solve what problems we can. We can meet some needs - and we should meet what needs we can. But what we do have to offer to those in any circumstance are the things of the Spirit. We can offer joy - the joy of knowing that whatever else may be our lot in life we belong to God. We can offer love - the love that God has given to us and called us to share. We can offer hope - the hope that even if we can’t fix all the problems of the present the future still holds glorious things. We do those things when we proclaim the resurrection first and foremost and with passionate belief and trust. David Ford writes that
“the truth of the resurrection is not a truth about which we can appropriately say ‘how interesting!’ and then go on to some other investigation. It has the urgency of the most relevant news - like someone shouting ‘Fire!’ or whispering ‘Will you marry me?’”
This is truly the most important message of all, because it puts an end to navel-gazing and infighting over things that by comparison don’t really matter. Paul spends the whole 15th chapter of 1 Corinthians talking about the importance of the resurrection and then goes on immediately to tell them to take a collection for the poor in Jerusalem. The resurrection pushes us outward to action and compassion and service for others. When we lose sight of the resurrection we turn inward; when the resurrection is the centrepiece of our faith we’re pushed outward. That’s why the resurrection needs to be the focus of everything we are and everything we do. It’s the beating heart of our faith; it’s the beating heart of our unity; it’s the beating heart of the body of Christ that we’re called to be.
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