"By Grace, We Are What We Are"

Sermon preached by John C. Hall on Easter Sunday, March 23, 2008

Text — 1 Corinthians 15:3-10

For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures,  4 and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures,  5 and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.  6 Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died.  7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles.  8 Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.  9 For I am the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.  10 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me has not been in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them—though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.

All religious ideas, all religious experiences, beliefs, doctrines, dogma, and stories are a way of dealing with some human problem. In fact, every area of human thought is a way of dealing with a problem or concern.  Medical science is a way of dealing with sickness. Diplomacy is a way of dealing with people’s inclination to fight wars.

The resurrection of Jesus and the memories of how Mary and the rest of the disciples experienced his living presence after his death are a way of dealing with a problem too. God didn’t raise Jesus from the dead just so his life would have a happy ending. Jesus rose from the dead to deal with a problem — and the problem is death.

Not just Jesus’ death.  But our death too. And more than death in a narrow sense. The problem isn’t just that we die. The problem is: human life is unsettled.

Think about your life. You can think about it in many ways.  You can think of it as a series of opportunities. You can think of it as a series of challenges. You can think of it as a series of threats. Threats to your sense of well-being and comfort, your dignity and sense of belonging.

Don’t get me wrong.  Life is wonderful. It’s a miracle that we’re here at all. Life is full of joy and beauty. Spring is coming. Smell the flowers. Take a walk in the woods. Enjoy the sunshine. But wear sunscreen. And watch out for ticks. All the joy and beauty don’t erase the truth that we walk on shaky ground.

These Easter stories only make sense if we see them as God’s way, and the Christian way, of dealing with the instability of life.

I’m sure many of you have been following the presidential campaigns. There’s a loud cry for change. This is interesting because change is usually something we don’t want. Or if we want it, we want just a little change.

What are the changes you feel in your own life? What are the changes you feel in your body?  What changes are happening in the economy, in the way the world operates, or in your family and friendships?

Answer this, to yourself. Would you like more change?  Faster change? If you’re a high school senior or if you’re eight months pregnant, you might want to speed up the change.

But change is something we usually resist. Change — even good change — is painful. It’s a threat. It makes you feel dislocated. It can be confusing. We like familiarity.

I can’t tell you how many young mothers have told me they watched their first child, or only child, get on a school bus for the first time and started to cry. Life is fleeting. We’re not here forever. We’re mortal. Even the climate is changing.

Change is threatening because it might mean that all your effort, all your work, all you’ve tried to do with your life could be washed away like the sand on a beach.

We like a little change.  We like novelty. But too much change is painful. It means loss.

The resurrection of Jesus, the Easter event, which includes what happened to Mary and the other disciples, and what it means to us, boils down to this: What does God do with change? And what do we do with it. How do we think about it? How should we feel about it?

A long time ago, a friend, who is not a churchgoer, offered me this bargain.  She said she would come to church if I would preach a sermon with this title.  (She made up the title.)  “Life sucks, and then you die.” That was the deal. For some reason I could never bring myself to print those words in a worship bulletin.

That’s an outlook that many people have. Life sucks, and then you die.  It’s futile.  It’s painful.  And it doesn’t make any real sense. That’s a logical conclusion.  Many people reach it.

Another option is the Easter way, the Christian way. It’s a way that helps us live the kind of life most of us want to live. This way sees all life, including the troubles, change, and loss, under the canopy of God’s grace. This is the message of Jesus’ resurrection.

Yes, life is hard. There are many threats. The ground is shifting. Life can be inconvenient. Following Jesus leads us to do some things we don’t want to do.

This is Paul’s elegant summary of the whole story. If we die with Christ, we will rise with Christ. Our work will get swept away, eventually. But we will always have a place with God who is not swept away. That’s what being in Christ means.

In our passage, Paul explained how unlikely and unfitting it was that he should even be an apostle.  He had persecuted the church. Then Paul changed.  This was on the road to Damascus, was blinded by the light, and knocked off his horse. This was his conversion. Paul says he lost his life in Christ. 

We lose our lives too.  But where do we lose them?  Do we lose them in shopping, or working, or illness and the breakdown of our bodies, or something else that disappears?

Or do we love them in Christ?  In God’s transcendent love that doesn’t disappear?

Paul died in Christ.  It isn’t that Paul chose Christ.  Rather, Christ chose Paul. So he says, “By the grace of God, I am what I am.”

We can all say that. The most wretched, wounded, or bitter person can say those words, truly. We live in something bigger than we are.

The reason God raised Jesus from the dead is to help us see beyond the pain of being creatures who get swept away …and to see the joy and miracle of being creatures at all, creatures who live by God’s grace.

We all stumble.  Life includes change, loss and trouble. But God’s love in Jesus Christ doesn’t get swept away. That’s where our hope lies.

We’re all under the canopy of grace. We didn’t do anything to deserve life. We didn’t do anything to deserve the hope we have.

Like Paul, by the grace of God, we are what we are.