Pastor Lassman's Easter (Resurrection) sermon held forth on what of my favorite scriptural passages (1 Corinthians 15:19).
Please listen to or read Pastor's sermon
My comments on the text...
In his first letter to the Greek church at Corinth, Greece, St. Paul invoked a theme that seems particularly timely in our increasingly "Greek" culture in contemporary America. Greek culture has resonated through the ages and, along with Christianity, presents a parallel but opposing influence on western civilization. The Greek way of thought emphasizes multiple Gods, created by humans, who are accessed by human earthly achievement in the arts, intellect and sensual pursuits. "Achieve great things on earth, eat, drink and be merry", pretty much sums up the Hellenistic way of looking at life. It is one of many pagan religions that have flourished in the absence of God's Word.
Don't your agnostic, atheist friends of which we seem to have more and more these days seem think to themselves or even say out loud, "how foolish you Christians are to waste a lifetime of Sundays going to church!"
Paul must have heard similar admonitions from these Greeks in 30ish AD Greece and he responded in sarcastic agreement, "If only in this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are [indeed] of all people most to be pitied".
Boil down the Gospel to it's essence
(John 3:16) and Christianity addresses only one big issue in life. You can be an outwardly good person without Christ. You can get along fine in this life without Christ. In fact it is probably much easier to be popular among most people you are likely to encounter in contemporary US coastal urban life. Be an outspoken Christian? Naaah. Go along to get along. Easy peasy.
So why suffer the consequences of being a Christian? Because "in fact Christ has been raised from the dead", continues St. Paul. If Christ was not resurrected from the dead then we will not also be raised as he promised. To study Christ as a philosopher or a "wise man" is utter folly. As C.S. Lewis points out in Mere Christianity, Christ was either who he said he was or he was raving lunatic.
But Christ was raised from the dead. The dual ruling classes (Romans and Jewish Hierarchs) had every motive and all means to produce the dead body of Our Lord and Savior after His Resurrection, but could not. Many people saw Jesus in his resurrected and Holy state in many different places and testified as such. Paul himself was confronted by Christ Himself on the road to Damascus decades after Christ's resurrection.
And it was the Resurrected Christ who intoned the Apostles (and us) to "go and make disciples of all nations, teaching. preaching and baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit"
(Matthew 28:16-20). We can't very well do that in silence. Christ is no less clear, forthright and violently demanding of us as Christians on any other topic than our duty to spread His word.
(Luke 19:11-27)
Such is our faith. Such is our eternal salvation. We believe in Christ because He has destroyed the elephant in the room for us all... Death!! We are "grateful alive" forever in Him!!
Yes, "the message of the cross is folly to those who perish" (1Cor 1:18). Paul said that too in this same letter to the Greek church at Corinth so long ago. It's hard to be a Christian. Hard. But is it not more foolish to perish? Amen.
