Preaching and Living the Resurrection Today
Whether we think of the first century or the twenty-first, the resurrection is both a central and a controversial part of Christian theology and experience. Today, however, we often hear about those who challenge the possibility of resurrection–whether Christ’s or ours–both outside and inside the Christian church. Richard Hays, the highly respected New Testament professor and dean at Duke Divinity School, bluntly describes the situation this way:
On the issue of resurrection, many preachers and New Testament scholars are unwitting partisans of the Sadducees. Because they deny the truth of Scripture’s proclamation that God raised Jesus from the dead—or waffle about it—they leave the church in a state of uncertainly, lacking confidence in its mission, knowing neither the Scriptures nor the power of God. (“Reading Scripture in Light of the Resurrection,” pp. 216–38 in Ellen F. Davis and Richard B. Hays, The Art of Reading Scripture [Eerdmans, 2003], here p. 216).
Hays goes on: “the recent history of theology is replete with attempts to reinterpret the meaning of the New Testament’s resurrection in ways that will not conflict with a modern scientific worldview” (p. 216). Hays points out the views of the most influential voices of the last one hundred years, including Rudolf Bultmann, Gerd Lüdemann, Bishop John Spong, and Robert Funk as well as the stream of new atheists who try to debunk the entire Christian faith.
The situation was much the same in the earliest days of the church. When Paul preached about the resurrection of the dead to the intellectuals of his day, some believed, but others scoffed (Acts 17:32). Much to his chagrin, after Paul preached the resurrection to the Corinthians (1 Cor 15:1-4), some in the Corinthian church began to say that “there is no resurrection of the dead” (1 Cor 15:12). Paul then proceeded to write the text on the resurrection that has been foundational and formative for two thousand years of Christian history (1 Corinthians 15).
Space does not permit us to consider every facet of the biblical witness to the resurrection and how that witness should affect our preaching and living. For our purposes, we will focus on the apostle Paul, with just a few side glances to the gospel narratives. In our own day of skepticism and misunderstanding about many basic Christian convictions, what can we learn from Paul concerning the theological and spiritual significance of Christ’s resurrection and of ours? How might Paul inform our preaching? We may approach this topic from four angles, beginning with Christ’s resurrection.
The Critical Importance of Christ’s Resurrection
For the apostle Paul, the resurrection of Christ was not merely one among many Christian convictions; it was the one that guaranteed the significance of all others and provided the rationale for the life of faith, hope, and love expected of those who live in Christ. From Paul’s perspective, to deny or misinterpret the resurrection is to undermine the Christian faith.
In his response to the Corinthians who denied the resurrection of the dead, Paul argued logically that if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, he says, “your faith is vain; you are still in your sins” (1 Cor 15:17). That is, Christ’s death on the cross for sins (see 1 Cor 15:3) has no saving significance without the resurrection. It is merely the Roman crucifixion of a false messiah. Furthermore, the apostle asserts, if Christ is not raised, then those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are the most pitiable people of all…. If the dead are not raised: “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.” (1 Cor 15:18-19, 32b).
In other words, the dead are dead, there is no hope of eternal life, and the idea of living a life of sacrificial devotion to God and others in the present is simply absurd. Instead, let’s party! Death is the end, and the only logical thing to do is to enjoy this life to the max: Carpe diem.
It is unlikely that the naysayers of resurrection in Paul’s day or ours recognize the grave consequences of their disbelief. It is one of the tasks of Christian preaching and formation to make these consequences clear.
The Meaning of Christ’s Resurrection
Most Christians rightly associate the resurrection of Jesus with the gift of eternal life, and we will return to this topic below. But eternal life does not exhaust the meaning of the resurrection, nor is that topic the best starting point in considering the resurrection. Most Christians also associate the resurrection with the obvious: Jesus is no longer dead but alive: “The Lord has risen indeed” (Luke 24:34), as we proclaim, or, as many of our hymns put it, “He arose.”
Paul, to be sure, does not think Christ is dead. Rather, he exclaims, “But now Christ has been raised from the dead” (1 Cor 15:20a). The wording here is critically important: “Christ has been raised,” rather than “Christ arose,” implies that someone has raised Christ from the dead. That someone, of course, is God the Father, and Paul almost always uses language about Christ’s resurrection that explicitly affirms or implies God’s raising of Jesus. By doing so, Paul tells us that the resurrection is God’s vindication of Jesus, God’s stamp of approval on how Jesus lived and died. Jesus’ death, and the life that led to it, are neither misguided nor meaningless. His death was indeed God’s provision for the forgiveness of our sins and our liberation from the very power of sin itself. Moreover, Jesus’ life and death reveal the way that God operates in the world and the way God wants us as the people of God to live in this world, too (1 Cor 1:18-2:5).
To proclaim God’s resurrection of Jesus, rather than simply Christ’s resurrection, does not diminish Jesus or his significance. Rather, it increases it. God’s resurrection of Jesus means that we can, indeed we must, take the way of Jesus seriously. His way is God’s way, and therefore our way in and through this world.
Furthermore, in the resurrection of Jesus, God demonstrates that sin, evil, and death do not have the final word in God’s world. We know that the twin enemies of the human race, Sin and Death, will be defeated (1 Cor 15:55-57). In fact, God’s resurrection of Jesus initiates a new age characterized by resurrection to new life (power over Sin) in the present and bodily resurrection to eternal life (victory over Death) in the future. We can participate in that new age by sharing in God’s resurrection of Jesus through the experience of death and resurrection contained in, and symbolized by, baptism (more on this below).
We must stress here one key point that contemporary Christians often fail to understand or try to avoid: that Christ’s resurrection was a bodily resurrection. Paul was a Pharisee, not a Platonist, and he did not believe in the immortality of a body-less soul. Bodily resurrection does not mean simply the resuscitation of a corpse, but neither is it merely symbolic language for Christ’s ongoing existence in the church as his body, or something similar. The resurrection is certainly a mystery, but it is not a metaphor. As N. T. Wright has pointed out in his book The Resurrection of the Son of God (Fortress, 2003), in the ancient world early Christian talk of Jesus’ bodily resurrection would not have been mistaken as code language for Jesus’ living on in the memory of the church, or for a sense of new life within the community. God’s resurrection of Jesus means that God takes the created order with the utmost seriousness. Docetism is out for good–flesh matters, bodies matter, and, creation matters.
Paul’s Corinthian audience was apparently confused about the corporeality of resurrection, too, so the apostle develops elaborate analogies to help the Corinthians understand that bodily resurrection means transformation, and thus both continuity and discontinuity with respect to our current bodily existence (1 Cor 15:35-57; see also Luke 24:13-35; John 21:1-14). But resurrection is none the less a bodily experience. Paul would have agreed with later Christian writers who repeatedly urged that “What Christ has not assumed [taken on himself], he does not redeem.” But Paul might have stated it as follows: “Christ has in fact redeemed that which he assumed [that is, the body].” As we will see below, this has much significance for Christian ethics and mission.
The Present and Future Resurrection of Believers
When contemporary Christians think of their own resurrection, they most often imagine the future reality of eternal life with God, however they conceive of that reality. Paul would certainly not deny the reality–the (transformed) bodily reality–of our future resurrection to eternal life with God (Rom 5:21; 6:22-23; Gal 6:8), but he also stresses the present reality of resurrection now. Without neglecting the promise of eternal life, especially in the context of funerals, contemporary Christian preaching needs to pay much more attention to this present reality. Otherwise, the meaning of Christ’s resurrection devolves into an occasional celebration of the past (he arose) and the future (eternal life), rather than a past event and future promise with present consequences.
It is true that every Christian funeral is an occasion to offer the hope of eternal life, but it is also the occasion to celebrate a life that, however imperfectly, was lived in the presence and power of the risen Jesus. It is also true that every Sunday is a little Easter, but it is equally true that every day for the Christian is a little Easter. Or, to be more Pauline, every day is both a death and resurrection.
In baptism, Paul says, we have shared in Christ’s death and resurrection (Romans 6). Our old self was crucified with Christ (Rom 6:6), and a new self was raised from the dead so that “just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might live in newness of life” (Rom 6:4). Paul describes this “newness of life” as dying to sin and living to God (Rom 6:6, 11ff). The final outcome of this new life is future eternal life (Rom 6:5, 22-23), but the main emphasis in Paul’s words about baptism is not on future resurrection but on present resurrection, “living to God.”
Preaching about resurrection, whether at Easter, at baptisms and funerals, or throughout the year, should reflect Paul’s emphasis far more than it usually does. We misinterpret resurrection and mislead both Christians and others if we convey the idea that resurrection is primarily about “going to heaven when you die.” Resurrection is first of all about new life here and now. It is about putting on Christ in baptism (Gal 3:27) and then doing so every day thereafter (Rom 13:14). This way of looking at resurrection has some critical consequences for Christian living–for spirituality, ethics, and mission.
The Spiritual and Ethical Consequences of Resurrection
The significance for Paul of resurrection to new life could hardly be overestimated. On every page of his letters, he is urging his congregations to embody the new life they have in Christ. We may briefly mention four dimensions of this new life.
First, the new life we live is the life of Christ within us. If Christ has been raised, then he is not dead but alive, and he comes to inhabit his people, both individually and corporately, to infuse them with his very life, which is in fact the life of God: “I have been crucified with Christ; yet I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me” (Gal 2:19-20). Too often contemporary Christians underestimate and under-utilize the indwelling power of Christ.
Preaching that highlights this aspect of the resurrection will focus on God’s transforming and re-creating power. This is not mere metaphor (“Christ’s resurrection really means you can have a fresh start”), but an affirmation of the nature of God and of God’s action in the world. The God of the resurrection is a God of life-giving power. The preacher who believes this will say that the God who brought creation into existence and brought Christ out of the grave is at work in our community, in your life and mine. As the opening prayer in Ephesians says (emphasis added):
I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe, according to the working of his great power. God put this power to work in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places… (Eph 1:17-20).
Second, the resurrection to new life is, paradoxically, a life shaped by the cross. In being raised to new life, we do not leave the cross behind. Not only is our crucifixion with Christ an ongoing experience (again, Gal 2:19-20), but the very shape of the resurrection life is cross-shaped, or cruciform. That is, the life that Christ lives in us by the power of his Spirit is an extension of the life of obedience to God and love for others that landed him on a Roman cross. Christ’s self-giving generosity, service, and hospitality (2 Cor 8:9; Phil 2:1-11; Rom 15:1-3) continue their life in the life of his people.
Preaching that highlights this aspect of the resurrection will also focus on God’s transforming and re-creating power. But in doing so, it will recall that Christ crucified is the power of God (1 Cor 1:18-25). Therefore God’s power is revealed in and through our weakness (2 Cor 12:9) and through our conformity to Christ’s self-giving, life-giving death (2 Cor 4:8-18). What an odd truth! It leads to the next dimension of resurrection.
Third, the resurrection life is a countercultural existence that values the body as God’s temple and is dedicated in mind and body to the service of God and others (Rom 12:1-2). Unlike our culture more broadly, we Christians know (or ought to know) with Paul that our bodies belong to God (1 Cor 6:19-20) and that God will one day raise them (1 Cor 6:14). Thus our bodies are to be offered to God (Rom 6:12ff) in ways that reflect their dignity, purpose, and final end. Good preaching and formation will consistently explore the implications of this kind of bodily resurrection existence for our sexual lives, our vocations, our use of time and money, and much else. The resurrection, in other words, is the foundation of all we are and do.
Preaching that highlights this aspect of the resurrection will help people understand the close connection between misunderstanding of, or disbelief in, the resurrection and daily decisions about lifestyle. Without resurrection, Paul says, the life of faith, hope, and love is an existential mistake that should be replaced with unadulterated hedonism: “If the dead are not raised, ‘Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die’” (1 Cor 15:32b). With resurrection, every bodily activity becomes a means of worshiping our resurrecting, life-giving, body-valuing God: “The body is meant not for fornication [sexual immorality] but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body…. [D]o you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you were bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body.” (1 Cor 6:13b, 19-20).
Fourth and finally, the resurrection life is a missional life. Paul concludes his great chapter on the resurrection with these words: “Therefore, my beloved, be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the work of the Lord, because you know that in the Lord your labor is not in vain” (1 Cor 15:58). The resurrection of Jesus is the divine sign that Jesus is Lord, so we proclaim him to one and all. The resurrection of Jesus is the divine sign that bodies matter, so we feed the hungry and clothe the naked, and we work for (God’s kind of) justice on earth. The resurrection of Jesus is the divine sign that God will in fact redeem and restore the creation, so we take care of the earth. And so on.
Preaching that highlights this aspect of the resurrection will help the church make the connection between creation and re-creation. It will remind faithful listeners that the church lives within the grand story of God’s mission in the world. The resurrection of Jesus gives us the incentive and the power to join in that mission, as well as the hope that our efforts will not be in vain. At the same time, because we cannot separate the resurrection from the cross, we will avoid any hint of triumphalism or of a “crusader” mentality. The mission inspired by Christ’s resurrection, like all of Christian living, still takes the form of the cross.
Final Reflections
No preacher can possibly say everything that needs to be said about Christ’s resurrection and ours in one sermon–or even in one lifetime. But the people of God are, I believe, dying for news of the resurrection and its meaning for their daily life as well as their eternal life. Preachers entrusted with the task of preaching have the tremendous responsibility–and privilege–of sharing in God’s work of transforming the church’s imagination and its daily life through the message of Christ’s resurrection.
