The First Fruits and the Last Enemy Sermon for First Christian Church of Decatur, Georgia Easter Sunday, April 8, 2007 James L. Brewer-Calvert, Pastor Texts: 1 Corinthians 15: 19-26 19 If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied. 20 But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died. 21 For since death came through a human being, the resurrection of the dead has also come through a human being; 22 for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ. 23 But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. 24 Then comes the end, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father, after he has destroyed every ruler and every authority and power. 25 For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. 26 The last enemy to be destroyed is death. [Right before the sermon our Mass Choir will sing: Hallelujah from Mount of Olives by Beethoven.] Praise the Lord in holy songs of joy. Ludwig Van Beethoven s Hallelujah chorus is not as well known as Handel s. I know of no stories of kings being moved to stand throughout the chorus. Yet Beethoven s interpretation is as challenging spiritually as it is musically. Beethoven envisions angels and humans uniting, joining together in joy, forming an all universe mass choir to praise God s Almighty Son. The world may look at the cross and see only foolishness, grief, and death. Beethoven sees with the eyes of the faith of one who has encountered God. Beethoven invites us to gaze at the cross on Mount of Olives and sing to the Lord for what we encounter in Christ: joy, hope, new life. A few minutes ago we lifted up together en masse the 100 th Psalm: Make a joyful noise to the LORD, all the earth. Worship the LORD with gladness; come into his presence with singing. For the LORD is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations. (Psalm 100, vs. 1-2, 5) Give yourself permission in your life to sing for joy because the Lord is faithful to all generations. God s steadfast love endures forever. The Lord is good.
We can count on this. On this you can trust: God is good, for the love of God endures forever. This is a spiritual, practical, and everlasting guarantee. Christ guarantees it. The good news of Easter is that Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died. (v. 20) Paul said this. Paul s name used to be Saul, but on the road to Damascus he had an encounter, a revelation of Jesus Christ and his life was turned from one of hurting and persecuting to helping and healing. Paul changed his name and his ways of seeing and being. Life got so much better. Have an encounter with God, and you will see for yourself. Paul found joy as he got lost in wonder, love and praise. Paul says that the good news of Easter is that Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died. (v. 20) He wrote this in a letter to his friends in Corinth. The year was 55 AD, and Paul was in Ephesus. He had helped to start the church in Corinth, pouring out his faith and love for two years there, building up the church before going to start churches elsewhere. But in Ephesus word came to him of troubles in Corinth. Soon three church members visited Paul and told him all about the goings on. You bet they did. He got an earful. What the Corinthians were going though wasn t so unique. It was similar to the challenges we encounter in human nature and Christian community. In First Corinthians, Paul addresses cliques, boasting, sex without commitment, lawsuits, marriage, divorce, idolatry, selfishness, and spirituality. So he wrote words of encouragement and counsel, sometimes speaking his mind, sometimes speaking for God. (You know, there is a difference.) First Corinthians reads like a collection of greatest hits of systematic theology. He reminds them and us that the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. (1 Cor. 1:18)
Paul wrote: For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me. (1 Cor. 11: 23-24) Paul wrote: Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love. (1 Cor. 13: 4-6, 13) And then Paul s letter to the church in Corinth shifts gears in Chapter 15, moving from a comfortable cruising third gear into overdrive. He changes from talking about the here and now and starts to look ahead, boldly visioning a future when bodies are laid in cold tombs and voices of friends cease to be heard. Paul draws upon a metaphor in his use of first fruits. The good news of Easter is that Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died. (v. 20) First fruits is harvest imagery. Hmmmm harvest imagery. I always need to be very careful when talking about farming and harvesting. You see, one autumn in the mid-1990s Union Christian Church in western Tennessee invited me to preach in a Sunday evening service. As I drove by corn farm after farm along the way I realized that the corn stalks were a nice golden brown. The fields looked ripe and ready for harvesting. I rewrote the sermon as I drove and was raring to go when I stepped into the pulpit. The fields are ready! One can see the corn is ready for plucking I proclaimed. The streets are ready, and the laborers are provided! Go out, my friends, and pull in the harvest God has prepared! I was surprised by their lack of enthusiasm for such an energetic and profound message. Afterward a kindly elder with calloused hands pulled me aside and said, Preacher, we ve had a bit of a drought this fall. We d like to have a harvest to pull in, but the corn is brown because it s all dried up.
Well, ever since I ve been careful with harvest imagery. We re safe with this one, though. There is a guarantee. When you see the first daffodil of spring, you know that more daffodils will follow. First fruits are a signal that it s almost harvest time; the full harvest can be relied on to follow. Having been raised from the dead as the first fruit, the first example, Jesus Christ is a divine guarantee that the entire harvest will follow. Paul presents Christ as a down payment in which we will all share. The gospel of the resurrection is the guarantee of the believer s own resurrection. The good news of Easter is that all generations will be made alive in Christ Jesus. It s like having a permanent Post-It Note stuck on your heart that reads: Gone to our Creator s house to prepare your place; will be back soon to pick you up. Signed, Jesus Another imagery Paul lifts up in First Corinthians is the divine order of God s salvation. Jesus resurrection is a critical chapter in an ever unfolding story of love. Our story goes back to Adam and Eve, back to the Garden, back the start of Creation and the human family. The story goes forward, advancing onward to the 2 nd Advent, the final triumph of God. God will win. God will win in God s own time. Rest assured that the final victory is assured. Although the final victory is assured, that final victory has not taken place. What Easter continues to promise is that not all battles have been fought and won, but that God s power has assured that the final victory will be God s. (Beverly Gaventa, p. 272) We can join with John of Patmos and celebrate the vision of the final victory over the last enemy and all the enemies of good and righteousness. Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. 2 And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them as their God; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them;
4 he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away. 5 And the one who was seated on the throne said, See, I am making all things new. (Revelation 21:1-5) The Book of Revelation is well named..christianity is a revealed religion. You can t see it until it is revealed, given to you, until one has experienced the gift of the presence of the Risen Christ, and then one s eyes get into focus. That is Easter. The good news of Easter wasn t just that Jesus was raised from the dead. It was that he was raised for us. He returned to his friends, revealed himself to them, and enabled them to see and believe. (Will Willimon, Pulpit Resource, p. 15) I believe that deep life changing Christian belief is based not on arguments and reasons but upon encounter with the Risen Christ. (Willimon, p. 16) One beautiful day there is a knock on St. Peter s door. He looks out and sees a woman standing there. St. Peter is about to welcome her to heaven when she suddenly disappears. A short time later there is another knock. St. Peter opens the door and sees the same woman. Again, just as he is about to welcome her she begins to fade away. Wait a minute! said St. Peter. Are you playing games with me? Noooooo! her distant voice replies. I m in a hospital and they keep resuscitating me! As Christians, we can laugh at death. For us, death is not the joyless end of our lives. Death is the beginning of endless joy. Our final exit here will be our grandest entrance there. (Barbara Johnson, pp. 93-94) Our last breath on earth is followed immediately by our first breath in heaven. The promise of heaven, the assurance of life everlasting, the gospel guarantee of the resurrection, is what empowers us to face with courage the everyday, here and now, anything that comes our way on earth.
Live in confidence of the salvation that awaits us all. With this confidence you can live fully and completely in the moment. We should not arrive at death s door all prim and proper in a pretty and well-preserved body. Instead we ought to arrive breathlessly, skidding broadside through the pearly gates, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming, Wow! What a ride! All power be to the Creator, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen!