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When does a person deteriorate?
What I means is… When does a person become weak, frail, dark, and negative?
When does a person become overly critical, not happy, gloomy, and feel hopeless?
I think that happens when your thinking is deteriorated.
The other day, I was talking with a person who just retired. I asked, “How is your retired life?” He said, “Good. I do a lot of things. When I do a lot of things, I don’t think about death too much.”
That was interesting, I thought when I heard it. But I think he is right. There is wisdom in what he said.
If you think about death all the time, definitely, you will soon become deteriorated.
I visit many people at the hospital. I realized that after they were diagnosed, they became much more quickly deteriorated.
It is all to do with your thinking.
That was what happened at the church in Corinth. When they first heard the message from St. Paul, they were ecstatic.
They received the message of the good news. First time, they heard about the message of resurrection.
When Paul preached that in Athens which is very close to Corinth, this was people’s reaction.
May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? It sounds rather strange to us, so we would like to know what it means. (Acts 17:19-20)
Corinthian people also found it strange but soon they were able to receive the message of resurrection.
When they believed the message, they experienced the power of the resurrection. They were filled with joy and eternal hope.
But soon, their thinking became deteriorated.
They focused more on day to day living. They worried about what to eat, what to wear. They worried about their businesses. They worried about their children. They worried about their own death. Their thinking became weak.
When their thinking became weak, everything fell apart.
There were sexual corruptions. They created factions and fought with each other. They became very divisive. They neglected the poor around them.
Their spirituality became very self-focused. Their spiritual gifts made them proud and arrogant.
When their thinking became weak, their life became dark. Morality, principles, spirituality – everything went down the drain.
Ultimately, they doubted about their own resurrection. Their belief deteriorated.
That was why Paul raised this question.
Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say there is no resurrection of the dead? (1 Corinthians 15:12)
They didn’t raise this doubt when they first received the message from St. Paul.
That’s why it was possible that the church was established in Corinth.
But now some people at the church could not accept the resurrection. When their thinking became weak, their belief became frail.
The resurrection of Jesus Christ is the core belief that we Christians hold unto.
If there is no belief in the resurrection, there is no Christianity. On resurrection, Christianity is established.
If the cross were the end, then there is no point in believing.
If the cross were the end, then the evil won. God is defeated by the evil, the darkness, and the death. There is no hope for us.
The whole theology and all Christian thinking depend on the truth that there is resurrection.
Death is not the end. There is resurrection after the death.
Death did not win. Life defeated death.
That’s what we believe.
Jesus exemplified what our destiny would be. He created the path to the eternal life for us.
As God raised Jesus from the dead, he will raise us from the dead.
People who were martyred died with the hope of resurrection. If there is no resurrection, their death is in vain.
That was what St. Paul firmly reiterated in today’s passage.
If there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation has been in vain and your faith has been in vain. (1 Corinthians 15:13-14)
All my life, I have been in ministry. All my life, I have preached about the resurrection.
If there is no resurrection, I have lived all my life for nothing.
I can feel what Paul was saying today.
If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have died in Christ have perished. If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied. (1 Corinthians 15:17-19)
Belief in the resurrection is tough.
The resurrection is not something that you can prove theoretically or empirically.
That is the nature of belief.
Belief is different from knowing. Knowing is intellectually convinced or convicted.
Belief is spiritually accepting the truth.
Knowing is in your limited capacity. You can only know what you can intellectually understand.
But belief is accepting what is much bigger than yourself.
The good will win over the evil. The truth shall set you free.
It’s hard to believe these days but ultimately justice will prevail. That is all in the realm of belief.
These are things you can accept only through your belief. There is no logical necessity that the good will win over the evil.
But we believe that. And we live by that belief.
Jesus said to Martha.
I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this? (John 11:25, 26)
Jesus didn’t say, Do you know this or do you understand this. Jesus said, “Do you believe this?”
Because it is realm of belief.
Belief is not about being intellectually convinced.
Belief is accepting the world of truth that is much bigger than my world. Much bigger than what we can process with our intellectual understanding.
So, I realized that belief is not something that I do with my brain but I practice to accept the truth that came to me.
Belief is about practicing it. You practice to believe.
Daily you practice to believe. After practicing it, see what happens.
When your thinking deteriorates, your belief deteriorates. You become small. You become locked up in your own small world.
Life – you have to live with belief, not with knowledge.
When you live with belief, your life becomes bigger. You become a bigger person.
If you are waiting for the tangible proof of resurrection, you will never get it. Don’t even wait. How long are you gonna live in a limbo?
You can accept the resurrection only through your belief.
Then you will see that our world is full of resurrection.
Every morning, you wake up, you see that the new day is the resurrection.
Whenever you get defeated, you can overcome your failure and rise again. That is the resurrection.
Even in your hopeless situation, you don’t give up. You fight. You pursue what is ahead.
That is the resurrection.
It is a little long passage but I can see Paul’s thinking about the resurrection quite well.
I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on towards the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 3:10-14)
That is the attitude of a person who believes in the resurrection.
Don’t let your thinking deteriorate. Be strong. Practice your belief. Think about the resurrection. Think about it all the time.
Don’t think about death; think about life.
Steve Jobs said,
Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life.
Let me tell you a better way.
Think about that you will be alive every day. Your day will be brightened up.
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