The Jeff Cavins Show (Your Catholic Bible Study Podcast) - Everything Rests on the Resurrection

Episode Date: April 7, 2023

What is the crux of our faith? Pulling from Paul’s Letter to the Corinthians, Jeff shares how the resurrection is the center of our faith and how to understand it better. He also offers encouragement for each of us to prepare for our own death and resurrection. Snippet from the Show All of your hope and faithfulness have meaning because of the resurrection. Email us with comments or questions at [e-mail]. Text “jeffcavins” to 33-777 to subscribe and get Jeff’s shownotes delivered straight to your email! Or visit ascensionpress.com/thejeffcavinsshow for full shownotes!

Welcome to the Jeff Kaven Show, where we talk about the Bible, discipleship, and evangelization, putting it all together and living as activated disciples. This is show 318. Everything rests on the resurrection. Well, welcome to the show again, and I do hope you have had a great lent, a fruitful Lent. Lent isn't always the easiest time of year, but it should be certainly a fruitful time of year. And now we are moving into the Tritome, and we're going to have Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and then Sunday. And I hope you get to attend all three days. By that, I mean Thursday and Friday, good Friday. And then the Easter vigil is an amazing time.

And, you know, to be honest with you, I don't know why more people don't go to the Easter vigil. they say, well, it's so long. Yes, that's the point you get more. But Emily and I tried to go all four times. That's Thursday, Friday, Easter Vigil, and then Sunday morning, and just get as much as we possibly can. You know that Easter really deals with the crux of our faith, what our faith rests on, and that is that everything rests on the resurrection, on the resurrection of Jesus.

And so what I want to do today is I want to share with you just a few thoughts from chapter 15 of 1 Corinthians because that's where Paul really makes his argument for the resurrection and not just a resurrection where a soul ascends to God, but a full resurrection of the body and the soul together, a composite, right? You're a full person, a complete person. And there was some arguing going on during the time of Paul's resurrection. writing in the church in Corinth, where some people did not believe in a bodily resurrection. It was only a spiritual resurrection that Jesus went through. And Justin Martyr, actually,

in his argument with Trifo, the Jew, he actually said in that argument that if you hear anybody say that, that it's just a spiritual resurrection, do not assume that they are Christians. That's pretty powerful. He said that in the dialogue with Trifo. And so this was a big issue back in Paul's time, and he kind of sets everybody straight in chapter 15 of Corinthians. Now, I do have some scripture for you in today's show. If you are busy and you can't write right now, you would be better off just getting the notes. And if you don't get the notes right now, you can start getting them by texting my name, Jeff Kaven's, one word, Jeff Kavins. and you can text it to the number 3.3777. I'll say it again. 3377. Then we'll get you the notes and we'll be sending you the notes in perpetuity. Every once in a while, someone says, I'm not getting the notes anymore. We'll just sign up again and maybe it was a glitch or something. I apologize for that, but we'll get those to you. You know, I've got such a love for First Corinthians. When I go over,

to Greece. I love going to Corinth. You know, so much happen in Corinth. And the city of Corinth is a lot like perhaps the city you're in. If you live in a big city, it's kind of a combination of New York in that it was big. And it is also a combination of Las Vegas, Sin City. You had one historian estimated close to 10,000 cult prostitutes in Corinth. It was a city that was steeped in debauchery to be Corinthianized, meant to be living that kind of a wild life. And here Paul is establishing the church in the midst of a city like that. And so the book can be divided up this way. In chapters 1 through 4 of Corinthians, he's going to deal with divisions among the people.

They had, you know, these kind of these pet schools of theirs. I'm of Apollos. I'm of Paul. I'm of Cephas. I'm of Jesus. Paul says, oh, you know nothing. You know nothing. You're like children. Stop doing this. Stop playing games like that. Versus one through four, or chapters one through four. Then in chapters five, six, and seven, Paul is going to tackle the problem of sexuality and the fact that these people were still going to the cult prostitutes like Aphrodite, the temple of Aphrodite, and they were still involved. And he's saying, no, your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit.

Then in chapters 8 through 10, he's going to deal with meat sacrificed to idols. And so what happened back then was that if you went, you brought an animal, that animal is processed, or you could buy a portion of an animal, and you could bring that home to eat, kind of like the meat market. And if you found out that that animal had been dedicated to Aphrodite, well, the question is, is that wrong or right to eat that meat if it was dedicated to the temple? And some people said, well, I'm offended. I can't believe you would eat that.

So Paul had to step into the middle of it and say, okay, chapters 8 through 10, okay. first of all, we know that there are no other gods besides the one true God, and we know that nothing has happened to this meat. It's okay to eat it. It's just meat. But if your neighbor is going to be offended and even possibly lose their faith because of you, you cause them to stumble, well, don't eat it. Don't eat it. It's not that important to eat the meat. If it's going to cause someone to stumble, give it up. Give it up. It's more important that that, person's soul be intact and healthy than you to get that filet mignon. And so then in chapters 11 through 14, he's dealing with worship. And chapter 11 deals with worship in the Eucharist,

chapters 12 and 14 deal with gifts. And in the middle of chapter 12 and 14, which deal with gifts, is an entire chapter about love. And so you could call this the love Oreo. You have chapter 12 gifts, chapter 14 gifts, chapter 13 is the cream, that is love. And so one of Paul's overarching arguments about division and sexual behavior, eating meat, and worship is that we walk by love. Love dictates how we live. And if you don't have love, you have all these other things, and you know all kinds of things, you're still a clanging symbol. You're a gone. You're a gone. is what he's saying so love is the the driving force and everything that we do the way we live the way we treat each other the way we go about carrying carrying out the messionic mission then in chapter

15 he is going to hit this topic the topic of the resurrection that's what he's going to hit and so i want to take chapter 15 and just go over a few points with you uh here as we prepare for Resurrection Sunday, Easter Sunday, and just remind you of how important the resurrection is. And maybe you can take some of these ideas and you can, you know, kind of not water them down, but you know what I mean? Chew them up, give them to your children. And talk to them a little bit about the importance of the resurrection if you have children. Now, I mentioned at the top of the show that some of the people, they had a real problem with this idea of a bodily resurrection. It's okay if Jesus rose spiritually.

Don't get me wrong. I think that's cool. They would say, but physically, I don't think so. I don't think so. So that's what some of them were saying, and they were denouncing a bodily resurrection. They were so spiritual that the idea of a bodily resurrection was crass and unthinkable. The phrase, resurrection of the dead, literally means rising of the corpses. in Greek. Rising of the corpses in Greek. Yay, let's share this with the world, right?

Now, back earlier in the book, in the letter in chapter 6 and verse 13, Paul spoke about the importance of the body. And his argument back then was he said that some are saying that food is meant for the stomach and stomach for the food. Now, the reason that they were saying that food is meant for the stomach and stomach for the food is that they were trying to build an argument that if you have sexual urges, you should simply fulfill them because, hey, think about the logic. You get hungry. What do you do? You eat.

You feel like you'd like to have a sexual relationship with someone? You're feeling that very deep within you. Hey, indulge. Paul, wrong. Wrong. And Paul counters with this argument in chapter 6, the body is meant for the Lord and the Lord for the body. So your body is not number one for your stomach and appetites. Your body is for the Lord.

Therefore, worship the Lord in your body. Your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. We don't join ourselves to prostitutes in the temple. We don't join ourselves to anybody else. We are the Lord's. Now, why would the Greeks have a problem with bodily resurrection? Well, the Greeks overall had kind of a problem with the body. and they had this phrase in Greek, a popular phrase,

soma sema esti. Soma Semi-S-D means the body is a tomb. It is a tomb. So death is where the soul is freed from the body. You're freed from the tomb when you die. Yay! I don't have to deal with that body anymore. You know, it was a lot easier from age 10 to 30, but after that, this thing has been a really,

bear, and I'm so glad it's over. Well, the Christian message is, no, no, it's not over. You're getting it back. You're going to get it back. And that to the Greeks was a disaster. Are you saying to me, Paul, that you have a story that you're telling where the end is I get my body back? Disaster. Horror show night of the living dead paul come on fella it's got to be better than that and so what we do with our bodies in the present time actually matters the gospels proclamation of the resurrection serves both as a warning that we will be held accountable for what we do with the body and our bodies have meaning they have meaning. Now, here is the structure of Paul's argument. I'm going to put this in the show notes for you, but I think it's important to hear the basic structure in chapter 15, okay? And again,

I'll put this in the notes because this is gold right here. Number one, verses 1 through 11 of chapter 15, the corigma proclaims the resurrection of Christ. Now, what is the corigma? Well, the corigma is the basic proclamation of Jesus. It's included in the proclamation of Jesus. It's included in the proclamation of Jesus, that he died, was buried, and he rose from the dead. So when we share Christ with other people and we get to talking to them, inevitably, we have to come back to the resurrection as a reality that Jesus rose from the dead, and it wasn't just spiritual. It was physical as well. So that's the number one point, is that the basic proclamation of the gospel speaks of the resurrection of Christ. Number two, verses 12 through 19, the denial of the resurrection

of the dead negates the gospel. It actually negates the gospel. Wow. So that if Christ didn't rise from the dead, then there is not a gospel here. There isn't a truth that we can live our lives on. so the denial of the resurrection of the dead negates the gospel and back in in in paul's day back in paul's day if somebody denied the physical resurrection paul's saying there this negates the gospel number three verses 20 through 28 because christ has been raised paul argues all who belong to him will be raised so that's a truth in itself if christ Christ was raised, then all who belong will be raised as well. All who belong to him will be raised as well. He's the first fruits we follow. That's his argument there. That's the logic of the resurrection.

Then number four, he says, otherwise, hope, suffering, and faithfulness are pointless. Whoa. That's verses 29 through 34. You're kidding me, Paul. Paul say, no, I'm not kidding. If the resurrection, if the direction didn't take place, your hope is pointless. Your suffering was for nothing that you offered up all of these years. And your faithfulness? My friend, you could have had a lot of fun in those years, right? If that's the way the world wants to live and we want to partake of the world's fun, we would have had a lot of fun. But here's the deal. Jesus did rise from the dead. And that means that hope, suffering, and your faithfulness all have meaning, deep meaning, ultra deep meaning, eternal meaning.

That's the good news here. That's the part that really should make you smile. And then number five, Paul says in verses 35 through 58, the resurrection means transformation of your body. Transformation of your body. We'll look into a couple of these points on the other side of the break and give you a little bit more hope this week for the resurrection and to enter more deeply into it during this Tritowum.

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Welcome back. We're talking about the resurrection of Jesus today and looking at some just a few of the nuggets here from chapter 4th. in Paul's letter to the Corinthians, and we are looking here at some of the things that Paul says that are very, very important. The resurrection, he gives us that basic argument that I gave you right before the break. And by the way, if you do want that, it'll be in the show notes, that it's part of the proclamation, denial of the resurrection, negates the gospel. Because Christ has been raised, all who belong to him will be raised. Hope, suffering, and faithfulness, they're pointless without the resurrection. Absolutely pointless without the resurrection. And then finally, what Paul says after that, the result is you're still in your sins. Wow. And that those who have

died in Christ are lost. They're lost. If Christ has not been raised. If Christ has not been raised, if Christ has not been raised. So there's a lot on the line there. So I want to take you, let's see, two verses 29 through 34. And in this section, Paul is going to make his argument that all of the things that we did while we were here in the body for the Lord. And I want you to think about that for a moment, go back to the very beginning of when you are first aware that you are, that you are a Christian and that you are walking by faith. You were reading the word of God. You are receiving the Eucharist and walking in the power of confirmation and you are receiving the Eucharist. Think about that, you know, a long time ago. And then think about the cumulative life you've lived, the hope

that you are standing on and the suffering that you endured. If you've ever had any experience in your life where you really did suffer a lot and you listened to the teachings of the church that said to offer up your suffering in union with Christ because of what Paul said in Colossians 124, I rejoice in my suffering for your sake and I fill up in my body that which is lacking in the sufferings of Christ. well, if you knew that you believe that you had a part to play in the redemption of the world by offering up your suffering in union with Christ so that you could taste the love of God and experience the cross, well, if that's what you were doing and the resurrection doesn't

turn out to be true, well, that's pointless then. And that's why Paul makes this argument that we are to be pitied above all people. Because the joke's on us. We were hopeful. We were offering up our suffering. We were faithful day in and day out with our own lives, our marriage, our families at work. We were faithful.

And we wanted to walk in an upright way. And we did it. And then we find out that he didn't rise from the dead. Pointless. Pointless. But you know what? That's not true, is it? We believe that Jesus rose from the dead.

you see a whole faith rests on the resurrection and there was so many witnesses to the resurrection of jesus not only mary at the beginning and and then and then calling the apostles and the crowds after that who saw him after he rose from the dead they testified john in his gospel says that which we've seen we know that jesus according to the record rose from the dead and this is what we put our trust in. Our faith rests on the resurrection. And so the natural outcome of that is a life of joy and happiness because our hope, our suffering, our faithfulness all mean something because Jesus rose from the dead. In other words, we could say that it all was worth it. It was all worth it, all the hope that you walked in, all the suffering that you endured in your life since

you were a kid till now. And all the times that you walked in faithfulness, now we can say at the resurrection of Jesus, standing in front of the open tomb, we can say, it was worth it. It was worth it. puts a smile on your face, doesn't it? Yeah. Yeah, it does. And so we have to remember that during this Easter season. Remember that. Now, one thing that Paul brings up at the end of 1 Corinthians 15, specifically verses 35 through 58, is that his final point about the resurrection is going to be that the resurrection means transformation of the body. You see, the body, according to the Greeks is a tomb, and to die is to be freed from that, but to the Christian. And because of the cross of Jesus, the body is redeemed as well. And we, when we rise, we will have resurrected

bodies, resurrected bodies. And Paul, he uses the analogy in chapter 15, verses 35 through 58, the analogy of the seed, the seed. Paul suggests a radical transformation of the body in its resurrected state. And yet, it's organic continuity with the mortal body that preceded it. There is, it's going to, you know, when we get to heaven, and I get a kick out of this, people say, am I going to recognize you, Jeff, when I get to heaven? Well, I don't know. We get pretty stupid when we go to heaven, you know. We kind of lose our memory and our reasoning and our vision really. No, of course.

Of course we're going to recognize each other. Don't you think? Because you get to heaven doesn't mean, it doesn't mean you're dumb now. But you're even bright or sharper, cooler. And so he uses this analogy of the seed that the body was sewn, a corruptible body. It rises as incorruptible. It's a new, transformed, resurrected body. And this supernatural body that you are going to have, Paul talks about it in verse 42,

what is sown is perishable, we are perishable, which means we are going to die physically. What is raised is imperishable. We're going to live with God forever and ever, forever and ever. wow that is just so beautiful and then paul makes a big point out of telling us that christ has defeated death in the resurrection death is defeated and that is why we do not fear death and i'll tell you this those who have suffered a lot physically and morally the morally meaning of the heart those people who have suffered in this life morally and physically those people are less afraid of dying than the people who have never suffered much at all.

And it was Fulton Sheen, Archbishop Fulton Sheen, who once said that the greatest fear is death. He said, we live our lives constantly in fear. Oh my gosh, I'm going to die. I'm going to die. I'm going to die. I'm losing control. I'm going to die. I want to be young again.

Help me someone. He says, it's the number one fear that people have. And he says, you know how you get over it? Practice for it. practice for it this easter when you celebrate the resurrection of jesus just remind yourself i need to start practicing for this i need to start dying to myself i'm not afraid of death christ defeated death isn't that a oh isn't that a beautiful way to live free from the fear of death what is powerful about being crucified what is

is powerful about being crucified. He mentions this at the beginning of his letter. Jesus on the cross looked like he was weak, shamed, ill repute, nothing. But because he died in perfect love, love brought him through to the end and brought victory. Love defeated death, hell, and the grave. I don't know about you, but I got my hands raised right now. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Love defeated, death, hell, and the grave. Now, there is a t-shirt.

And if you make that, I'm an extra large only because they shrink. But I'll take one of those t-shirts. Now, in the Christian life, if we are going to give up meat, wages, going to give up in some cases a wife in service to one another, then we become divested of wealth, power, self. This looks weak, doesn't it? without honor, doesn't it? Where is the glory? The glory is the Christian is to be raised on the last day the way Christ rose from the dead, and this glory will last forever, the imperishable crown of glory.

We bear the image of the man of heaven. What shall be changed in the twinkling of an eye? We will be changed in the twinkling of an eye. I can hardly wait. So get this, my friend, death. Death is not the final word. God has the final word. God has the last word. And I love what Paul says in verses 56 and 57. The sting. He talks about the sting of death is sin. And Paul says it so well. He says, where's the sting? It's gone. And so what's Paul pointing to when he says the sting of death is sin, but it's gone. If you remove the sting, then you remove the effects of the sting. The sin of Adam is what brought death to the world. Now Jesus' death ushers in a new order. It takes away the sting and the death. He deals with the power and problem of death.

Oh, this is good stuff. I'm ready. I'm ready for Easter. Bring it on. Let's celebrate. Let's be joyful about the resurrection of Jesus. And let's be hopeful about our future because this resurrection, everything rests on the resurrection. My friend, I hope you have a wonderful tritome.

I really do. I hope you have a wonderful Easter and that you can truly rejoice in the resurrection of Jesus and live in hope. of your resurrection with him. Let me pray with you. Father, I thank you for my friends and I lift them up to you right now, whatever they're going through in their life, whatever obstacles they're facing. Lord, may we keep our eyes on your resurrection and the hope of our resurrection. And there's nothing that we cannot deal with with that in mind. There's nothing that we can't endure. There is nothing that we cannot get through because we know what the end is. The game is over. We win, we win, we win. Thank you, Father. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Name of the Father and the

Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. I love you, my friend. You have a great Easter.