Synopsis: What does it mean to have eternal hope? It means to know who we are and to unconditionally love ourselves, others, and all of the wonderful challenges life brings to help our souls grow.
Scriptures: 1 Corinthians 15:19-26
Our epistle reading for today comes from Paul’s first Letter to the Corinthians. Paul wrote this after he heard from Chloe’s people that there were problems in the church. In it, he addresses challenges to his authority, divisions within the church, unethical behavior, and issues regarding spiritual gifts.
In our selected reading, he is dealing with a doctrine issue. Some believers in the Corinthian church questioned the resurrection. Some of the believers were Jewish, and not all Jews believed in the resurrection. It was a major bone of contention between the Pharisees and Sadducees.
Other believers were Greek, and they were strongly influenced by Plato’s teachings which separated the human being into two parts: body and soul. Plato taught that the body is merely an imperfect copy of a perfect form which has always existed.
So, the Greeks tended to view the body with some degree of negativity, ranging from unimportant to evil. The idea of the resurrection of the body was not-so-appealing to them since their attitude was basically, “I can’t wait to die and be rid of this thing.”
The Jews, however, didn’t like separating people into parts. They emphasized the wholeness of who we are, and that viewpoint carried over into the Christian church. So, in this chapter, Paul discusses the doctrine of Jesus’ resurrection as well as the resurrection of all believers on the last day.
“If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.” By making this statement, Paul begins to clarify his claim that through Christ, our hope extends into all eternity. First, he has us consider what hope we would have if it were true that Jesus was not raised from the dead.
I was taught by the church of my youth that only Jesus is the Christ and that we have only this life to believe in Jesus the right way if we want a chance to get into heaven when we die. Luckily, I was a member of the only church that had it right.
I didn’t find that very comforting because I kept thinking, “How do I know for sure that my church has it right? What about all of those other churches in the world that think they have it right? How can we know for sure who is right? Why would God make something so important so confusing?”
Those who believe that only Jesus is the Christ believe only for this life, hoping to gain reward and avoid punishment in the hereafter. It’s no wonder they so zealously protect the beliefs they think are their “ticket to heaven.” I would have to agree with Paul that their state is indeed pitiable.
It is pitiable because they are living in fear! They are already in hell because they don’t understand that belief in Christ isn’t about believing in who the man Jesus was; it’s about believing in who we ALL are now and for all eternity.
If Jesus did not resurrect, then Christ is dead, and so are we. Fortunately, that is impossible, and that’s a fact of life. As Paul writes, “But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead.” Life can’t die and still be Life because Life is by definition alive. As Martin Luther has stated, “Our Lord has written the promise of resurrection, not in the books alone, but in every leaf in springtime.”
God as pure Being has always existed. Life as His Expression has also always existed. Christ is the Soul of Life. It follows then that if we are alive, then Christ is alive within us. Our soul is One with Christ. This knowledge makes us aware of our eternal life and gives us eternal hope.
Paul compares believers in Christ who have died to the first fruits of the crop after a long, hard winter. The choicest first fruits were offered to God to be blessed, but they were just the beginning of the abundance to come. All who place their faith in Christ from the time of Jesus’ resurrection until the time of his return are part of this abundance – the harvest of God’s Kingdom.
In verses 21-23, Paul writes, “For since death came through a human being, the resurrection of the dead has also come through a human being; for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ. But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ.”
Death came through a human being. We all know that Paul is referring to the story of Adam and Eve in Genesis chapter 1. Unfortunately, the literal interpretation of that Bible story has left many with the mistaken idea that we separated from God in actuality, and a woman is to blame.
We can interpret this story another way – though the lens of the evolution of human consciousness. Everything in life must evolve in order for life to continue, and Life provides whatever is needed for this evolution to occur. It’s a perfect, self-sustaining system.
Our human consciousness must evolve just like everything else in Life. Before the development of the cerebral cortex part of the brain, humans were not capable of saying to themselves, “Hey! I exist!” They had no self-awareness – no sense of “self” to worry about. That was the bliss of the Garden of Eden.
But over time, the cerebral cortex developed, and human beings became self-aware, symbolized by Adam and Eve taking a bite of the apple and suddenly becoming aware of their nakedness. God asks in verse 11, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” Now, I’m sure God, in his omniscience, didn’t really need to ask.
Since Life must evolve, human development of self-awareness wasn’t a surprise or a mistake. It’s just a troublesome stage in consciousness development – like when babies become toddlers. Suddenly, they know just enough to get themselves into big trouble but not nearly enough to stay out of it. They have no wisdom, and the only way to gain wisdom is through experience – and experience is often painful.
Parents can’t stop their children from growing up, and they can’t protect their children from all the painful experiences they need to grow in wisdom. If you’ve had children, you knew your little baby boy or girl was eventually going take those first steps. When it happened, you were overjoyed, but at the same time you probably felt like, “Uh-oh. Now we are in trouble.” I think that’s the sentiment behind God’s question.
In ancient Greek mythology, the Ouroboros, the snake eating its own tail, is the symbol for eternity, rebirth, and the unity of everything. It’s a symbol for the Cycle of Life. So, Eve did not sin when she listened to the serpent. The serpent was simply the Cycle of Life within her moving her evolution forward into the next stage – the development of a personal self.
You see, in the Garden of Eden, All is One. Adam and Eve experienced the bliss of this Unity, but they didn’t experience it knowingly. They were blissfully ignorant. Our task is to become blissfully knowing – to both experience and know this Oneness. We can’t know oneness without also knowing separation – just like we can’t know “hot” without “cold.” So, it was necessary to leave the Garden and enter into a world where we can experience separation.
When I was struggling with severe anxiety, I saw a picture of myself as a baby playing with a little tug-boat with an expression of complete joy on my face. I was in a state of total bliss! I wondered, “What happened to me? Where did all that joy go? Why am I so miserable now?”
Now, I know why. I had not yet developed a sense of self to worry about. Then at some point in childhood, we all begin to realize that we have a private inner world of thoughts and feelings. As we grow up, we take on beliefs about ourselves regarding our gender, nationality, race, religion, social status, occupation, and many more burdens.
We start out as infants having only a few demands from life – food, milk, warmth, and a clean diaper. But as we grow older, we place more and more demands on life. Our false beliefs about ourselves and the many demands we place on life cause us suffering. Yet, this suffering is what wakes us up! It’s the grist for our spiritual mill.
The Lord, through his great love for all humanity, willingly sacrificed himself to show us the way out. He loved us so much that he wanted to be the last human being on this planet to ever experience suffering. Since his loving sacrifice, many have followed him – a harvest of ripe souls.
Paul writes in verses 24-26, “Then comes the end, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father, after he has destroyed every ruler and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death.”
Once we have transcended the mind of me and enter into the Mind of Christ, we can no longer sin because we know that we are One. We know that whatever we do to others, we do to ourselves. That awareness destroys sin. Love is only true ruler, authority, and power. When Love rules, no other ruler, authority, or power will exist. And when Love rules, the idea of “the enemy” will be destroyed because there is no such thing.
Death is real only to those who believe that they are nothing more than human. Birth is just as much an illusion as death. The forms coming into and going out of the physical realm is not birth and death. It is simply the snake eating its tail – the Cycle of Eternal Life.
We are triune beings of body-mind-soul. All three parts are eternally united in Christ. But what about the body? Don’t we shed the body when we leave this physical world?
Well, after Jesus resurrected, he had a body, but it wasn’t like the body he had before. It was different. He could instantly change his appearance if he wanted to disguise or reveal himself. He could appear or disappear at will. But remember there was a time before his death when his body was different: on the day of his Transfiguration on Mount Tabor in the presence of Peter, James, and John.
Does that mean that this body is an imperfect copy of a perfect form? Perhaps. But I don’t agree with the Greek Corinthians that this imperfect body isn’t important or that it is evil. It’s like looking at your reflection in the mirror. If you hate your reflection, how can you not hate yourself? Hatred corrodes the quantity and quality of life, so we must unconditionally love the whole package of who we are.
What does this mean for us in these times? We must leave behind all thoughts of separation – of you and me – and begin thinking only in terms of “us” – “us” meaning all humanity. What we need most today is compassion – compassion for ourselves and for others – because we’re all in this mess together.
Life is wonderful! And it’s messy. It’s a wonderful mess! It’s wonderful because we are magnificent, eternal beings who cannot ultimately be harmed by anything that happens to us here. It’s all good because it’s all opportunities for the soul to learn and grow. Our souls are in very good hands.
It’s messy because we’re all in different places on the path to Christ Consciousness. Some of us are further along than others. Our different beliefs and values can be far more accurately blamed on this than on anything else – like race, religion, or politics.
We cut young people slack when they do stupid things because we can see that they are young. We can easily forgive them because we understand that they don’t have the wisdom to act differently. But we can’t see where anyone’s soul is on the ages-long path to Christ consciousness.
Just because someone is old doesn’t mean he or she has an old soul, and a young person doesn’t necessarily have a young soul. We can all probably think of a child who seems wise beyond his or her years and a grown-up who we think should be old enough to know better.
So, when we hear someone spewing negativity, fear, or hatred or we see him or her acting in hurtful ways, instead of entertaining judgmental thoughts, we can think to ourselves, “It must feel awful to be so unhappy all the time.” Or “It must be really painful to be haunted by all that fear.” Or “It must really hurt to constantly burn with hatred like that.”
There is nothing we can do to change them. Suffering will wake them up. When they can’t stand the suffering anymore, they may then come to us seeking to know the secret to our peace and joy. Until then, any attempt to change them will only add more suffering to the world.
So, we can cut everyone slack, including ourselves, because we all are all suffering – more or less. And it’s not entirely our fault; it’s by design. Everyone truly is doing the best they can at every moment with the level of wisdom at their disposal. The only choice we have is to be willing to learn whatever WE need to learn to stop causing ourselves and others suffering.
We must also change how we relate to others and life itself by transforming our demands into preferences. When we demand to get what we want or to not get what we don’t want, when we don’t get what we want or get what we don’t want, we get mad. When we don’t get what we simply prefer, we don’t suffer. But when we do get it, we are delighted!
When I demand that someone treat me nicely, when he or she does not, I get mad. But when I simply prefer to be treated nicely, I don’t get mad when he or she doesn’t treat me nicely. But when he or she does treat me nicely, I am delighted!
When I demand that I don’t get stuck in traffic, when I get stuck in traffic. I get mad. But when I simply prefer not to get stuck in traffic, I don’t get mad when I get stuck in traffic. But when I am not stuck in traffic, I am delighted!
You see, having preferences instead of demands makes it so much easier to unconditionally love others and the whole of life because then all people and life can really do to us is delight us! Nothing makes us mad. Then it’s easy to remain united with All of Life because we’re not pushing pieces of it outside ourselves in order to make them objects of manipulation – to get what we demand.
If we believe that we are One in Christ, then we believe that we are One with all of Life – eternally joined with everything else that is alive, and there is no separation. Then we unconditionally love it all: ourselves, others, and all of the challenges life brings to us to help our souls grow.
So, in every moment of our lives, let us do our best not to choose separation. If we do at times, it’s okay. We’re only human. But let us grow more fully into the awareness of what we are choosing. We are choosing suffering. Thanks be to the Lord; we now know that have another choice.
We can think about love, and talk about love, and preach about love all we want. But peace will come to earth only when we all choose to live love.
Let’s pray together: Lord, we are willing to enter into the Mind of Christ. We are willing to release our mistaken ideas about ourselves and our insatiable demands on life and to unconditionally love ourselves, others, and the whole of life. We are willing to experience all our soul has designed for us so that we can turn away from all that keeps us from experiencing the peace and joy of our True Nature. We know that you are always with us, Lord, so we cannot fail. AMEN.
Resources
Carlson, Richard. “Commentary on 1 Corinthians 15:19-26.” Workingpreacher.org, 27 Mar. 2016, www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/resurrection-of-our-lord-3/commentary-on-1-corinthians-1519-26
Donovan, Richard N. “Biblical Commentary (Bible study) 1 Corinthians 15:19-26.” Sermonwriter.org, sermonwriter.com/biblical-commentary/new-testament-1-corinthians-1519-26/
Keyes, Ken Jr. Handbook to Higher Consciousness. 5th ed. Living Love Center, 1975.
Lake, Gina. “Cycles of the Soul: Life, Death, and Beyond.” Kindle ed.
Moore, J. Daniel. “The Real Meaning of the Garden of Eden — it’s Not at All What You Think.” Medium.com, 6 Nov. 2017, medium.com/the-worldview-of-a-millennial-eccentric/the-real-meaning-of-the-garden-of-eden-72f3292924bc
Ringe, Sharon H. “Commentary on 1 Corinthians 15:19-26.” Workingpreacher.org, 4 Apr. 2010. www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/resurrection-of-our-lord-3/commentary-on-1-corinthians-1519-26-2
Rev. Joan M. Kistler 