Christ is risen! The Warrant for our Christian Belief

That’s a battered old bible, someone commented to me the other day as I was about to lead the lunch-time prayers at St Mary’s for Cheltenham.  If you are in town at lunch time I do commend them. 12-30 to 12-45 every day.  It’s good to come aside for a few moments and share in a planned prayer for the town.

I told the story of my bible.  How I wanted a pocket bible for my visit to the Holy Land.  How it came back from Amazon or wherever an odd size .. but fitted perfectly into my pocket.  And then I showed the ears of corn I had picked in the field we had walked through in silent prayer as we walked from the hill of the Beatitudes down towards the shores of the Sea of Galilee.  I did the modern day version of pressing flowers and put them through a laminator when I got back and they are not just a lovely reminder of that walk in prayer but also a powerful reminder of so many of those occasions when Jesus spoke of seeds and sowing, of reaping and harvesting.  Of gleaning too.

It’s not corn, said my new-found friend, who seemed to know what he was talking about.  I don’t think it’s barley either.  I was a bit shame faced.  I wasn’t sure.   It’s some kind of grain, anyway I replied and kept to my story.

As we walked through that field the leader of our party led us to a field where under a tree we sat and someone read to us the Beatitudes.  The only words that punctuated the silence of that 40 minute walk.  It was powerful stuff.  Moving to sit in the field and listen.

We moved from that place and went a little off the path.

We stood under some olive trees and there was a standing stone, a memorial stone.  A priest who had been passionate about mission.  Fr Bagill Pixner.  From that spot it was as if you were looking straight down the length of the Sea of Galilee – with mountains rising up to East and to West – and beyond you knew you were looking straight down the Jordan valley towards Jerusalem.  Look to the right and there was a mountain pass that took what in Jesus day was the major route linking the far east with the Mediterranean and the Roman world.  Spices and silks travelled that way – it pointed to the world.

It was here or hereabouts for it could be nowhere else that Jesus had met with his disciples in Galilee and given them that great commission:

All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.  Go  therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.

Our guide broke the silence again, and told us of that priest’s passion for mission.

When we leave this place, he said, we do not go away as passive spectators, but to teach, proclaim and heal actively.

Look carefully at the rock and it had a design on it.

At the centre a cross.

In an arc over the cross eleven marks in the stone.  They represented the 11 apostles who heard those words on that mountain top so long ago.

But in a balancing arc under the cross were five ‘c’s’  - The letter ‘c’ five times over.

What did that represent?

The note I made in my journal syas it all.

The five ‘c’s’ remind us of the anonymous ones we never know.

How important those anonymous ones are.  There story is not told but it is hinted at in one of the great passages of resurrection for this Easter tide in 1  Corinthians 15.

At the end of his letter, Paul urges his readers in Corinth to hold fast the good news.  The words he used are wonderful.

Now I should remind you, brothers and sisters, of the good news that I proclaimed to you, which you in turn received, in which also you stand,through which also you are being saved, if you hold firmly to the message that I proclaimed to you—unless you have come to believe in vain.

That’s a wonderful statement of the essence of the Gospel of Christ, the Good news at the heart of our faith.

The Good news is something proclaimed to you.   It is something you receive and take into your heart so that it becomes a part of you.  It is something in which you also stand – the Gospel, the Good news becomes the bedrock you stand on, it is the thing you take a stand on.  Through which you are being saved – I love that.

There’s the wonderful story of the guy in a train who is asked by an overzealous evangelist, Brother are you saved, to which he replied yes and no.  When asked to elaborate he explained,  Yes I have been saved – all that Christ has done for me he has done for me – and it is a wonderful thought.  No, for it is still going on … I am still in the process of being saved.  It’s happening each day of my life.  Salvation is a process that is ng on as that healing touch of Christ comes up on us.  And no, not yet, for the final glory will only be fulfilled the other side of dying.

 Then Paul comes to sum up the heart of this Good news.  What makes it good news.

He uses a form of words he also uses in introducing the Lord’s supper.

For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: 

It’s a wonderful form of words: paul has received this from those who have gone before and he has handed it on. This is what we are all called to do.  We are to receive the Good news and then hand it on.

That comes one of those wonderful statements of faith.

The New Testament does not contain a carefully prhased, well worked out, comprehensive creed.  But time and again there are passages which sum up the beliefs of those who have received the good news and have passed it on.  This is one of those occasions.

 For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, 

Crucified, dead and buried and on the third day he rose again from the dead.

You cannot prove the resurrection.  But you sense that those who wrote about it drew on the testimony of those who had seen.  It is as we were explring this morning, in the words of the Christian Philosopher Alvin Plantinga, warranted Christian belief.  What are the grounds for our believing that Christ was raised from the dead?

he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. 

Those are the five c’s.  These are people who had seen the risen Christ.  The way Paul writes you sense that these were people he had met, or at least people he knew about.  When he says in this letter – most of whom are still alive it is as if he is saying to the first recipients of the letter – and if you want to check out what I am saying you can track down one or other of these people – Cephas, Peter many would know.  James also and the apostles.  But there were also the five hundred anonymous ones.  But their testimony was also so important.

I love the way in this wonderful statement of resurrection 500 nameless people also count.  They too are part of the story.  Not big names.  Not important people.  Simply people who witnessed the risen Christ and could bear witness to what they had seen.

These are the grounds of our believing says Paul.

One more thing Paul appeals to.

Last of all, as to someone untimely born, he appeared also to me. For I am the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace towards me has not been 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. Whether then it was I or they, so we proclaim and so you have come to believe.

This is an allusion to the experience paul had on the Damascus road.  Maybe this is the last of the resurrection appearances of Christ and we should read these words in that way.

Maybe it’s a pointer to something we can each echo as well.  What are the grounds for our believing in the resurrection.  The testimony of those who saw and passed the Good news on.

But also our own sense that this is real in our hearts.   The cry that goes up at Easter is not Christ was raised alleluia.  It is Christ is risen, he is risen indeed.  He lives.  I know that my redeemer lives.

It is personal testimony to the reality of the risen Christ deep in our hearts that counts.

Paul spends the rest of the chapter showing just how vital this resurrection is as it shapes not only the view we have of the future but the way we see life here and now as ell.

Maybe it’s why I so love those grains of wheat perchance of some other grain in the back of my Bible.  After all these are the words that are among my favourite that speak so powerfully of what is beyond death. Not life immortal, but wonderful resurrection to a new life – and what is the analogy that Paul uses .. back to that grain of wheat perchance some other grain.

 But someone will ask, ‘How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?’ Fool! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. And as for what you sow, you do not sow the body that is to be, but a bare seed, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain. But God gives it a body as he has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own body. 

So it is with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonour, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a physical body, there is also a spiritual body. 

For this perishable body must put on imperishability, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When this perishable body puts on imperishability, and this mortal body puts on immortality, then the saying that is written will be fulfilled:
‘Death has been swallowed up in victory.’ 
‘Where, O death, is your victory?
   Where, O death, is your sting?’ 
The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

  A wonderful memorial stone.

A wonderful walk in silence.

When we leave this place we do not go away as passive spectators, but to teach, proclaim and heal actively.

Maybe that’s the challenge for us to take to heart as we heed the final words of 1 Corinthians 15.

Therefore, my beloved, be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the work of the Lord, because you know that in the Lord your labour is not in vain.