The Literal, Bodily Resurrection

In Luke 24:38-39, Jesus appears to His frightened disciples after the resurrection and says, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your minds? Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have” (NIV). Then Jesus proceeds to eat a piece of fish with them, to show them that He had undergone a bodily resurrection. We can see since Jesus suddenly has appeared to His disciples that His resurrected body can do things that a mortal body could not, but that does not take away from that fact that is a real body that can touch and eat and do any number of real physical things.

Yes, the resurrected body will be different from our mortal, earthly body but it will be a real body. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:38, 42-44, as translated by Eugene Peterson in The Message:

The dead body that we bury in the ground and the resurrection body that comes from it will be dramatically different. … This image of planting a dead seed and raising a live plant is a mere sketch at best, but perhaps it will help in approaching the mystery of the resurrection body – but only if you keep in mind that when we’re raised, we’re raised for good, alive forever! The corpse that’s planted is no beauty, but when it’s raised, it’s glorious. Put in the ground weak, it comes up powerful. The seed sown is natural; the seed grown is supernatural – same seed, same body, but what a difference from when it goes down in physical mortality to when it is raised up in spiritual immortality!” (The Message).

We will be raised immortal, able to live forever, glorious, powerful, and yet, true bodies!

Later, Jesus appears again to Thomas, and Thomas puts his finger in Jesus’s side and touches his hands where the nails were. Thomas is so convinced by this proof that even though he has previously been doubting Jesus, he cries out, “My Lord and my God!”

Friends, I will not give you such a flabby hope today that because Jesus was risen, just your soul will live on, or that the resurrection is just a metaphor for new life like springtime, bunnies, and Easter eggs. Would that flowery language really comfort you as you stood at the edge of your loved one’s grave? Don’t you want something real and substantial? Something literal, not just pretty sounding symbolism? Don’t you want to know that your loved one will live again, for real and not just as poetry?

1 Corinthians 15:19-20 puts it this way: “If all we get out of Christ is a little inspiration for a few short years, we’re a pretty sorry lot. But the truth is that Christ has been raised up, the first in a long legacy of those who are going to leave the cemeteries” (The Message).

I love that language of “leaving the cemeteries.” When I was a pastor, one Easter morning I started the sunrise service in the cemetery. I wanted to remind everyone that this was a literal thing we were talking about. It’s not just nice words we tell grieving people. We actually believe as Christians that the risen Christ is going to return in His risen body and call the dead out of their graves. We actually believe that He will reconstruct their bodies. We actually believe that heaven will not just be a place of disembodied souls floating around but rather that the resurrected bodies of all who believe in Christ will dwell there. (In addition, more and more Christians are coming to realization that the location of resurrection has to do with a recreated physical earth as well.)

Paul goes on to say in 1 Corinthians 15:29-31, “If there’s no chance of resurrection for a corpse, if God’s power stops at the cemetery gates, why do we keep doing things that suggest he’s going to clean the place out someday, pulling everyone up on their feet alive? And why do you think I keep risking my neck in this dangerous work? I look death in the face practically every day I live. Do you think I’d do this if I wasn’t convinced of your resurrection and mine as guaranteed by the resurrected Messiah Jesus?

John Updike put it eloquently in his poem, “Seven Stanzas at Easter”:

Make no mistake: if He rose at all
it was as His body;
if the cells’ dissolution did not reverse, the molecules
reknit, the amino acids rekindle,
the Church will fall.

(read the rest here…and you really MUST.)

Friends, Jesus was literally raised from the dead for you and for all who put their faith in Him alone as their Savior. This is for you! Will you seize hold of what Jesus has done for you? Jesus will literally raise you and all believers in Christ. He will raise you from your coffin in the cemetery. He will raise you from the urn of your ashes and make you again from the dust. He will breathe His breath of life into you and you will live again, in a literal body that is more glorious than anything you can imagine.

Let me close with these words from 1 Thessalonians 4:13-14:

“Brothers, we do not want you to be ignorant about those who fall asleep, or to grieve like the rest of men, who have no hope. We believe that Jesus died and rose again and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him” (NIV).

May you rejoice with all your might today, for today we remember the most amazing miracle of all, the miracle of the Resurrection of the body. There is so much hope in Christ! Thanks be to God!

photo credit: 2011-10-15 via photopin (license)

More on the resurrection: read a profound interview with N.T. Wright here.
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