Reading: 1 Corinthians 15:35-38; 42-50 (NRSV)
35 But someone will ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?” 36 Fool! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. 37 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. 38 But God gives it a body as he has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own body. … 42 So it is 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 physical body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a physical 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 physical, and then the spiritual. 47 The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is[a] from heaven. 48 As was the man of dust, so are those who are of the dust; and as is the man of heaven, so are those who are of heaven. 49 Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we will[b] also bear the image of the man of heaven. 50 What I am saying, brothers and sisters,[c] is this: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Reflection So often, I want to understand how something works to understand it better. Getting a smartphone has been both educational and time-devouring. How do I sharpen my lawnmower blades? How do I get to so-and-so’s house? How do they mine cryptocurrency? (I still don’t quite understand that last one.) It’s natural to investigate the “how” of things, especially when the topic in question is abstract or unfamiliar. How can that be? I’ve never seen this, heard of it, experienced anything similar with which to compare this thing you promise. This is how I imagine the Corinthian people, as well as those today hearing about Jesus for the first time. Most are eager to accept a promise for salvation, if only they could wrap their heads around this grand idea, a hope and promise so new and different from their present reality, yet longed-for and reassuring. But how will God do this? What will it look like, feel like, be; in terms of human understanding? And there’s the rub. Salvation is beyond human understanding, at least in terms of tangible, physical experience. “How?” is the wrong question. Instead, we should ask – and answer, as Paul does -- why? Why does God love us, sinful and weak creatures, limited by our human forms and minds? The answer, of course, is in our divine connection to our creator and in His limitless capacity to love us. We are His; He is ours. Freed from the constraints of fragile bodies, our living spirits can blossom and grow on earth and bloom and flourish forever after, when we rejoin our God in heaven as the transcendent body of Christ. –Heather Wolf Prayer Creator God, nourish me with your love and teachings. Plant me where my spiritual growth may bring beauty and good to the world. Amen.
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