"The Son Also Rises"
The crucial importance of the Resurrection
Sermon Preached by
The Rev. Dr. Andrew Stirling
Easter, April 15, 2001
Text: 1 Corinthians 15:9-22
It was early in the morning and I was unable to sleep. I had just arrived in southern Florida. I don't know why I was suffering from insomnia: Maybe it was the flight the day before; maybe it was just the heat that I wasn't used to; maybe it was the fact that I was going to be preaching in a church that I had never been in before; or maybe it was the fact that I had eaten too much rockfish for dinner.
The fact of the matter is, a month ago this very day, I couldn't sleep. And so, as the sun was beginning to rise, after a fitful time of tossing and turning, I gave up on sleep and decided to put on my shirt and my shorts.
In the cool of the morning, I crossed the street and walked along a sandy beach. As I did, my eyes turned eastward.
All of a sudden the sun began to rise over the horizon. Whenever the sun is in your eyes, the sea always looks particularly dark, almost a blue black. Underneath my feet were the warm sands and I felt the sand roll through my toes. The sand was still hot for it had retained the heat from the sun of the day before. As I turned and faced the west, the sun was now rising over my shoulder and it started to illuminate the magnificent flowers that were beside the road, the bougainvillea and the oleander. All of a sudden, my mind went back to when I was a young boy.
My mother and my father used to get up early and we used to go to John Smith's Bay on the south shore of Bermuda. We would walk on the warm sand and feel the cool touch of the ocean. I realized this was the first time I had walked on a sandy beach with neither of my parents being alive. I thought of the words of the Apostle Paul in our text this morning from Corinthians: If Christ has not been raised, then those who are asleep in Christ are lost. In a mood of melancholy, I sat down on a bench. The sun was now rising higher in the sky.
Funnily enough, my mind turned to Ernest Hemingway, who used to write his books in Key West. I thought of his famous book, his first really great book, The Sun Also Rises. There is a moment on the very last page of that book that spoke volumes to me right at that moment. I remembered it. It was when Jake Barnes, that hapless protagonist, was sitting with Lady Ashley. They were talking. Barnes said to Lady Ashley: “Some people have found God.” She said: “He has never done very much for me.” And then they decided to order another martini.
I thought to myself: You know, there are those who really do believe that God has not done very much for them. There were those, even in the time of Paul, when he was writing the Corinthians, who really did not believe that Jesus Christ was raised from the dead. They were going around telling people that Jesus was not raised from the dead. For the Apostle Paul, this meant everything. As one of the least of the disciples, he hung his hat completely and entirely on having been encountered by Jesus on the road to Damascus. If it were not for the risen Christ, he would not be an apostle at all. Everything that he believed was founded on the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth.
He even goes on to list those things. He says, for example: Our forgiveness is a fallacy, if Jesus is not raised from the dead. Our faith is futile, if Jesus is not raised from the dead. The cross is the final word, if Jesus is not raised from the dead. All our apostolic teaching is fraudulent, if Jesus is not raised from the dead. He therefore said, we are to be pitied, if Jesus is not raised from the dead.
But there are many people, my friends, who question whether the son also rises. By the son, I do not mean the sun of the morning, I mean the son of God, Jesus Christ himself. The resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is more than just a theological vindication of a biblical truth. It is more than the affirmation of Pauline apostleship. It is more than just the ramifications of a creed, or a belief. It is about you and me. It is about those who have died and gone before us. It is about life. It is about how we treat people in our society. The resurrection of Jesus Christ, whether or not the son has also been raised, is a matter of the utmost importance, because first of all, it is about the past.
The psalmist once wrote: Give light to my eyes, lest I sleep in death.
Give light to my eyes, lest I sleep in death. For many of the biblical writers, the way to describe those who have died is to say that they are asleep, that they are at rest. Well, the Apostle Paul uses that same phrase himself, but he says: If Jesus Christ is not raised from the dead, then those who sleep, those who have died before us, are lost.
You see, for the Apostle Paul, the belief in the resurrection of humanity, the belief that those who have gone before us will eventually rise and have eternal life, is not based on a philosophy. It is not based on an idea. It is not based on a theosophy. It is based on evidence, and the evidence for the Apostle Paul is that Jesus of Nazareth was raised from the dead. There is a great belief in the scriptures that some day we will be reunited with those whom we love; that those who call themselves by Christ's name will enjoy the glory of the counsel of the saints in heaven; that Jesus said: If I am lifted up, I will draw all people unto me. My friends, for the Apostle Paul, his understanding about the past rests on the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
I must admit, when I sat on that beach and felt the sand go through my toes, I thought: What hope do I have of reunion with my parents if the son is not raised? It is about the past. It is also very much about the present. It's about the way that we view life. It's about the way that we value human existence, the way in which we treat the other, and the way in which we, as a society, deal with people who live in our community.
There's a wonderful story, from the Miami Herald, that I was told when I was in Florida. It was the story of a woman who had phoned up the Obituary Department of the newspaper. She had only one question: She wanted to know how much it would cost to put in an obituary.
The clerk at the other end said: “Well, madam, it will be $5 per word.”
There was a long pause. She said: “Have you got a piece of paper?”
He said: “Yes, I do.”
She said: “Have you got a pen?”
He said: “Yes, I do.”
She said: “Well, in that case, write this down: Smithson is dead.”
Well, the clerk couldn't believe what he had heard. He said: “Excuse me, madam, but I omitted to tell you something. There is a six-word minimum in an obituary.”
She said: “Well, you should have told me that.”
He said: “I know, madam, I am terribly sorry.”
There was a long pause, and a lot of chatter at the other end of the line. She said: “Have you got a piece of paper?”
He said: “Yes, I do.”
She said: “Have you got a pen?”
He said: “Yes, I have.”
She said: “Write this down: Smithson is dead. Cadillac for sale.”
(Why do people tell me these things?)
Well, my friends, sometimes we treat life like that: We treat it as cheaply, as materialistically, as unimportantly as that.
Think of the discussion this week about whether the execution of Mr. McVeigh should be televised. I think Mr. McVeigh is a dreadful sort. He is unrepentant and he killed enough people. Why is it that, in our voyeurism, we want to see another person die? Don't enough people die as it is? Even when a little baby in our own city starves to death, don't we sometimes just casually sit back, simply consider it to be a sadness, and move on to the next story? When we hear that people are killed in a soccer stadium in Johannesburg, or when we find that people are killed in a train accident, or when a bomb blasts in some city in a remote corner of the world, or when there is a riot in some American city and someone dies, do we not sometimes think that it is just a statistic and move on?
Sometimes, my friends, we treat the life that we have been given as if it were nothing more than a Cadillac for sale. If human life was worth the life of the Son of God, if God was willing to give his son, Jesus Christ, and raise him from the dead on the third day, does that not tell us that, as human beings, we are of infinitely greater value than anything that the world might say? No philosophy, no idea, no humanist agenda will ever declare the importance of human life quite like the fact that Jesus of Nazareth rose from the dead, because it affirms, above all, that you and I are eternal. In the people sitting next to you, in the people that you engage every day in your life, in your work and in society, is a child for whom the Son of God rose. It matters that the son also rises.
It also speaks about the future.
There is a wonderful story that I heard of a young married couple who, on their wedding day, were tired out and exhausted. In fact, they were so tired out and exhausted after the reception that they went to their hotel room late. They grabbed their key, they signed their papers, and were escorted to the bridal suite. When they opened the door, they were shocked and disappointed by what they saw. In that room, there was nothing more than two chairs, a small table, a little refrigerator, and a couch. They looked at each other, and they didn't know what they were going to do. They were so tired that they fumbled around the room, because there was no bed.
Finally they realized that the couch was actually a sofa bed. They took off the cushions, pulled it out and lay down. The springs went through their backs and there were lumps in the mattress. They had a fitful night just like I had in Florida, I think. They got up in the morning, after this fitful night's sleep, and went down to the manager. They were furious.
They said: “We had asked for the bridal suite but all we get, up there, are a couple of chairs and a pull-out couch. What kind of a half-hearted place are you running here?”
The manager looked at them and said: “Well, excuse me. We are very sorry. Would you like to come with me?”
He took them back up to the door of their room and he opened it. They went into the bridal suite; but then, he went to another door, which they thought was a closet door. He opened it up, and there was a king-size bed, with chocolates, and with champagne, and with flowers. It was the bridal suite indeed.
My friends, we sometimes treat life and eternity as they do. We do not open the door to what lies beyond. We are so concentrating on the here-and-now, so wrapped up in the worries of today, so anxious about what we see before our eyes, that we do not understand that there is an empty tomb, and that there is a place called heaven: that there is eternity.
C.S. Lewis rightly said: Aim for heaven and you will get earth thrown in as well. Aim for earth, and you will get neither. We live in a society that is consumed with simply accumulating what we can, when we can, in the here-and-now. We hardly ever think that there is more. Therefore we lose the freedom, we lose the courage, we lose the hope to live life now to its fullest. As with that couple and that door that was opened up for them, we see only what is before our very eyes. We do not realize the glory that is yet to come.
The great Victor Hugo, talking once about eternal life, said that he felt that the seeds of eternal life were actually in his own heart. He wrote these magnificent words: I feel within me that future life. I am like a forest that has been razed. The new shoots are stronger and brighter. I shall most certainly rise toward the heavens. The nearer my approach to the end, the plainer is the sound of immortal symphonies, of worlds which invite me. For half a century, I have been translating my thoughts into prose and verse, history, philosophy, drama, romance, tradition, satire, ode and song. All of these things I have tried, but I feel I haven't given utterance to the thousandth part of what lies with me. When I go to the grave, I can say as others have said, “My day's work is done”; but I cannot say, “My life is done.” My work will recommence the next morning. The tomb is not a blind alley. It is a thoroughfare. It closes upon the twilight, but opens upon the dawn.
My friends, I want you to do something for me. The next day, the next time you rise and you see the sun, I want you to remember that the son also rises, and that those who have gone before us can be reunited with us. The next time you see the sunrise, I want you to remember that the son also rises and that the way that you treat your life, and the lives of others, is with dignity. I want you to remember that, the next day that you get up and see the sun, the son also rises, and that in the Father's house there are many rooms: They are there for you and for me. We do not need to wonder if Christ is raised from the dead. We believe that he is, and the son also rises. Amen.
This is a verbatim transcription of the original sermon.