What if the Resurrection Didn't Happen?

St. Patrick Presbyterian

What if the Resurrection Didn't Happen?

April 21, 2024 • Rev. James M. Holland • 1 Corinthians 15:12–19

Owen Meany is a fictional character in John Irving’s novel, A Prayer for Owen Meany. If I could give you a one paragraph commentary on I Corinthians 15, it might be this. Here is what he says:

I find that Holy Week is draining; no matter how many times I have lived through his crucifixion, my anxiety about his resurrection is undiminished—I am terrified that, this year, it won’t happen; that, that year, it didn’t. Anyone can be sentimental about the Nativity; any fool can feel like a Christian at Christmas. But Easter is the main event; if you don’t believe in the resurrection, you’re not a believer. (John Irving, A Prayer for Owen Meany)

Paul would like that. In fact, Paul actually hints at that when he says that, by denying the resurrection, perhaps many had believed in vain. Resurrection is the gospel! In our text this week, Paul basically asks those who are doubting the bodily resurrection of Jesus to have the courage of their convictions, and then he outlines a bunch of things that are true if there is no resurrection of the dead. It is terrifying. Terrifying but essential.

This Sunday, we will talk about what life and reality look like if Jesus is not raised from the dead. We are so often tempted to think of Christianity only in terms of morality, as we often see parents who have long abandoned the church return, only so that their children can get a moral basis for life. Paul would basically tell you that is really a ridiculous proposition. How so? Join us Sunday and we will talk about it.

Heavenly_ Bodies

May 12, 2024 • Rev. Joshua Smith • 1 Corinthians 15:35–49

In recent years, May has become a calendaring nightmare. The convergence of end-of-school, civic, and extracurricular events with beautiful weather means that even Mothers’ Day is far more frantic than she deserves. This is the month of end-of-year exams, graduations, performance recitals, dress up days, awards ceremonies, soccer tournaments, parties for kids unfortunate enough to have been born in this cruel season, crashing into Memorial weekend trips to the lake. Oh, and of course we also want to make sure we faithfully celebrate the Ascension so that we’re ready ten days later for all the Pentecost revelries. Of course, I’m joking about that last bit. We don’t live in a time or place where the liturgical calendar is a factor in this conversation. The number and range of obligations outside of that are staggering. How much worse it feels it’s gotten since all the lockdowns ended! In fact, I’m proposing a swift, orderly change in name: from “May” to “Must.” Stacked social obligations have always led me to dreaming of making my escape to a sleepy town in the Mediterranean and spending afternoons at the anti-Cheers, where nobody knows my name. Often the fantasy alone is enough to keep me going. I think a lot of us were taught to think of the afterlife in this kind of way – a sort of great escape of the spirit from the troubles of the body. A permanent vacation from life as a reward for surviving the harassment! But this week, as we transition from the historic fact and implications of Christ’s resurrection to the future guarantee of our own resurrections, we’ll be challenged again on that idea. The question of what our bodies might be like in the New Creation pushes us to reckon with both the physicality and immediacy of our ultimate state in the present day. Channeling N.T. Wright, “Resurrection is great, but it’s not the end of the world!” So, I hope to see you this weekend as we honor Christ (and mom, too!)

Living the Resurrection

May 5, 2024 • Rev. James M. Holland • 1 Corinthians 15:20–28

Eugene Peterson, surveying the religious landscape of his day came to this conclusion: "The word 'christian' means different things to different people. To one person it means a stiff, upright, inflexible way of life, colorless and unbending. To another it means a risky, surprised-filled adventure, lived tiptoe at the edge of expectation...If we get our information from the biblical material, there is no doubt that the Christian life is a dancing, leaping, daring life.” (Eugene Peterson, Traveling Light). I suspect most of us have seen this same thing. We have seen religious communities that reflect a joyless existence mainly committed to what they are against. Those communities have little draw to them and certainly are not telling a better story. Yet, sometimes we see people and communities that don’t take themselves so seriously and dare to risk, entering the fray of life in all its complexities and pitfalls. It takes a lot more courage to do the later. Paul writes about living in the power of the resurrection and I confess, it is a challenge. This week we will look at this in some detail. Because Jesus is the firstfruits of the resurrection of the dead, it means at his coming we will be resurrected as well. For most of us, the resurrection is merely a point of comfort against the day we die. For Paul it was the engine that drove him from one daring feat to the next. It was the power of another world that animated his existence and kept him going courageously from one beating to the next, one shipwreck to the next, and pushing the gospel to the ends of the world. Paul lived! Like Jesus in dying he lived. I dare say, his life was heroic. Armed with the gospel and in the resurrection power he rarely thought of safety, comfort or security. What makes this even more ironic is he was a rabbinic scholar, not someone setting out for adventure for it’s on sake or because he was bored. Can we do that? Does the gospel give us the same resources? Well, we will talk about it this Sunday. I hope to see you there!

New Creation

April 28, 2024 • Rev. James M. Holland • 1 Corinthians 15:20–28

I just got most of my garden planted on Monday. Addy was a lot of help. I bribed her into helping me pull up the winter garden of kale, spinach, greens and arugula by telling her she could drive the lawnmower and pull the wagon to deposit the refuse from the beds. Anyway, we toil in hope. Even hobbling around on a bad leg, I whispered a prayer of thanksgiving for the feel, smell, and gift of good dirt...and especially my small tomato plants. I mention my garden because our text this week describes Jesus as the firstfruits of those who have died. It might seem a strange metaphor to us who live in the relative safety of suburbia and assume a food chain that is normative and stable. We don’t live in an agrarian culture so it hard to underscore the magnitude of what Paul is saying. In Israel, and most of the Roman culture, the firstfruits of your crop were something to be celebrated. Israel had a festival to celebrate it. All agrarian cultures did because all your money, all your hopes, your very life was plowed into the soil. If the harvest doesn’t come in, you were financially ruined or possibly even dead. So, when the firstfruit was picked—the first grape or olive or wheat or, in my case, tomato—it was a time for rejoicing. It meant for them they would not starve, the harvest was coming; and, for me, it means bushels of tomatoes are coming! That first tomato of the season is for me an actual taste of the future as I anticipate the glory of endless tomato sandwiches slathered in mayo and home-cured bacon. It is a great image, exciting actually, because it means with Jesus’ resurrection, God’s future has entered our present reality. Confused? Well, on Sunday, we will talk about it. We will also welcome new members, have a couple of baptisms, and celebrate our high school graduates, all sorts of “firstfruits” of our ministry at St. Patrick and the promise of a glorious future!