Wednesday, April 23, 2014

Daily Lesson for April 23, 2014


Today's Daily Lesson is from Paul's first letter to the Corinthians chapter 15:

"32 What do I gain if, humanly speaking, I fought with beasts at Ephesus? If the dead are not raised, 'Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.'"

I want to talk today about the Resurrection. Sometimes we miss out the deep and most profound implications of the Resurrection and settle for only part of its meaning.

When we think of the hope of Resurrection we probably usually think of the hope we have to see and be reunited with loved ones who have passed away. Perhaps some of us, more conscious of the injustices of the world, also think of the Resurrection as the time to come when God shall right all wrongs.

These are not incorrect ideas about the Resurrection. They are indeed true and part of our deepest hope. Yet, by deferring all the meaning of the Resurrection into the age to come, we miss out on what it means for us here and now.

When Paul and the other Apostles saw that Jesus had been risen from the dead they did not see it and say, "Great, I can't wait to get to heaven when I can finally be with grandma." In other words, they did not defer the meaning of the resurrection to God's kingdom in some other unforeseen time and place called heaven. No, what they saw in the Resurrection instead gave them the hope, courage, and driving force to begin working toward bringing God's kingdom "on earth just as it is in heaven."

The Resurrection empowered Paul and the other Apostles to change the world as they knew it. The Resurrection fueled their drive to begin leveling distinctions between slaves and free people, Jew and Gentile, male and female. Because of the Resurrection the Apostles sought peace and pursued it. They stood in the market square and demanded justice. They spoke boldly in the marketplace and in the courtroom. And for these things they left comfortable lives, left mothers and fathers and houses and fields, set sail for distant lands, got themselves in hot water with the authorities, were arrested - over and over again - were made to wrestle wild beasts, and were many times martyred. They were accused of "turning the world upside down". What they were doing was turning it right side up.

When Jesus appeared to the Apostles, crucified, dead, buried, but raised up, it was vindication. God had raised Jesus because He really was the way, the truth and the life and His dreams for this world were God's dreams. When the Apostles saw Jesus alive again, it gave them the courage to go out their and start making that dream a reality.

Karl Marx critiqued religion saying it is the "opiate of the masses" - something designed by the bourgeoise to control the lower, oppressed social classes. The idea is that the master essentially invented religion to say to his slave, "You wait till heaven, and everything will be better then."

Let me tell you, that is not the Resurrection of Jesus Christ or His Church. 

Don't let it be yours.

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