The dead shall rise

In that day this song will be sung in the land of Judah:

We have a strong city; God makes salvation its walls and ramparts. Open the gates that the righteous nation may enter, the nation that keeps faith. You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast, because he trusts in you. Trust in the LORD forever, for the LORD, the LORD, is the Rock eternal…

Yes, LORD, walking in the way of your laws, we wait for you; your name and renown are the desire of our hearts. My soul yearns for you in the night; in the morning my spirit longs for you. When your judgments come upon the earth, the people of the world learn righteousness…

LORD, you establish peace for us; all that we have accomplished you have done for us. O LORD, our God, other lords besides you have ruled over us, but your name alone do we honor…

But your dead will live; their bodies will rise. You who dwell in the dust, wake up and shout for joy. Your dew is like the dew of the morning; the earth will give birth to her dead. Go, my people, enter your rooms and shut the doors behind you; hide yourselves for a little while until his wrath has passed by. See, the LORD is coming out of his dwelling to punish the people of the earth for their sins. The earth will disclose the blood shed upon her; she will conceal her slain no longer (Isaiah 26:1-4, 8-9, 12-13, 19-21).

What do we know about heaven? We know that God rules the universe from heaven; in Psalm 103 we read "The LORD has established his throne in heaven, and his kingdom rules over all." We know that there is true safety in heaven, because Jesus said "But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal" (Matthew 6:20). We know that angels live in heaven; Jesus also said "See that you do not look down on one of these little ones. For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven" (Matthew 18:10). Jesus is there to welcome us, as Stephen saw in a vision just before his death: "But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. "Look," he said, "I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God" (Acts 7:55-56). It is a home for us; Jesus promised "In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you" (John 14:2). It is a place of rest from our earthly struggle with sin; "Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on…they will rest from their labor, for their deeds will follow them" (Revelation 14:13). It is a place where we will serve God: John saw in his revelation that "The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the [heavenly] city, and his servants will serve him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light" (Revelation 22:3-5). And of course, it is the place where we will worship God for saving us from evil: "Then I heard what sounded like a great multitude, like the roar of rushing waters and like loud peals of thunder, shouting: "Hallelujah! For our Lord God Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory!" (Revelation 19:6-7). Heaven is a wonderful place; on the cross, Jesus said to the repentant thief "I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise" (Luke 23:43).

Heaven is the goal of every Christian’s life. Although we are by nature afraid of death, we know that death is worth going through in order to be held in our Savior’s waiting arms in heaven. No matter how good life has been to us, we all carry the scars inflicted by betrayal, disappointment, sickness and tragedy. There comes a point in the Christian’s life when he says "Enough. Lord, I’m ready. Take me into your eternal kingdom." We all long for heaven as the reward for surviving a lifetime of battling sin as a soldier in God’s army.

So why should we look forward to the resurrection of the dead? Isn’t heaven good enough for us? After a lifetime of struggle and pain, why would anyone want to live again? Just think of what sin has done to life in this world. Wars and terrorism. Poverty and hunger. Miscarriages and abortions. Weeds and drought. AIDS and cancer. Alzheimer’s and heart disease. Diabetes and cataracts. Arthritis and mental retardation. Crime and drugs. Rust and mold. Moths and termites. The list goes on and on.

There are many people who believe in reincarnation, the idea that you live life on this earth over and over again. Who would want to believe in such a thing? Would you want to risk being reborn into an abusive home? Would you want to face the terrors of going on a first date again? Would you want to bury another parent or spouse or child? Would you want to face another layoff, or live through more days of borderline poverty? Would you want to see more loved ones go through divorce, or suffer it yourself? Would you want to grow old, lose your sight or hearing, or face death again? Coming back for another life doesn’t seem like anything to get excited about.

Yet Jesus rose from the dead; Paul writes "But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep" (1 Corinthians 15:20). It was important that Jesus rise, to show His power over death. Death has a claim on all of us from the moment that our lives begin; David writes, "Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me" (Psalm 51:5). Sin is the bringer of death; James writes "sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death" (James 1:15). On our own, we have no way to successfully resist the sin which rots us from the inside. Our sinfulness distorts our thinking, so that we cannot see how to live a life that would please our holy God. So God sent His perfect Son Jesus to be born of human flesh by Mary, but also by the Holy Spirit of God; by such a birth, Jesus was born sinless. Since Jesus was both true God and perfect Man, He could do two things for us. As perfect Man, He could lead a perfect life; as true God, He could give that perfect life infinite value. Jesus lived a perfect life of infinite value so that it could replace all of our sin-tainted lives and satisfy God’s expectations of us. As the perfect Man, Jesus loved us so much that He suffered and died to pay to price of God’s anger at our sins. Yet as true God, Jesus’ loving sacrifice for us also had infinite worth; no matter how much sin this world has known, the value of Jesus’ sacrificing love is greater. Jesus took every bit of His heavenly Father’s holy anger that was directed at us upon Himself; there is no anger left in God for those embraced in Jesus’ arms. Jesus rose from the dead, because His love is greater than all the death our sins have earned.

Why did Jesus do all this? We know that Jesus loves us, but what is purpose of His suffering, death, and resurrection? Jesus said "I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full" (John 10:10). Our God is the God of love, and God’s love is a giving love. "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life" (John 3:16). The reason that Jesus came into this world on our behalf was to give us life. For Jesus, death was only a temporary situation; the same is true for us. And while it is true that our spirits live on in heaven after our bodies die, this isn’t the way God intended for us to be! In Genesis chapter 2, how did God create the first man, Adam? Did God create a soul, and then send it down to earth in search of a body? No! This is how God created Adam: "the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being." Adam became alive when God put life into flesh. And the same is true of every baby ever since. Each time a child is conceived in a woman’s womb, it is a new, unique creation of God, a living being who God loves and cares for personally. There are no ‘baby souls’ up in heaven waiting for the next available body, nor are there any souls of the dead waiting in line for another chance at life. When a man and a woman come together, God uses their act of love to bestow the gift of a new life; a new person for both Jesus and the parents to love.

God never intended for Adam and Eve to die; God never intended for our souls to be torn from our bodies at death. This is why death terrifies us so much—we know, in the core of our being, that separating the soul from the body is wrong. And although Jesus has saved our souls from eternal death in hell, God is not quite done yet. Jesus came back to life from death not only to prove His victory over death, but to extend that hope to us as well. God promises that, after the Day of Judgment, we will physically rise from our graves: "But your dead will live; their bodies will rise. You who dwell in the dust, wake up and shout for joy." This is no empty promise; Jesus has proven His power to call the dead back to life. In John 11 we read these words: "Lord," Martha said to Jesus, "if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask." Jesus said to her, "Your brother will rise again." Martha answered, "I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day." Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?" "Yes, Lord," she told him, "I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who was to come into the world"… When Jesus saw [Mary] weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. "Where have you laid him?" he asked. "Come and see, Lord," they replied. Jesus wept…Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance. "Take away the stone," he said. "But, Lord," said Martha, the sister of the dead man, "by this time there is a bad odor, for he has been there four days." Then Jesus said, "Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?" So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, "Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me." When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, "Lazarus, come out!" The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face. Jesus said to them, "Take off the grave clothes and let him go."

Jesus wept when He came to Lazarus’ grave. He wept because He knew that man was not created to die. Even though we believers are welcome in heaven, God wants us to live the lives He always intended for us to have. So God has promised that our souls and bodies will be reunited, together forever as they were meant to be. But these won’t be our bodies as we have them now, full of disease and scars and the effects of aging. No, our bodies will be free of the effects of sin; Paul writes "Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed-- in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality" (1 Coeinthians 15:51-53). In Philippians chapter 3 Paul adds "But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body." Nor will we be living in a world corrupted by sin. Jesus said "Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away" (Matthew 24:35). The earth will be replaced with a world perfectly pleasing to God and His people; Peter writes "But in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness" (2 Peter 3:13). We don’t know what our life will be like in this new, perfect, eternal world. We know that it will be different, because Jesus said of it "At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven" (Matthew 22:30). But we do know that we will be alive, free from sin and sickness and fear of hurt. We will be with our Savior, who will rule us in unending love. And we will be reunited forever with all our faith-filled loved ones who are enjoying heaven right now.

All of this—forgiveness, heaven, a perfect body on a perfect earth, eternal life with Jesus—is ours by God’s gift of faith. When we hear or read God’s word, the Holy Spirit builds faith in our hearts. Faith that knows grief over our sins, faith that begs Jesus for forgiveness, faith that has confidence that our Savior has repaired our relationship with His heavenly Father. God not only gives us the gift of faith and the salvation we receive through it, God also gives us gifts to strengthen our faith. God gives us churches where we can hear His word preached every week. God gives us copies of His Bible so that we can study His word in groups or alone at home. God gives us Holy Baptism to give us a visible seal of His promised salvation. Jesus even gives us His own body and blood through the bread and wine of Holy Communion. He gives us this Communion so that our faith may be strengthened; He also gives us Communion so that we have unity with all our fellow believers, living and dead. When you come to eat and drink at the Lord’s Table, you are united at table, through Jesus, with all the loved ones separated from you by miles and years—you are at table with your Lord and your family, even those in heaven. All these gifts God gives you, because He loves you and wants to make certain that you never leave His side.

On this year's remembrance of the saints, I ask you to not be sad. Your departed loved ones are not dead, but only sleeping. They are resting comfortably in the arms of their savior, as you too will do by faith one day. And while you wait with the Church for Christ to come again into the world, this time in glory, I remind you of the words of Job: "And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God; I myself will see him with my own eyes--I, and not another. How my heart yearns within me!" (Job 19:26-27)