Easter Sermon (1 Cor 15:42): Built to Last II

BUILT TO LAST (1 CORINTHIANS 15:42-44)

Aging is no smiling matter when you are past middle-age. When my wife’s nephew from Hong Kong stayed with us for his two years of junior college, my age and status dawned on me abruptly. When we were heading home one day we ended up behind an annoying man who was driving at snail’s pace. When I finally had a chance to overtake him the nephew had a good look at the driver and commented, “No wonder, he’s an uncle! 原來是個阿淑！”

I took my eyes off the road to glance at the man and I remarked to my wife, “Hey, he’s our age. He’s calling us that!” He was quiet going home. Probably he saw us in a new light and category from that point on. Waiting once for him at the school parking lot with lots of time on my hands, I noticed how gray or white hairs have started creeping onto my hands. At home, I looked at the mirror and saw my sideburns and even chest hair catching up! The only thing remaining unscathed is the mustache or face hair!

Also, there is the problem of reading. At age 45, I officially jumped from using a 10- point to a 12-point font for my sermon notes. This was necessary since I refused a doctor’s suggestion two years earlier to wear bifocals!

When you are in middle age and advancing, you cannot help but wonder what the resurrection body looks like. Most Bible readers have come across 1 Corinthians with Paul contrasting the regular “body” with the body of resurrected believers. I have read it many times but have never gotten around to discover what it means.

The Resurrected Body is Free of Death
42 So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; (1 Cor. 15:42-44)

I read an interesting USA Today article on what aging does to the heart, brain and other body parts:
Heart, arteries: Blood vessels stiffen with age and can become clogged with fatty deposits. Clogged arteries can reduce blood flow to the heart and other body systems.
Brain: The aging brain is lower at processing information, has more trouble multitasking and might have difficulty remembering things such as names.
Lungs: Lung tissue gets less elastic with age, but even at age 80 and beyond, people still have the lung capacity to go about their day-to-day activities.
Muscles, joints: People lose muscle mass as they get older, a process that can be slowed by regular workouts, including weight training.
Sight, hearing: Starting at age 40 or so, many people have trouble reading the fine print or making out the menu in a dark restaurant. And starting around 60, many people experience age-related hearing loss. They might have trouble hearing higher-frequency noises or hearing all the words in a conversation, especially if there’s background noise (“Don’t Let Age Get the Best of You,” USA Today 10/24/06).

Golda Meir said, “Old age is like a plane flying through a storm. Once you're aboard, there's nothing you can do.”

The Greek word for “perish” occurs nine times in the Bible. NIV has translated it four times as “perishable” (1 Cor. 15:42, 50, Col 2:22, 2 Peter 2:12), twice as “destruction” (Gal 6:8, 2 Peter 2:12), and once each for “decay” (Rom 8:21), “corruption” (2 Peter 1:4) and “depravity” (2 Peter 2:19). Strong’s suggests the sense of “pining and wasting away.” Properly speaking, the word means “to shrivel or wither, i.e. to spoil (like food)” and generally it means “to ruin.”

But make no mistake, when the context refers to the body, flesh and blood, specifically the two times the word appears in 1 Corinthians, it means “to perish” (1 Cor. 15:42, 50). Our body is nice to look at and beautiful to behold, especially when you are young, but it bends out of shape and forms into another shape when you do not exercise, when you have a baby, when you have an office job, when you eat fast food, when you drink soda, when you approach middle age, when you watch a lot of TV, when you play a lot of video games and when you come from fat genes. Some even suggest that a time comes when your body gains weight just by drinking water!

As years go by, the body spoils like a rotting piece of meat and a decomposing piece of flesh, fermenting like a piece of stinky tofu. There is no holding it back, turning back the clock or going back “somewhere in time.” No writing says it quite as eloquently and passionately as Psalms 90:10: “The length of our days is seventy years-- or eighty, if we have the strength; yet their span is but trouble and sorrow, for they quickly pass, and we fly away.” In no time, man feels and acts his age; they look and talk like their parents. Soccer, basketball and running give way to aerobics, walking and swimming. Before you know it we return to dust.

The Greek word for “imperishable” occurs slightly less – eight times in the Bible. NIV translated it thrice as “immortality” (Rom 2:7, 1 Cor. 15:53, 2 Tim 1:10), twice as “imperishable” (1 Cor. 15:42, 50), and once each for “undying” (Eph 6:24) and “seriousness” (Titus 2:7). The resurrected body is not susceptible to death, decay and decomposition. It is a body brimming with life and bursting with energy, full of promise and potential, always primed and passionate, never expiring or extinguishing.

The Resurrected Body is Free of Depravity
43 it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; (1Cor. 15:43)

If you are not convinced of how low men have fallen, all you have to do is to read the papers. There are sexual predators in the neighborhood, on the Internet and in the most unsuspecting places, even in trusted institutions. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales says there is an epidemic of child porn on the Internet. Little girls are kidnapped off the streets and raised as kidnappers’ kids. Women that hacked mothers to death for her newborn kid. Adults who killed their spouse, children and employers. Youth carrying guns and shooting children. Athletes on steroids. Greedy CEOs. Corrupt politicians. Nuclear proliferation. Environmental pollution. No news may be bad for the papers, but for us, “No news is good news.”

Nowadays, everyone has a right to practice their immorality: abortion rights, homosexual rights, drug rights. A youth in trouble once complained to me, “Marijuana is illegal only because it is banned.” People insist on the right to practice wrong. They say the constitution protects their right to do that. As creepy and bizarre as it gets, we are not too far from copyright infringement rights, hackers’ rights, molester rights and lawlessness rights.

The Greek word for “dishonor” occurs seven times. NIV translated it as “dishonor” twice (1 Cor. 15:43, 2 Cor. 6:8), once only for the words “shameful” (Rom 1:26), “common” (Rom 9:21), “disgrace” (1 Cor. 11:14), “weak” (2 Cor. 11:21) and “ignoble” (2 Tim 2:20).

This Greek “atimia” is from two words, the Greek “a” for “no” (as in atheism) and the Greek “ti-me” for “honor.” So “dishonor” does not mean lacking honor, falling short or having less, but “no honor” or completely absent or being shameless. This word is specifically used only by Paul in the Bible, including reference to the shameful lusts of the body (Rom 1:26).

If “perishable” refers to the longevity of man, “dishonor” refers to his morality. Isaiah 64:6 says, “All our righteous acts are like filthy rags.”

The word “dishonor” means infamy, humiliation, disgrace. It is a reproach to God - disgusting, offensive, vile, odious and reprehensible. There is no redeemable value, no “new low” men did not reach with every passing day and generation.

The contrast with dishonor is not the word “honor,” but the word “glorious.” In Greek arrangement, the two words “glory and honor” (Rom 2:10, Heb 2:7, 2:9, 1 Peter 1:7, Rev 4:9, 19:1, 21:24, 21:26) outnumber “honor and glory” (1 Tim. 1:7, 2 Peter 1:17, Rev 5:12, 5:13) 8 to 4, or double. Honor is acceptable and adequate but glory is admirable and excellent; honor is sweet and satisfying but glory is splendid and spectacular; honor is worthwhile, but glory is wondrous; honor is good, but glory is great and grand; and honor is pleasing, but glory is perfect. Glory is majestic, magnificent and miraculous. The Greek word for glory appears 163 times in the Bible compared to 43 times the word “honor.” In essence, there is “glorious reward” to the word “glory,” but there is only “honorable mention” to the word “honor.”

The Resurrected Body is Free of Diseases
it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; (1 Cor. 15:43)

After asserting man’s brevity on earth and his assailing his decadence, Paul questions man’s potency.

In the past decade or so the general public is more aware of the threat of diseases from animals. Modern man’s new threat comes from chickens, ducks, cows, and birds, now the H5N1 bird flu. Man’s vulnerability to diseases is as old as time, minus the publicity and media.

National Geographic magazine for its cover (Oct. 2005) had a man in plastic sheets peering at readers, with the ominous title “The Next Killer Flu,” making the claim that “sooner or later a deadly virus that can jump from birds to people will sweep the globe.”

The magazine tracked the three times in the 20th century that a new flu virus had spread through the world’ s population. The most deadly was the Spanish flu in 1918-19 that killed 50-100 million people worldwide. The Asian flu that emerged in Southern China in 1957 was responsible for 1 million deaths when a bird and a human flu swapped genes. The result was a new and deadly virus. The next one was dubbed the Hong Kong flu because it was first seen there in 1970, causing the lives of 750,000 worldwide.

Calculating the next killer flu to the sparse 1918 population, experts say the death toll for today’s dense population could range from 7.4 million to an alarming 180-360 million! No emergency preparedness would suffice. On day one of a pandemic, antiviral drugs are distributed, but it takes three months to develop a safe vaccine and 250 days to get it into the market. (“Tracking the Next Killer Flu,” National Geographic, Oct. 2005)

To make things worse, a survey of 308 public health workers in Maryland and found 46.2% said they would be unlikely to report for work during a pandemic. Two-thirds of employees (66%) felt they'd put themselves at risk if they reported to work in a pandemic. Less than a third believe they would play an important role in the health agency during a local outbreak. (In pandemic study, health workers stay home USA Today 4/18/2006)

The Greek word “weakness” occurs 24 times in the Bible. NIV popularly but generically translated it as “weakness” 14 times (Rom 6:19, 8:26, 1 Cor. 2:3, 15:43, 2 Cor. 11:30, 12:5, 12:9, 12:9, 12:10, 13:4, Heb 4:15, 5:2, 7:28, 11:34) but the rest of the 10 translations tell us exactly what it is – thrice for “sicknesses” (Luke 5:15, John 11:4, Acts 28:9), twice for “infirmities” (Matt 8:17, Luke 13:12) and “illnesses” (Gal 4:13, 1 Tim 5:23) and once for “diseases” (Luke 8:2), “crippled” (Luke 13:11) and the terrible translation of “invalid” (John 5:5). Most of its occurrences in the gospels refer to the people who came to Jesus with their physical ailments, but in Paul’s usage it has been reduced to abstract weaknesses.

On the other hand, the resurrected body is powerful or “dunamis” in Greek, the precursor for the English words “dynamite” or “dynamic.” The resurrected body is a potent and invulnerable body, free from infections, germs, diseases, virus, syndrome, disorders and frailties. It is not subjected to mental illness, physical defect, psychological problems, pre-natal problems, genetic condition and vitamin deficiency. It is a body sound and sharp in mind and spirit and body.

The Resurrected Body is Free of Deficiency
44 it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body (1 Cor. 15:44)

This Greek clause – “psuchikos” for physical and “soma” for body, is quite different from the regular “soma” or “body” – in reference to the fleshly body (Col 1:22) and “somatikos” – in reference to physical training (1 Tim 4:8), both denoting the physical body.

The word used here - natural body - means natural or sensual nature of man. Human nature is an apt translation, the things we talk or speak, the way we think or reason, and the way we act or operate. The most Christlike, godly and complete person on earth is still human, fallible, and short of perfection, mired in mistakes, and marked by inconsistencies. The human element or human touch is not much to begin with, not all it’s made to be.

The words of the Bible on the human heart and human nature are as good as new. Jesus exposes 13 things, found in Mark 7:21-22: “For from within, out of men's hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly.” False testimony is added to Matthew’s list (Matt 15:19).

Paul had 13 more in Galatians 5:19-21: “The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality (old), impurity and debauchery (old); idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like.” In Ephesians 4:31 he added four more: bitterness, rage (old) and anger, brawling and slander (old), along with every form of malice.” And three more from Colossians: “filthy language” (Col. 3:8), lust, and evil desires (Col3:5). Altogether, 34 and counting!

The spiritual body, however, is not a slave to these human flaws, faults and failures - failure to rise to the occasion, to do what is right and to be good to others.

Conclusion: The greatest cancer, the cancer of all cancers, the mother of all cancer, is death. God has promised believers a body free of physical death, moral depravity, bodily diseases and personal defect. The only piece of good news about old age is that in Christ there is a brand new life to live for, to look forward to. There is hope for tomorrow. There is eternal life after everyday life. This is a “sincere” body. It will be an unharmed, uncontaminated and uncompromising body.