Sinners and Saints

Week four - For All the Saints
1 Corinthians 15:50-58

Bottom line: Death is real, but it’s not the end.

How do we talk about death? What do we believe about death as followers of Jesus?

But first, why are we so weird about death, or why is death so difficult to talk about?

It’s a mystery
It’s painful
We want to make it make sense, or find comfort in any way we can

Death is real.

A theology primer on death -
Death is the consequence of sin (Romans 6.23 - the wages of sin is death) - full separation from God.
But, the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 6.23)
If we don’t look at death fully and realistically, then it’s hardly good news that Jesus won victory over death.
And even though Jesus won victory over death with his resurrection, we still experience death, until Jesus returns.

Death is painful -

Grief is the shadow side of love. —NT Wright

50 I declare to you, brothers and sisters, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. 51 Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed— 52 in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. 53 For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. 54 When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.”
55 “Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?”
56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57 But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
58 Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain. —1 Corinthians 15:50-58

Death is real, but death is not the end of the story.

A few corrections -
We are not dis-embodied souls at any point as Plato and the early philosophers taught
We don’t die and “go to heaven.”
We die and we wait, with Jesus, in some way we can’t even begin to conceive until the full redemption happens and we are all fully alive in this new creation.

God will download our software on to his hardware until the day comes when he gives us new hardware on which to run our own software once more.” Or to put it another way, “…those who have died as part of God’s people are sustained in life by God. —NT Wright, “For All the Saints?”

Sinners, saints, losing, winning - where is all of this going???
New Creation - a new heaven and a new earth, full redemption and full realization of the Kingdom of God

So what?

We mourn with those who mourn (Romans 12:15) - we make space for the real hurt of death and the separation it brings

13 Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope. 14 For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. 15 According to the Lord’s word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. 16 For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. 18 Therefore encourage one another with these words. —1 Thessalonians 4:13-18

2.We live and we labor as though it matters for eternity because it does. God is redeeming all things. Salvation is not rescue from creation but rescue for creation.

We are the very opposite of nihilists who believe nothing really matters.
We believe our lives and our work and our efforts matter very much. And when those efforts are joined with the purposes of God, well, Jesus said it best, “The kingdom of God is near!”

We have work to do…