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Apr 18, 2021

Let us not Mock God with Metaphor

Let us not Mock God with Metaphor

Passage: 1 Corinthians 15:1-11

Speaker: Patrick Lafferty

Series: Let Us Not Mock God with Metaphor

Keywords: gospel, grace, belief, appearing, in vain

We celebrate the resurrection to great fanfare on one day a year. But its truth is meant to feed us, form us, and maybe sometimes fight with us at all times. What does it mean to wrestle with belief in the gospel of the resurrection?

Readings & Scripture

PREPARATION: Psalm 8:1-9 & John 1:1-5, 9-14
LEADER: O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens. 2 Out of the mouth of babies and infants, you have established strength because of your foes, to still the enemy and the avenger. 3 When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, 4 what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? 5 Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. 6 You have given him dominion over the works of your hands you have put all things under his feet, 7 all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field, 8 the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas.
ALL: 9 O LORD, our Lord how majestic is your name in all the earth!
Silent contemplation with Instrumental

LEADER: 1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. 4 In him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

9 The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. 10 He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. 11 He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. 12 But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

ALL: 14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

ART SPECIAL: Seven Stanzas at Easter
Make no mistake: if he rose at all, It was as His body; If the cell’s dissolution did not reverse, the molecule reknit, The amino acids rekindle, The Church will fall.

It was not as the flowers, Each soft spring recurrent; It was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddled eyes of the Eleven apostles; It was as His flesh; ours.

The same hinged thumbs and toes, The same valved heart, That—pierced—died, withered, paused, and then regathered, Out of enduring Might, New strength to enclose.

Let us not mock God with metaphor, Analogy, sidestepping, transcendence,
Making of the event a parable, a sign painted in the faded Credulity of earlier ages:
Let us walk through the door.

The stone is rolled back, not papier-mache, Not a stone in a story, But the vast rock of materiality that in the slow grinding of Time will eclipse for each of us The wide light of day.

And if we have an angel at the tomb, Make it a real angel, Weighty with Max Planck’s quanta, vivid with hair, opaque in The dawn light, robed in real linen Spun on a definite loom.

Let us not seek to make it less monstrous, For our own convenience, our own sense of beauty, Lest, awakened in one unthinkable hour, we are embarrassed By the miracle,
And crushed by remonstrance.

CENTRAL TEXT: 1 Corinthians 15:1-11 Patrick
1 Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, 2 and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. 3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 6 Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. 8 Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. 9 For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. 10 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. 11 Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed.

CONFESSION OF SIN:
ALL: Most holy and merciful Father, we confess to you and to one another, that we have sinned against you by what we have done, and by what we have left undone.
We have not loved you with our whole heart and mind and strength. We have not fully loved our neighbors as ourselves. We have not always had in us the mind of Christ.
You alone know how often we have grieved you by wasting your gifts, by wandering from your ways, by forgetting your love. Forgive us, we pray, most merciful Father, and free us from our sin. Renew in us the grace and strength of your Holy Spirit,
for the sake of Jesus Christ your Son, our Savior. Amen

ASSURANCE OF PARDON:
LEADER: To all who confess themselves to be sinners, humbling themselves before God and believing in the Lord Jesus Christ for their salvation, I declare this sure promise: "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness." In the name of Jesus Christ, you are forgiven.

ALL: In the name of Jesus Christ, you are forgiven. Amen.

BENEDICTION: 2 Peter 3:18 Patrick
LEADER: May you grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

ALL: To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.

Related scriptures

Psalm 16:10/Acts 2:27
Daniel 12:2
Romans 4:23-25

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

  1. Aside from the obvious lack of ever seeing a dead person revive after three days, name several reasons why someone might dismiss the resurrection as “an idle tale” (cf. Luke 24:1-12)?
  2. Answering this question gets easier the older we get: how has belief in the gospel rescued you? That is, in what ways could you imagine being worse had Jesus not become part of your story?
  3. Why do you think Paul spends most of this passage talking about Jesus’s appearances? How would that have served those he wrote to? How does it serve us who are at a much further remove from his day?
  4. What are the various answers modern people give to the question about our greatest need, or greatest goal, as an individual? (though feel free to image the same question being asked about the need and goal of a people). What does Paul say Jesus’s work indicates about our true greatest need? Why would that need or goal be greater than any other we might imagine? How might that need/goal reshape whatever alternative need or goal we might pursue?
  5. Grace explained Paul to himself (“by the grace of God I am what I am), and grace was what most animated his efforts (“it was not I but the grace of God that is with me”). Can you imagine at least one way how you thought of yourself, or what motivates you, would be different if you deeply believed grace explains you and animates you?
  6. How does one “apply” the resurrection to life? How would faith in the resurrection reshape your thinking, feeling, or responding to whatever most preoccupies you in this season?

QUOTES:

  • Make no mistake: if he rose at all
    It was as His body;
    If the cell’s dissolution did not reverse, the molecule reknit,
    The amino acids rekindle,
    The Church will fall.

    It was not as the flowers,
    Each soft spring recurrent;
    It was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddled eyes of the
    Eleven apostles;
    It was as His flesh; ours.

    The same hinged thumbs and toes
    The same valved heart
    That—pierced—died, withered, paused, and then regathered
    Out of enduring Might
    New strength to enclose.

    Let us not mock God with metaphor,
    Analogy, sidestepping, transcendence,
    Making of the event a parable, a sign painted in the faded
    Credulity of earlier ages:
    Let us walk through the door.

    The stone is rolled back, not papier-mache,
    Not a stone in a story,
    But the vast rock of materiality that in the slow grinding of
    Time will eclipse for each of us
    The wide light of day.

    And if we have an angel at the tomb,
    Make it a real angel,
    Weighty with Max Planck’s quanta, vivid with hair, opaque in
    The dawn light, robed in real linen
    Spun on a definite loom.

    Let us not seek to make it less monstrous,
    For our own convenience, our own sense of beauty,
    Lest, awakened in one unthinkable hour, we are embarrassed
    By the miracle,
    And crushed by remonstrance.
    -John Updike, “Seven Stanzas as Easter” (1960)
  • People have been told so often that resurrection is just a metaphor, and means Jesus died and was glorified - in other words, he went to Heaven, whatever that means. And they've never realized that the word 'resurrection' simply didn't mean that. - N. T. Wright
  • How to keep from becoming evil [is the] question of our times. My society is more divided than at any time during my life on Earth, and it is going to get worse. Plenty of those who claim to want to change it for the better are in the process of becoming evil: whipping up mobs, bullying into silence those who disagree, using state or corporate or technological power to impose their will. The higher the stakes get, the more of this we will see. - Paul Kingsnorth
  • It turned out the ‘unexceptional’ life I’d been running away from wasn’t so tragic after all. I felt happier and freer than I had in a long time. Yes, it was an ongoing battle with my inner monologue — I wasn’t failing, I wasn’t betraying feminism. But to my surprise, I didn’t burn with envy when I saw peers getting jobs I would normally have gone for, and with that came a rush of relief. By pressing pause on my relentless ambition, I realised that I didn’t need to win any more: I just wanted to enjoy the game …Besides, if this year has taught us anything, it’s that ‘success’ can be fleeting. Our expectations of what extraordinary looks like are altering, too. Never before has the work of nurses, carers and cleaners been held in such stark relief to the ‘influencers’ escaping reality to party in Dubai. Maybe the illusion of self-importance is finally being exposed. - Lotte Jeffs
  • . . .he alone has made solid progress in the Gospel who has acquired the habit of meditating continually on a blessed resurrection. . . . none participate in the benefits of Christ save those who raise their minds to the resurrection.- John Calvin, Institutes
  • There’s going to be seasons in every Christian pilgrimage where you shouldn’t be surprised to walk in that space [of pain and doubt]. Some days I show up at church with my doubts and I’m kind of counting on you to sing for me. - James K.A. Smith

BOOKS / DOCS

“Why the muon G-2 results are so exciting”--and the experiment explained