I declare to you, brothers and sisters, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.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. When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.”
“Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?”
The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain. (1 Corinthians 15:50-58 NIV)
Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! “Death has been swallowed up in victory.” We need that.
How would you feel if when you walked into church today, you saw a statue of the grim reaper up here in the front of church? Sound strange? I’ve seen it. One of the fastest growing religions in Mexico is the Church of Holy Death. Have you heard of it? I’ve gone to Mexico a number of times to study Spanish. On each trip, part of my schooling was to walk around the city of Puebla with a local guide. One trip, my guide was a cool, 20-year old college student. When I say cool, I mean cool! “Anything you need, anywhere you want to go, I’m your guy,” he said. So, on our second afternoon together, I said, “Let’s go visit the Church of Holy Death.” Suddenly, his face went pale. His “cool” was gone. He got quiet. “Nah, let’s not go there,” he said. But I insisted.
So we got on the bus and rode to the Church of Holy Death. When we got there, everything for two city blocks was devoted to death. Shops and grim reaper masks and candles and books. We walked to the church, and my guide said, “There, we’ve seen it. Time to go!” But I said, “No, I want to go inside.” Inside, it was like any church, with chairs and Bibles and grim reaper statues in front of church. We met the pastor. He was friendly and said, “I’m the bishop of the Church of Holy Death.” I asked him, “Why is there a church of Holy Death?” He smiled and said, “People worship the most powerful things in the world, right? What’s more powerful than death? If you want to worship the most powerful thing in life, there is nothing more powerful than death.”
He has a point, doesn’t he? When I walked into that church, I was thinking: “Who would go here?” When I walked out, I was thinking: “I can see why people go here.” What’s more powerful than death? My “cool” guide was a perfect example. He was 20-years old, full of life, eager to boast about his girlfriend and his future plans. But he was terrified of death. “What’s more powerful than death?” that man asked. He has a point. People are scared to death of death.
Are you? Our first lesson from Isaiah called death “the shroud that enfolds all peoples, the sheet that covers all nations” (Isaiah 25:7). Death covers our lives like a sheet. The threat of death is always present, isn’t it? We love our kids. So we fear having one of them taken away from us. We love our parents and grandparents. So we fear the day when they’re not here. We look in the mirror and look for bumps and spots on us. That’s what we’re told to do. Silence is interrupted by sirens. “Who is it this time?” Isn’t it true? Death is like a shroud that enfolds all peoples.
Paul described death like a scorpion. Who likes those? In our lesson, he says, “The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.” Death is like a giant scorpion who chases you with his stinger. What’s death’s stinger? Sin. Sin is what really kills. The Bible says, “The wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). How do you know you’ve sinned? “The power of sin is the law.” The law of God shows us our sins. Don’t think so? Just read through the Ten Commandments. See how far you can get without sinning. I bet you won’t make it past the 1st Commandment: “You shall have no other gods” (Exodus 20:3). Guilty! Death is the grim reaper harvesting a field of sinners.
And somehow we’re supposed to have hope? Somehow we’re supposed to go through life with confidence? How? Death stands over us and laughs: “You can’t stop me! You can’t beat me! I’m coming for you!” We might as well put the grim reaper in the front of church, right? What’s more powerful than death? Death makes us feel helpless. Afraid. Death always wins, right?
No. No, death doesn’t always win. Because Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! In the face of our fear of death, Paul makes a concession: “Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God.” It’s true that these bodies as they are right not can’t live forever. No way! But then Paul looks us in the eye—worried, anxious, fearful—and he says: “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.” Do you hear the promise? God is going to take these perishable bodies and make us live forever.
Why don’t we see that now? Why do we just see death? Well, has the trumpet sounded? Has Jesus come back on Judgment Day? Not yet. But he’s coming. And when he does, we are going to be changed. “The perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality….” When Jesus comes back, whether we’ve died or not, God is going to take this perishable body, this mortal body, and he’s going to clothe it with the imperishable, with immortality. Think of what that means: No cancer. No weakness. No tiredness. No temptations. No death. He’s going to “destroy the shroud that enfolds all peoples, the sheet that covers all nations” (Isaiah 25:7). There is life, there is immortality, waiting for you and me in heaven.
That’s why the Bible can say, “Death has been swallowed up in victory.” Can you say that with me? “Death has been swallowed up in victory!” In fact, the taunts of death will be turned against it. We can say, “‘Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?’ The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Death seems like the most powerful force in the world. But it’s not. Jesus is. “Thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
This is the message of Easter. There’s a verse in the Bible that says, “He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification” (Romans 4:25). Jesus died on the cross for every one of our sins. You are forgiven. I am forgiven. And Jesus rose from the dead to give us victory over death. To win eternal life. That’s why there’s another verse that says, “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). Whoever believes in Jesus has what? Eternal life!
Because death has been swallowed up in victory. Think of that picture. Like you swallowed your eggs this morning, that’s what Jesus has done with death. Swallowed it! Emily and I were once walking at Brazos Bend State Park in Texas, when we heard a loud sound. Startled, we looked around. Do you know what it was? An enormous alligator was swallowing a deer. The whole deer. All at once. The alligator had his mouth open wide. That deer had no chance. Swallowed up. Gone! That’s what Jesus has done with death. Death has been swallowed up in victory!
Do you know what that means? “Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, for you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.” If Jesus has swallowed up death, if there is eternal life for all believers in Jesus, what can you do? Stand firm. Let nothing move you! That’s hard. The troubles of life pound us like the waves of the ocean. One moment you’re up here, the next moment you’re down here, the next moment you’re over there. Isn’t that how you feel? Wave after wave after wave. War. Really? Sicknesses. Still? Inflation. Come on! Thrown here and there. Up and down.
But now you have a foundation. The waves are going to keep crashing, but you have a Rock. Jesus! Remember what Paul said? “I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Chris Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:37-38). Remember what Job said? After he lost his possessions and his children and his health, Job said, “I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand on the earth. 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 19:25-27). Job was saying, “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?”
How? Jesus is our hope. The commander of the U.S. Special Operations Command once gave the commencement speech at the University of Texas. In his speech he told a story about his time in Navy SEAL training. The goal of the instructors was to break those men’s wills so that only the strongest survived. In the middle of Hell Week, the recruits went into the mud. Mud up to their necks. They sat in the mud for 15 hours. Cold. Exhausted. Groaning. The instructors offered a deal: If just five of you quit, we can stop. The groans increased. You could sense that some were ready to give in. Then suddenly a voice in the back started singing. It wasn’t singing on key. In fact, it sounded downright awful, but it was singing. And then another voice joined in. And another. And soon every single man was singing. The instructors yelled and cursed at them. They threatened that if they kept singing they’d never get out of the mud. But the men kept singing. And as the now admiral later described it, “Somehow the mud seemed a little warmer, the wind a little tamer and the dawn not so far away.” Do you know what that was? Hope. Hope.
This is what our world needs: Hope! Do you know how it starts? With a single voice. In the middle of a tomb, a voice started singing. It was the angel. “Do not be afraid. He is not here; he is risen, just as he said.” Soon another voice joined in—Jesus himself: “Do not be afraid. I have risen!” Then the voices of the women: “He is risen. He is risen.” Even if no one believed them. Even if it sounded impossible: “He is risen!” Finally, the disciples caught on: “He is risen.” And their disciples and their disciples. The Pharisees couldn’t stop it. The Romans couldn’t stop. All the persecutions in the world couldn’t silence it. The devil himself can’t stop it. For 2000 years, the voice continues. Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Death has been swallowed up in victory.
God gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Last fall, we enjoyed going to Bixby high school football games. Whenever Bixby scores a touchdown, they play the same song over the loudspeakers—again and again. Anybody know what song it is? “All I do is win, win, win, no matter what!” It sounds a little arrogant, except they’ve backed it up with a 49-game winning streak. Regardless of how you feel about Bixby football or the rappers who sing that song, that’s Jesus’ promise to you at Easter: “All I do is win, win, win, no matter what!” Even in the face of death. “Thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
He gives it. That victory isn’t won by us. No way! The victory was won by Jesus on the cross. The victory was won by Jesus when he burst from the tomb. And God gives that victory to you. Not for your hard work. No. It’s a gift. A gift of God’s grace. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. To you. To Nathan. To Emily. To… There is hope in the face of death, because there is Someone more powerful than sin and death. Jesus. “Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.” Death has been swallowed up in victory!
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