I Believe in the Resurrection
A sermon based on 1 Corinthians 15:12-20
by Rev. Randy L Quinn

Most weeks we end our worship service by reciting the Apostles’ Creed.  I don’t know if that is important to you or not; in fact, I don’t even know if you like using it.

(By the way, if you have strong feelings about it one way or the other, I’d appreciate hearing from you!)

After doing some research on the Apostle’s Creed several years ago, I was reluctant to use it at all.  Almost every Creed was written to draw a line between “us” and “them.”  They were used to exclude people from participating in the life of the church.

Every Creed is aimed at one heresy or another, leading to division rather than unity.

Not surprisingly, when Creeds first appeared in the worship service, they were placed early in the service as a way to limit who was welcome and who was not.  If you could not agree with the Creed, you were asked to leave before the scriptures were read, before the sermon was preached, before prayers were said, before the offering was taken, and before communion was served.

Given that history, maybe you can understand my reluctance to use a Creed in worship.  Especially since I know that our church, the United Methodist Church, is not what is often called a “Creedal” Church.  By that, we mean that there is no one Creed that can be used to state our belief.  There is no one way to draw the line between “us” and “them” – and I’m glad there isn’t.

But some parents asked me to use the Apostle’s Creed in worship so their children would learn it.  They thought of it as an important historic document of the church and wanted their children to be able to recite it as easily as they could.

So after doing some more research, I found a tradition that placed the Apostles’ Creed at the end of the service where it reminds us that there is more to the Gospel than was heard or experienced during any particular worship service.  It serves as a way to ‘complete’ the story.

As I said, I don’t know how you feel about it, but at least you now know why I have kept it in our order of worship.

And like any memorized text, the more I recite it the more I hear in it, and the more it comes to mind.  As I was reflecting on our text for today, for instance, I kept remembering the final portion of the Apostles’ Creed:

“I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.”

Of all the lines in the Creed, this is the portion that raises the most questions in people’s minds – at least this is where I hear the most questions being asked.  Specifically, I am frequently asked about “the holy catholic church.”

How many of you have ever wondered about that phrase?

Many people think it’s referring to the Roman Catholic Church and wonder why we are proclaiming that we believe in the Pope.  The truth is that “catholic” in the Creed is not capitalized.  It’s a word that means universal or all-inclusive.  (In our hymnal there is even a footnote that tells us the meaning of the word.)

What we are saying is that we believe the Church is wider than this congregation or even our denomination.  We are saying that the Church includes all Christians everywhere, wherever the name of Christ is proclaimed.

But I’m digressing.  That wasn’t the part of the Creed I was thinking about this week.  I was remembering that we say we believe in “the resurrection of the body.”

How many of you are troubled by those words?

How many of you have ever doubted the truth of the resurrection?

Apparently there were people in Corinth who didn’t believe in the resurrection.  So many, in fact, that Paul felt it necessary to address it directly.  Paul devotes the entire 15^th Chapter of this Epistle to this one issue.

The essence of Paul’s argument in our text for this week is that if you don’t believe in the resurrection, there really is no basis for your faith.  He uses a rather weak argument to say that if you don’t believe in the resurrection then you can’t believe in God and your faith is null and void.

It’s like saying that if you don’t believe in Democracy, then your votes don’t matter and you may as well live under the reign of a totalitarian dictator.  Conversely, Paul might argue, since you live in the US, you must believe in Democracy.

Or maybe it’s like saying that if you don’t believe in Methodism, you’re wasting your time worshipping in a United Methodist Church.  The very fact that you are here is an expression of your belief in Methodism.

I don’t know about you, but those arguments don’t seem very strong to me.  I’m not sure they would be effective at changing my mind, either.

But I did begin to wonder why anyone would NOT believe in the resurrection and still claim to be a part of the Church.  What is so troubling about the resurrection?

The resurrection is evidence of God’s power.  It’s proof of eternity and the eternal nature of God’s grace.

So what could be so troubling about it?

Why would there be people in Corinth who didn’t believe it?

More to the point for us, are there still people who choose not to believe in the resurrection?

At the bottom of the doubts is the realization that it doesn’t make sense.  We can’t explain it scientifically, and we live in a scientific culture where things must be verifiable to be true.  To believe in the resurrection requires faith.

And some people don’t know if they have faith.

They know about faith.

They can recite Creeds.

They not only have a Bible, they can read the Bible.

But that’s not the same as faith.

It’s safe to talk about faith.  It’s safe to talk about God.  It’s safe to talk about prayer.  It may even be safe to talk about resurrection.

But it requires faith to believe it.  It goes against our cultural upbringing.

I remember a High School student who came to talk to me once.  She was writing a paper on Christianity and wanted to know about it.  After I tried to explain what we believe, after I suggested some books to read, after she left my office in fact, I realized that she wanted a ‘safe’ and objective perspective.  It was clear that she was intentionally keeping her ideas in the intellectual realm.

She didn’t want to be affected by faith, not mine or hers or anyone else’s.

She just wanted to know about it.

She didn’t want to have faith.

I had a similar conversation at Camp Pendleton last week.  But in this case, I knew the man had some personal issues going on in his life.  I quickly realized that he felt safer talking about faith than looking at ways his faith could influence the decisions he was making.

Those who don’t believe in the resurrection don’t want to experience faith.  They don’t want to experience it because it may change the way they live, it may change the way they think, it may change the way they act.

As an Easter people, as a people who believe in the resurrection, we see life differently.  We see hope where there seems to be no hope.  We see beyond death to the promise of new life.

Those who refuse to believe in resurrection want to maintain the status quo.  They don’t want change.  They like the comfort of their current existence – even if they are not happy with it.

Every time we recite the Apostles’ Creed, we say we believe in the resurrection.

But I wonder, do we really?

Maybe we don’t believe in it either.  Maybe we are more like the Corinthians than we like to think.

When Lazarus died, both of his sisters approached Jesus with the same response:  “If only you had been here, our brother would not have died” (Jn 11:21 & 11:32).  What they meant was things would have remained the same if he had been there.

Jesus’ response was to say that he was the resurrection.  He came to change things.  Martha only thought resurrection would happen at the end of time.  But Jesus assured her that believing in the resurrection affected life now, not just in the hereafter.

Do you believe in the resurrection?

How has that been lived out in your life?

Where have you seen it lived out in the work and ministry of our church?

When you answer those questions, you will know whether or not you believe in the resurrection.

As for me, I know I believe in the resurrection.  A year ago, I was dying as a pastor.  I was serving a church where my life was being taken from me.  There was no more joy in my work.  It was hard to love and I saw no sense of hope for change.  All I knew was pain and sorrow.

Without going into detail, it was a difficult year at best – for me and for our family.

We gave the pain and sorrow of that difficult experience to God, and we found new life.  We found new hope.  God brought you into our lives and the joy has returned.

I KNOW there is resurrection.

And like Paul, I believe it is the key element of our faith, it’s what makes our faith different from all other faiths.

Without it, we may as well go home.  With it, there is no limit to what God can accomplish through us.

Thanks be to God.

Amen.