Day 27 - She’s Only Mostly Dead!
1 Corinthians 15:35-58
Before we proceed with today’s devotion, I wanted to announce there’s going to be a slight shift in release schedules for these. Instead of releasing a new devotion every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, we’ll be shifting to devotions every Tuesday and Thursday. With everything going on with my church plant and other writing obligations, I feel this is the best way to manage my time and keep up with the devotional as a whole. Good news is that it means one less email in your inbox per week.
Since these devotions are now going to be relegated to only once a week, they might be longer than your average devotion too. Not all of them, but a few (like this one) will as I want to get as much spiritual meat into each one as I can to help you through the week.
Now, let’s talk about that great line from the movie The Princess Bride in which Billy Crystal’s Miracle Max proclaims, “He’s only mostly dead!”
Scripture Passage: 1 Corinthians 15:35-58
Focal Verses: So it is with the resurrection of the dead: Sown in corruption, raised in incorruption; sown in dishonor, raised in glory; sown in weakness, raised in power; sown a natural body, raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. ~ 1 Corinthians 15:42-44 (CSB)
There’s a story of my day job I talk about in my book ‘I Died Swallowing a Goldfish and Other Life Lessons from the Morgue.’ If you’ve already heard this, sorry for the repeat, but I feel it’s quite pertinent to today’s passage.
Long story short, I show up to a death scene of a middle-aged woman who was found dead on the floor of her bathroom. The death was a suspected overdose. I responded to the residence, did my scene investigation, and was about to escort my transport crew out of the house with the body. Before we could do that, however, one of the detectives on scene mentions that the family, along with the family’s pastor, wanted to say their goodbyes to her. Maybe pray over her body. I made it clear that the decedent would be in a body bag and covered in order to protect evidence. The family was okay with it, so we rolled her on the stretcher into the living room and nodded to the husband, her two near-adult children, and their pastor to come over. My transport crew and a uniformed deputy hovered close by in case they got rowdy (it happens), but the detective and I took a few steps back to watch the grieving. The family gathered around her. The pastor stood at her head and laid a hand down where her forehead would be underneath the body bag, and began to pray. As the prayer continued, it became louder, more frenzied. Charismatic tongues were in play as well (want to freak a Baptist out? Speak in tongues, let me tell you!). I was getting the heebie jeebies. But things didn’t stop there. After a few minutes, the words of their prayer coalesced into English again. Only the English portion was now just one word: Rise! Rise! Rise!
I stiffened. Had I heard them right? Were they still speaking in the tongues of angels? No, that can’t be. The word sounded too much like the English word ‘Rise’? And they continued to say it. Over and over, the word was chanted into the ceiling. Into the air. Into the sky. Each family member raised a hand in the air and repeated the word. And I knew without a doubt what they were doing. They were literally trying to raise their wife and mother and congregant from the dead!
With this realization, I glanced over to the detective and whispered, “If that woman sits up on the stretcher, there’s going to be a Kent-shaped hole in the door behind us!”
And I meant it. The dead, after all, are supposed to stay dead, right? How could I be able to do my job if there was a chance they could sit up one day and walk out of the autopsy suite? And while I have been a believer in Christ and His resurrection my whole life, coming back from the dead was always some abstract theological thing that just seems so far away. We all say we believe it’s going to happen, but when the rubber hits the road…do we really? In my situation at that scene, I’m not entirely sure I wanted it to be real at that time and place.
In today’s passage, Paul is addressing a similar skepticism among the Corinthians. There was a faction of the Jewish Sanhedrin—the Sadducees—that didn’t believe in resurrection or an afterlife in general. And as false teachers had infiltrated the church in Corinthians, I suppose some of them had similar inclinations. Resurrection from the dead is, after all, impossible. At least by human standards. By human logic and reasoning, it shouldn’t be possible.
And yet, besides Jesus Himself, we know that Peter brought someone back from the dead. And so did Paul, the writer of this particular letter. And it wasn’t just a New Testament kind of thing either. Elijah brought a child back to life way back before Jesus’ incarnation. So, the impossibility of resurrection should be thrown out the window just from those three examples, right? Truth is, no matter how many zombie movies you’ve seen and fear, there is a time coming in which Christians will be raised from the dead. And they won’t be anything like zombies. They’ll be as far removed from undead monsters as angels are from dung beetles.
In fact, in today’s passage, Paul gives us kind of a preview of it all. First and foremost? While we die within earthly bodies, we’ll be raised in heavenly bodies. Body is the key word here. They’ll still be physical, they’ll just be different from our earthly—made from dust—bodies.
We’ll die in illness, but we’ll rise in health. Sicknesses like cancer, heart disease, diabetes, etc will no longer touch us.
We’ll die missing arms, legs, eyes, or even internal organs, but we’ll rise whole. Missing parts will be renewed. Damage done to them in life will be gone. We’ll be strong again. Swift of feet. Agile of mind!
When we die, we will decompose. Some of us will skeletonize. Others still might be cremated to nothing but ash. No worries! We’ll rise fully restored! Untouchable to physical corruption ever again.
And those heavenly bodies? They’ll also be immune to spiritual corruption as well. We’ll be made whole again…as Adam and Eve were in the Garden before their deadly binge on Forbidden Fruit.
The corrupt nature of Sin’s influence on our bodies will be no more when we rise! The Curse will be lifted. The world’s spiral into destruction will never touch us again. Now that, my friends, is something to praise God for! So, why not do it now? Why not take a few minutes right now to thank Him for His defeat over Death. His conquest over Sin. And his absolute amazing grace in extending this gift to each of us. It is truly something to marvel over…don’t you think?
Father God, thank you for the resurrection promised to us at the end of all things. Thank you, Lord, for our future perfect bodies. Our future, incorruptible and heavenly bodies. Bodies of both flesh and spirit—like they are now, but whole instead of damaged. Help us God to look forward to that glorious day. The day we rise and meet your Son in the sky.