Scott H. Bowerman1 Corinthians 15:35-58

In the Long Run...

In the long run...

In the long run, said the great economist John Maynard Keynes, in the long run, wereall dead.

He got that right, didnt he? In the long run, everyone is going to come back from thecemetery after the funeral but you - and me.

In the long run, were all dead. Death, along with birth and aging, is an experience thatall human beings share in common. It is said that back in the roaring twenties, Picassowas asked to paint a portrait of a young poet named Gertrude Stein. When he unveiledhis work, people were shocked. While the portrait resembled Stein, it was not the pictureof a young poet. It was the picture of an old woman. People objected: It doesnt looklike her! Picasso replied, It will one day.1

In the long run, were all dead. We try to make light of it.

Like Oscar Wilde, whose last words were, Either this wallpaper goes, or I do!

Or like Bob Monkhouse, who quipped, I want to die like my father, peacefully inhis sleep, not screaming and terrified, like his passengers.

In the long run, were all dead. And we dont know when its going to come.

Like the Union General John Sedgwich, who, during the siege of Petersburg,raised his head above the parapets to get a look at the enemy, and whose lastwords were, Nonsense. They couldnt hit an elephant at this dist...

In the long run...well, we dont much like it, do we?

As the Pulitzer-prize winning author Ernest Becker wrote in his book The Denialof Death: "...the idea of death, the fear of it, haunts the human animal like nothingelse; it is a mainspring of human activity - activity designed largely to avoid thefinality of death, to overcome it by denying in some way that it is the final destinyfor man."2

So much human activity devoted to denying death. And its no wonder why. Itsunknown. Its scary. And death means rot, death means the end, death means thisworld slips away, death means we leave everyone we know and love, death means

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everything weve done fades away and is forgotten.

No wonder we try to cover it up, deal with it best we can. We try to avoid thinking aboutdeath by worshiping youth, and keeping death as far away as we can - moving it tohospitals and nursing homes. Funeral directors dress up and rouge the bodies, we burythem in double-sealed caskets that are lowered into steel vaults...but we know...weknow...that in the long run...

We pretend in other ways, too, thinking that we can live on in other ways, live on in thememories of others, like the great theologian Dr. Leonard McCoy said in the cinemaclassic Star Trek II. Spock has died a heroic death saving the ship and crew of theEnterprise from certain destruction, and after the funeral for Spock, McCoy, gazing out atthe stars, says, Hes not really dead if we still remember him.

Well, doc, I guess thats nice, that those left behind after we die can cherish theirmemories of us, but that doesnt do us a whole lot of good, does it? Because in the longrun...

Our Rescue

Unless God does something about it. And thats the great good news of Easter. That firstEaster morning almost 2,000 years ago dawned as a day of awful defeat that reeked of thestench of death. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, come to save us, lay stone dead in a colddark tomb. And his mission of salvation, to rescue us from our blindness and rebellionfrom God and to bring a new world, was as dead as he was.

Looked like evil and death had won again. Looked like we were doomed, to beabandoned by God to a world wracked by suffering and evil. And a world where wewould all die, and stay stone cold dead.

So some of the women who had followed Jesus as their teacher and Lord went out to histomb to pay their last respects by anointing his body with spices, and to come to termswith his death, to find closure, one supposes.

Sur-prise! Tomb was empty...no dead body...then Jesus starts appearing...showingup...Paul says elsewhere that he appeared to over 500 people, most of them still around,hes around, theyll tell you all about it. He wasnt dead anymore - death could not holdhim - God raised Jesus from the dead and broke forever the power of death and simply bytrusting him, holding on to him in life and death...well, in the long run, were all deadalright...but then, but then, God resurrects us from the dead!

Because at some day in the future, Gods gonna peel back the veil of heaven, and hesgonna holler Get up! And we will - well get up, rise up from the dead.

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Thats what Paul is talking about in our scripture reading. And its kind of strange - thechurch he wrote to, the Corinthian church, some or a lot of the people in thatcongregation didnt think resurrection was good news. They much preferred the idea ofthe immortal soul, which just kept on keeping on. Thats still a popular idea today - thatwe all have immortal souls that all by themselves live eternally. But Im obligated to tellyou that the Bible is quite clear that we are no more immortal than any other creature onearth that lives a brief, trouble-filled life, and then crawls off in a corner to die

Why am I telling you all this? You came, for an upbeat, happy, joyful Easter service, andhere I am telling you - YOURE GONNA DIE!

Well, its like this - only by confronting the desperation of our situation can weunderstand how great is the good news of Easter.

Its like a scene in one of Wendell Berrys novel A Place on Earth where twograve diggers are at work, and the one working at the bottom of the six-foot holesays to the other, Six feet is a lot deeper than I thought it was. And the otherreplies, By grab, things look different from down there, dont they, son?3

Yes, things do look different, dont they? And its only from the vantage point of thegrave do we get a real appreciation for what God does for us. Because, as Paul says, inthe long run...that though we die...in the longer run, God resurrects us from the dead! It iswhen we are most helpless that God does his greatest work in us, giving us our livesback, eternal life that does not consists of some wispy spirit existence where we floatfrom cloud to cloud, but eternal life where we exist in resurrected bodies, bodies like thatof the resurrected Christ. Because Christ rose, everyone who believes in him will rise uptoo. Well rise up and live forever in resurrected bodies like Christ has.

And heres a few hints about what our resurrected existence will be like

We Become Beautiful

Susan and I went to Italy for our 25 anniversary. While we were in Florence - and whattha beautiful city that is - we took a walking tour. The tour guide was an attractive youngwoman and as we were walking along, with her talking and facing us while she waswalking backwards, we went by a bench with three old guys sitting there watching theworld go by. One of the old guys on the bench saw our cute tour guide and waddled overand gently touched her cheek with his fingers and said, Bella, Bella! Beautiful,beautiful!

Italians appreciate the beautiful. But beauty - it does something to us - it can take ourbreath away, it can almost take us out of ourselves, if only for the briefest of moments. Susan and I like to look at sunsets together, and man we get some amazing sunsets here,

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like Monday evening Im driving down to church and the sun is streaming through theclouds as it headed towards the mountains to the West and there was this exquisite lightbathing the earth....sometimes they are so beautiful that it makes your heart ache.

And whats going on there, when beauty transfixes us, makes our hearts ache, is thatbeauty is from God, and we humans, longing unconsciously for God, want to possessbeauty - and so we try to create it, capture it, through media like art. But beauty runsthrough our fingers like mercury, we cannot possess it no matter how much we want it.

The author of that beauty is Christ, through whom beauty was created. The resurrectedChrist is an being of immense beauty - and Paul says we will be like him in ourresurrection. We are destined for beauty, for glory unimaginable; in resurrected bodiesGod will give us, resurrected bodies no longer subject to human limitations.

To put it in a nutshell, if right now you saw your future resurrected self, your heart wouldalmost stop from the sheer glory and beauty of the being you will become.

We are filled with everlasting life

I was talking with Kevin Carbaugh, one of our teenagers, last Sunday about his playingbaseball. The thought of being able to play baseball again, with the energy and flexibilityand speed of a teenager, makes me almost tear up. What I wouldnt give to be able toclobber a hanging curve over the left-field fence; to backhand a hard grounder at thirdbase, plant my right foot and fire the ball to the first baseman, to run down a fly ball incenterfield. Like John Fogerty sang, Put me in coach, Im ready to play....centerfield.

Those of you who have some years on you - youve probably thought something similar. But age, like a leech, sucks us of our energy and strength and before we know it, wevegrown old.

Im reminded of the story of the six-year-old girl who was at her grandmothershouse and looking at some pictures that were in frames, on a table. One of thepictures was of her grandmother, taken when she was eighteen. She asked hergrandmother, Whose picture is this? The grandmother said, Thats me,honey. The granddaughter looked at the picture, and looked at her grandmotheragain and said, What happened?

In the long run, our bodies age and wrinkle and sag and grow varicose veins and otherindignities too gross to name...but in the longer run, God resurrects us to everlasting lifeand we feel like...

Think of a day when you woke up and bounded out of bed like Tigger, full ofenergy and life and joy, excited about the day ahead...

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Think of a day when you did something great and you legitimately felt a sense ofawe at what youd accomplished...

Think of a day when you were in the best shape of your life...you could run tenmiles or dunk a basketball or dance like an angel or just work hard all day and itfelt good...

Well, youre going to close your eyes in death one day, but then youll wake up at thecommand of God Almighty who says, Rise up! and youll feel like you did on thosebest days of your life times a million.

So now what?

So early on Easter morning the women went to the tomb to anoint Jesus body with spices;it was their way of honoring their dead Lord and finding closure, coming to terms withhis awful death, and that he was never coming back.

Surprise!

And it changed everything...not only their future hope, but how they lived for the rest oftheir lives. And it changes our lives too. You see, Pauls main point in this chapter is tostress that what we do now with our bodies matters, that there is continuity between thislife, and the resurrected life to come.

Our lives matter; how we live our lives, matters. And it especially matters in terms ofhow we treat our fellow human beings. And that is precisely the point Paul wished to getacross to those feuding and fussing Corinthians, who did not realize that each of themwas a creature destined for resurrection glory. Its as if Paul wanted them to squint hardand try to think of one another in terms of their resurrection destiny, in the hope that theywould treat one another better.

Its like C.S. Lewis wrote: It is a serious thing to live in a society of possiblegods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting personyou can talk to may one day be a creature, which, if you saw it now, you would bestrongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you nowmeet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helpingeach other to one or the other of these destinations. It is in light of theseoverwhelming possibilities, it is with awe...that we should conduct all ourdealings with one another, all friendships, all love, all play, all politics. There areno ordinary people.4

Look around at one another. Go ahead now. There are no ordinary people here thismorning. You are looking at creatures destined for beauty and glory unimaginable. And

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1. Preaching, May-June 1996, p. 42.

2. Quoted in a sermon by Robert R. Kopp, When the Rubber Really Hits the Road: Pie-In-the-Sky.

3. Wendell Berry, A Place on Earth, p. 270. San Francisco: North Point, 1983. Quoted inTheology Today, October 1995, p. 377.

there are no ordinary people out there, in the world, either. And it is our job to help oneanother along on that journey, to help one another make our lives now correspond to theresurrection destiny God has for us. To know Christ and to live with courage andstrength and love and compassion.

Closing

In the long run...

Years ago, when I was in my early thirties, at my prime - I was running regularly and ingreat shape, I was full of energy, I could play tennis for hours in the heat of a SouthCarolina August evening, I had a vision of my death. It came in a dream that is almost asvivid today as when it happened over 20 years ago

In the dream, I was old and lying in a bed I would never get up from. I was so weak that Icouldnt lift my arms or turn my head. And I knew that I was dying. My vision wascloudy - I could see that there were people gathered around me, staying with me duringmy last minutes of life, but I couldnt make out their faces, but I felt like they were therebecause they loved me.

And then my breathing got more and more shallow, and my vision contracted and theworld grew dark and I was there in the dark and all I could hear was my heart beating -ba-thump, ba-thump. I knew death was close, very close. And my heart starting slowingdown, ba-thump....ba-thump. And I knew I was powerless, utterly powerless and I calledout, Jesus, Jesus like I was reaching out my hand to the only one who could help me,save me. My heart got slower, I called out for Jesus again, and then a final ba-thump...and then - silence...and I woke up and sat straight up in bed and said, Jeeesus! andwoke up my wife and made her hold me.

Jesus...Im going to die...youre going to die. And theyll have a nice service for us andput us in the ground and all go home. But then - one day, one day, the voice of God fromheaven thunders, and we rise up! Because in the long run, if we trust in Christ, well riseup and live forever. Amen.

Endnotes

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4. C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory, in A Chorus of Witnesses, Thomas G. Long andCornelius Plantinga, Jr., eds, p. 90. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995.

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