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Mar 31, 2024

Resurrection Sunday, Easter 2024

Resurrection Sunday, Easter 2024

Passage: 1 Corinthians 15:35-49

Speaker: Patrick Lafferty

Series: General Topic

Keywords: resurrection, glory, flesh, incorruptible

The idea of resurrection is, contrary to conventional thinking, not confined to religious tradition. It has found its way into human intuition among even the most formidable minds with commitments to rationality just as strong. We’ll hear from one and how his intuitions are completed in what we know of the living Example that stirs our hope to an unimaginable transformation.

Readings & Scriptures

Welcome: A reading of a resurrection account–Luke 24:1-12
But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they went to the tomb, taking the spices they had prepared. 2 And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb, 3 but when they went in they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. 4 While they were perplexed about this, behold, two men stood by them in dazzling apparel. 5 And as they were frightened and bowed their faces to the ground, the men said to them, “Why do you seek the living among the dead? 6 He is not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, 7 that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and on the third day rise.” 8 And they remembered his words, 9 and returning from the tomb they told all these things to the eleven and to all the rest. 10 Now it was Mary Magdalene and Joanna and Mary the mother of James and the other women with them who told these things to the apostles, 11 but these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them. 12 But Peter rose and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; and he went home marveling at what had happened.

AFFIRMATION OF FAITH: Adapted from the Worship Sourcebook
LEADER: Father, you are greater than our words and songs could ever express. We give you thanks for the hope we have in your Son Jesus, who died for us but is risen and rules over all. We praise his name alone for his constant presence with us by your Holy Spirit. Because He lives we can face tomorrow, knowing that nothing past, present, or yet to come can separate us from your great love made known in Jesus Christ, our Lord. We pray in his name and no other.

ALL: Amen.

CENTRAL TEXT: 1 Corinthians 15:35-49
1Cor. 15:35 But someone will ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?” 36 You foolish person! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. 37 And what you sow is not the body that is to be, but a bare kernel, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain. 38 But God gives it a body as he has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own body. 39 For not all flesh is the same, but there is one kind for humans, another for animals, another for birds, and another for fish. 40 There are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is of one kind, and the glory of the earthly is of another. 41 There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for star differs from star in glory.

1Cor. 15:42 So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. 43 It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. 44 It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. 45 Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. 46 But it is not the spiritual that is first but the natural, and then the spiritual. 47 The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. 48 As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust, and as is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. 49 Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven.

BENEDICTION: 1 Corinthians 15:51-55
LEADER: Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written:
“Death is swallowed up in victory.” “O death, where is your victory?
O death, where is your sting?”

He is risen!

ALL: He is risen, indeed!

ILLUSTRATIONS

QUOTES: 

 

  • If the world is rationally organized and has meaning, then [the afterlife] must be the case. For what sort of a meaning would it have to bring about a being (the human being) with such a wide field of possibilities for personal development and relationships to others, only then to let him achieve not even 1/1,000th of it? Kurt Gödel
  • Only the human being can come into a better existence through learning, that is, give his life more meaning. One, and often the only, method to learn arises from doing something false the first time. And that occurs of course in this world truly in abundant quantity. . . . one must imagine that the ‘learning’ occurs in great part first in the next world, namely, in that we remember our experiences from this world and come to understand them really for the first time, so that our this-worldly experiences are. . . only the raw material for learning….our understanding there will be substantially better than here, so that we can recognise everything of importance with the same infallible certainty as 2 x 2 = 4. . .. Kurt Gödel
  • If you're a Christian, you're just a shadow of your future self. N.T. Wright

BOOKS / DOCS

  • “We’ll Meet Again,” an essay by Alexander T. Englert about Kurt Gödel’s argument, in letters to his mother, for an afterlife, with special appeal to our sermon text