At early dawn, the women found that the stone had been rolled away from the tomb. When they went in, the body of Jesus was no where to be found. Luke tells us they were “perplexed about this”. When the two men in dazzling white suddenly appeared the women were “terrified”. The men inquired as to why they were looking for the living among the dead. “He is not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you...” they said. And the women remembered and they returned from the tomb. They told it to the eleven and to all the rest. “The rest” being the other followers of Jesus. The ones Luke described earlier as the “whole multitude of disciples” The women told all this to the eleven and to the rest yet the “words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them.” The apostles, the rest of the disciples. They did not believe when it came to the empty tomb and “he is not here, but has risen” and remember how he told you. They didn’t believe. Did anyone ever say that this resurrection stuff would be easy?
      The epistle lesson for this morning comes from Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthian Church, chapter 15. It is Paul’s own witness to and defense of the resurrection. Like the women who went to tell, Paul turns from his own experience of Jesus, his own experience of faith, his own remembering, he turns from all of that here in chapter 15 , he turns toward the church and starts to tell about the resurrection. It’s more than telling, Paul lays out his argument. His argument with those in Corinth who were saying Christ had not been raised. Those who, when it came to the resurrection, they thought they were smarter, more advanced. Their knowledge and spirituality had progressed beyond being bothered with something like a dead body being raised from the grave. “Oh please!” Maybe it wasn’t so much an idle tale as a disgusting thought. No one ever said that this resurrection stuff would be easy.
                                                I Corinthians 15:1-19
      “ If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.” If for this life only. If this is all. If this is it. If for this life only we have hoped. If in this life in Christ we have only hoped. If this is the best we can expect. If this is all we can do. If this is what we yearn for. If Christ has not been raised, if there is no resurrection, then our proclamation, and our faith, and this life, then it is all in vain. If for this life only, Paul writes.
      And on Easter Day the church collectively puts on it’s Sunday best. The church pulls out of the stops. It’s Resurrection Day and the gathers together and points to heaven. In the words of the old folk song, “Got my hand on the gospel plow, won’t taken nothing from my journey now. Keep your eyes on the prize. Hold on.” For this life only. It’s Easter morning and we’re waiting for that train bound for glory. Hold on in this life, for our hope in Christ, it is for the life to come. And the ears of the sinfully selfish perk up because this resurrection stuff, it is all about me and my place at heaven’s gate. And the heads of those who like easy answers and theological assertions that are clear as day, those heads start to shake because this resurrection stuff, it’s all about who is in and who is out and what if you die tonight. For this life only. Thank you Paul. Thank you preacher. If for this life only....Easter Sunday one more year. It’s all that simple. Punch salvation’s ticket and get in line. But it never was that easy; telling about the resurrection.
      If First Corinthians 15, Paul’s argument for the resurrection, if it is kind of like Paul’s Easter Sunday sermon, you can’t just podcast it all by itself. Paul’s work on the resurrection doesn’t just happen in a vacuum. You just can’t lift it out and think you have it all figured out. His teaching here on the bodily resurrection intended for the faithful at Corinth, it comes after he appeals to the congregation for unity, that they would be of the same mind and the same purpose. It comes after Paul writes so eloquently about the wisdom of the age and the foolishness of the cross and God choosing what is foolish in the world to shame the wise, and all belonging to Christ. This resurrection stuff just doesn’t drop out of the sky in one chapter, or one Sunday a year. For goodness sake, Paul even addresses lawsuits, and what’s the proper food to eat, and sex and marriage and what to wear when you go to worship. And he teaches the Corinthians about the Lord’s Supper (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 bread), and about the varieties of gifts of the Spirit to be used for the common good. He writes about the Body of Christ and the arrangements of the parts, God giving the greater honor to the weaker part. And don’t’ forget the love part, the greatest of these is love. Paul’s telling about the resurrection, it comes amid his discussions of relationships and community and authority and leadership. Chapter 15 means it follows 14 others. He tells about the resurrection only after all this other stuff about life, this life, this life only.
      Last September I experienced every minister’s worst dream. I was late for a funeral. The memorial service was outside of Washington DC at 2:00 in the afternoon. We left Princeton at 8:00 in the morning, and after every delay on 95 and on the beltway that one could imagine, we pulled up to the church at 2:15. There were cars everywhere and the church was packed. It looked like Easter morning. The funeral director said “Rev Davis, come with me. They’ve only just now started.” I rushed to the bathroom to change into a suit and then to put on my robe. And then they passed me from one usher to another and right up to the front of the chancel where the choir was just finishing the anthem. I sat down next to the presiding minister who looked at me the preacher for the day, and said without much empathy, “I’m glad you here.”
      I wasn’t in my chair but a minute or two, the sweat had yet to stop on my brow, when it came time to both eulogize and give witness to the resurrection. I did that. I remembered the deceased, one of my best friends who was the pastor of the church there in Virginia where the service was being held. And I told about the resurrection. In what seemed like seconds, I was finished. Then the service was over. I was standing at a reception where I knew no one. The church food looked familiar, but I knew no one and felt like a stranger. The tension of the day and the emotion of it all sort of got the best of me and I gathered up my family and we got ready to get right back on the road for a Saturday night drive back to Princeton. I changed in the bathroom bak into shorts and a comfortable shirt, and as I headed for the car, some of my clothes fell off the hanger right in the middle of the parking lot. A church member, wanting to help me out, called out across the way in full voice and in front of many “Reverend, you forgot your pants.”
      It was a rather hideous day all around. I’ve thought about it a lot actually. What lingers more than the nightmare of being late, was the struggle to proclaim resurrection in a strange place, a strange land. You can’t simply drop into a community and tell of the resurrection. I’ve done plenty of guest preaching where I didn’t know a soul. But to stand up there in front of a broken-hearted church whose pastor had just suddenly died, to drop in and talk about the hope of the resurrection a part from the relationships and a part from a certain knowledge of life together and a part from the unique experiences of that community, a part from the then and the there of life. I’m not sure you can tell of the resurrection a part from this life only. It’s just not that easy.
      You don’t just drop in and proclaim it. You don’t just lift it out one chapter at a time. You don’t just save it for one Sunday a year. Paul’s theology of the resurrection in I Corinthians 15 has to come with all the baggage of the Corinthian Church. Paul on resurrection presumes the flesh of life and the stench of death. One’s spirituality, like those opponents in Corinth who didn’t want to be dirtied by it all, one’s spiritually can’t spare you from all this, this life, this life only. And the promise of the resurrection doesn’t spare you from this life either, in fact, it presumes it! Of course our hope in Christ and his resurrection, it goes far beyond this life, but Easter Day and our belief that Jesus rose from the dead, it’s far more than the church giving lip service toward the kingdom-world that is yet to come. “Check please”
      If for this life only we have hoped, Paul wrote. But it was Paul who defiantly proclaimed that “we are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair, persecuted, but not forsaken, struck down, but not destroyed.” Resurrection hope and this life only. It was Paul who confidently asserted that “I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Resurrection power and this life only. It was Paul who with bold vision concluded that “there is no longer Jew nor Greek, there is no longer slave nor free, there is no longer male nor female; for all are one in Christ Jesus.” Resurrection justice and this life only. And it was Paul who added the unforgettable “therefore” to his 15th chapter on resurrection theology. “Therefore, my beloved, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.” Resurrection hope and resurrection power and resurrection justice and resurrection perseverance even and especially in this life only.
      For Christ has Risen! He has Risen Indeed! It is God’s victory of life over death. It is God’s power that reigns even over all the world’s chaos, the principalities of the world’s destruction. God’s light that forever shall shine, even when evil’s darkness appears to win. The resurrection of Jesus. It tells of God’s ultimate embrace of all creation while confronting and smashing the very forces that would tear us a part and tear us away from God. God’s future is forever brighter than humanity’s past. Salvation comes in the One who stomped on death. The Son of God who rose from the grave. The pioneer and perfecter of the faith who plunged the very depth of hell and death only to then sit at the right hand of God the Creator, and to one day come again in all glory and honor and power. Christ has Risen! He has Risen Indeed!
      For this life only. Faith in Jesus Christ has everything to do with one’s eternal salvation and one’s eternal salvation has everything to do with this life. But no one ever said this resurrection stuff would be easy. For to tell of the resurrection is to tell it like those women at the dawn of Easter Day, to tell it when perplexed and terrified. It is to tell when others think of an idle tale, or just don’t believe. It is to tell it when broken and full of despair, it is to tell it when unity can’t be found and a relationship has been left in smithereens. It is to tell it when you know a loneliness that you didn’t think possible before death came so close to home. It is to tell of it when you find yourself or those you love walking further and further into the valley of the shadow of death and you can’t do a damn thing about it.
      To tell of the resurrection is to tell it in a world where war and violence and ethnic cleansing and genocide never seem to stop. It is to tell it in a nation that will spend a billion dollars on a presidential election while thinking that a school voucher for a few thousand dollars will fix all things wrong with education. It is to tell it in a community that finds a voice when it comes to property tax but can’t seem to bother when some would have us believe that every kid of color is illegal or in a gang.
      But to tell of the resurrection is also to tell it when you are surrounded by and have acquired more wealth than most of the world can imagine, when you have climbed to the highest mountain of achievement in your discipline, when you find yourself profoundly isolated from the poverty and the struggle only miles away, when you find the specifics of “this life only” to be rather satisfactory in a worldly kind of way, thank you very much.
      Nobody every said it would be easy, this resurrection stuff. And that kind of telling, that kind of proclamation, that kind of witness, that kind of living, it takes more than one Sunday a year.
      Over there in the church office there’s a pair of shoes on the floor in front of the desk. Their part of the odd collection of things in the lost and found department. You can see them if you pass by this morning. They appeared here more than a month ago after a memorial service in the sanctuary. Women’s shoes. Flats. More than a bit weathered and worn. Dare I say it, not very attractive. Rubber soled. An all purpose shoe with some mud on them. Carol Freebairn in the office figured it out. Someone must have changed shoes between the cemetery and the memorial service. Someone had taken off her cemetery shoes and put on her church going shoes. And she left those weathered and worn out, everyday kind of shoes, she left them behind with the trappings of a cemetery walk still clinging to them. It’s been weeks now. The shoes just sit there on the floor in front of the desk. We don’t know whose they are. Umbrellas, the church staff will use in a heart beat. But shoes? Oh Please.
      But now, there must be some rule, now they’re the church’s shoes. A not so subtle reminder. When it comes to telling of the resurrection, those are exactly the shoes to wear. Proclaiming resurrection in our Easter finest, that’s one thing. But

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