A Message from Shido


5th Sunday, at Oita Evangelical Christ Church, on October 31st, 1999

The resurrection of hope.

It is an interesting thing to me that 1 Corinthians Chapter 15 should be chosen on this of all days. Today is the anniversary of the pagan institute of Hallowe'en; a day when members of my race used to perform various rituals to ward off the dead, and evil, spirits: A day made infamous by the Jack O'lantern, a sign of impending doom to any who had crossed paths with the mafia-like Druids who controlled them: A hated day. Yet, what a contrast to the dead in Christ!

In 1 Co.15, we find another kind of resurrection; a clean, jubilant kind of resurrection -- a resurrection full of hope, rather than dread. Here, we read that Christ returned to life in the physical world where He met with His disciples and added to His teaching. Death did not conquer our Lord Jesus, the Christ, but rather He conquered death. How different this appears from the animistic, spiritist view of death, as it was seen by the celtic peoples, somehow rendering our souls into unsavoury apparitions; things to be feared. Jesus came back in wholesome clarity and strength, and in fact, continued to teach us, scripture tells us, until 40 days later when He returned again to His home in Heaven, to stand at His Father's right hand as King over all of creation. But, here in 1 Co.15, we also learn that even His responsibilities do not seperate Him from us entirely -- for He came again in a vision to Saul of Tarsus; a strong Jewish persecutor of Christians, and the power of Christ even in vision was so great that the great persecutor joined those very people he was persecuting. How different is this resurrected life from the resurrection of spirits on Hallowe'en!

Now, in today's scripture reading, Chapel Noah was led to read verses 8 to 10, which speaks of how Paul, formerly the least or worst of Christians, was transformed into the best, or hardest working of Christians through Christ's physically-resurrected life, and through his own spiritually-resurrected life after his encounter with the living Christ -- for Paul found true power in his relation with Jesus. How amazing! Pastor Hirota make the claim that in these verses we can see the transformation of Paul from a man of a deep-seated inferiority complex to a man of freedom, who has total confidence in what God is doing in his life. And, I will ask this question again to you -- What is God doing in your life? -- with this added question: What is your relationship to Jesus?

On Hallowe'en, it is North American custom for children to dress up into fantasy costumes. This custom originates from a time when we imitated devils (and some such creatures can still be found wandering the streets ) in order to frighten away the spirits that we believed were intruding into our lives at this time with malevalent intent. Later on in the tradition, people would visit neighbouring homes demanding payment for their sentry work in foods and refreshments. Inappropriate behaviour led to bad "tricks" (trick, or treat!) which were later attributed to the evil spirits. Good neighbours payed their 'protection' tributes and were thus spared broken possessions, and fires, and other unpleasant findings. When my father was a young man, he and a normally decent group of young men participated in the pushing over of "outhouses" in his prairie town. (At one time, one of the perpetrators fell into the dung pit below!) A video example of this kind of mayhem may be viewed in the Judy Garland classic, "Meet me in St.Louis". In recent years, however, the evil seems to have traded sides with children receiving foods laced with poison, or pins, or razor blades. Neither has this unhealthy behaviour been contained in North America, for reports have been issued of similar dangers to children in Japan. So you see, the evil resurrection can tranform us too, just as in some of Stephen King's stories. But, it need not do.

It was Christ who transformed Paul, and Christ again who saved the Celts. And Christ who made the new nations great as their peoples clung to the hope of the Gospel message. It was not culture, it was not knowledge, and it was not human ingenuinity -- it was Christ. The living resurrection of Jesus can free us from our hopelessness and will as we place our trust in Him, even as Paul did. Something wonderful this way comes: it is our Lord!


For the author's homepage, see Shido
For a Japanese sermon based on I Co.15:8-10, see: Oita Evangelical Christ Church
For Oita Evangelical Christ Church sermon indicies, see: cHaPeL nOaH sErMoN iNdEx
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