Where, O Death, is your victory?
JOE MILLER JR.

1 Corinthians 15:1-58

If we were to push Paul's metaphor of planted seed, we could envision a cemetery as a garden where physical bodies have been planted, and resurrected bodies will be raised.

The religious culture in Greco-Roman Corinth had very different world and divine perceptions than we do. They worshipped a large pantheon of gods that included the emperor. The gods were capricious and unpredictable, not loving towards humans.

The people had little knowledge and belief of a reward beyond this life. They were dualists; that is, they divided the world and the human being into good and evil. A human was composed of a good part (the soul or spirit) and the bad part, the physical body. "Heaven" would consist of the soul escaping the physical body and leaving it behind.

Therefore, the religious practice of the day centered on this life. "Salvation" was an individual task that took on various overtones. The Corinthian church seemed to respond in two distinct ways. Some of them practiced sexual immorality because bodily sin did not count, and some were ascetic because the body needed to remain pure.

Paul had to explain over and over again that the body mattered a great deal… it was the temple of God. Rather than individualism, Christians had the obligation and responsibility of loving and taking care of each other. The importance of love is what defines the church.

Perhaps this long chapter is more than one more argument. Some people think that it is the crux of the issues dividing the church.

If I reject the resurrection of the dead and think only of an ethereal soul winging its way to heaven, I just might develop a self-centered religion. My straining for heaven would involve my own efforts to overcome the evil of this world (including my physical being), and my surrounding brothers and sisters in Christ would have a diminished role.

Worldly success, health, and safety would be my expected reward for being religious. My gods could include the emperor, who would protect my physical being and provide pax (peace) Americana just like pax Romana of Paul's day.

We live in the shadow of the cross and the open tomb and hope for the future resurrection of the body. How will God bring this about? What will that body look like? Paul does not say, nor does the Bible really tell us.

We just know that this seed returns to dust/ashes, and the next one will be in glory. For that matter, how did God raise Jesus from the dead? We do not know the answer to that either… We just know that He did. How does God handle that task now? We just know that He does, and that faith makes all the difference. "Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?" Email me at newtonumc@valornet. com with your thoughts.

Joe Miller Jr. is pastor of First United Methodist Church in Newton