Stuff Michael Meeks is doing

Up late, J. & H. still nastily ill, back to bed, up at 1pm, dressed, eat, extracted stuff from the loft. Off into Cambidge to see Sean & Abbie, Tim & Caroline & Isabell. Had a nice time, albeit far too short. Home, did house-work type stuff while J. / H. slept.
Listened to a nice Gordon sermon Changed in the twinkling of an eye on 1 Cor. 15:35-58.
- Man born of woman, is of few days, and full of trouble Job 14 If a man dies, will he live again ?.
- The Corinthians didn't get it - drunk the contemporary Greek thinking. The resurrection is patterned on Christ; If Christ has not been raised our preaching is useless, and so is your faith, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins etc. ( 1 Cor 15) - the antithesis to Pascal's wager: If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men..
- The Apostles creed: I believe in the holy spirit, the holy catholic church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body & the life everlasting, Amen.
- Today you will be with me in paradise - yes to prefer to be away from the body and at home with Christ is good but there we get clothed with a new body.
- How are the dead raised ? With what kind of body will they come - a cynical Greek view, it's a disgusting idea - a re-animted cadaver ? - arthritic ?
- Appeal to the natural analogy of sowing a seed to create a new plant to cover 3 points:
  - The necessity of death: How foolish ! what you sow does not come to life unless it dies - Corinthian smug self satisfaction - already you have all you want (4:8) - Kingship is on the other side of the grave. To wear the crown you have to bear the cross. Unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies - it remains only a single seed, but if it dies it becomes many seeds. The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. - John 12.
  - Is it 'just a spiritual resurrection' ? - no. The continuity & discontinuity. While the seed doesn't really die - it seems to disintegrate; it gives an impression of dying. When you sow, you don't plant the body that will be, but just a seed, perhaps of wheat or of something else: continuity plant an acorn - you don't get a maple tree: it's still you. Discontinuity - death; God gives it a body as he has determined
  - All flesh is not the same: Men, animals, birds, fish - God creates amazing diversity. The sun, moon, stars are all different - and radically different from us - none of us wanders around shining. God is incredibly creative and can do it.
- A huge amount we don't know - are babies ressurected as adults ? are octogenarians resurrected as 65 year old retirees, we don't know; we do know:
  - The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable - our bodies are given to decay and degeneration, death then disintegration.
  - The body that is sown in dishonor, is raised in glory - bodies a source of permanant embarassment; Death - the ultimate humiliation Sherman Newland a surgeon at - Yale Medical School in his book 'How we die' says: If peace and dignity are what we delude ourselves to expect, most of us will die wondering what we or our doctors have done wrong... By and large dying is a messy and painful business. Not a rosy picture. Paul acknowledges this - as it is sown in dishonor - but it is raised in glory and honour Well done my good and faithfull servant, because you have been faithful in little - take charge of 12 cities.
  - The body that is sown in weakness, is raised in power - Newland again: A study of those who die in old age; 84 years+ the lesson from 23 case histories - whether the cause is the anarchy of disordered bio-chemistry; or it's opposite, we die of old-age because we have been worn, torn and progammed to cave in. The very old do not surcumb to disease, they implode their way to eternity. Even if they happened to die of pneumonia autopsies reveal they could have died the next day of any of 10 other causes. The body will be raised in power though: look to Jesus, he appears through locked doors; he appears so suddenly he startles them A ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see I have Luke 24.
  - The body that is sown a natural body, it is raised as a spiritual body - not physical vs. spiritual; the resurrection in a material thing. The natural body is animated by the soul, the resurrection body is animated by the spirit. When it is sown it embodies the soul, when it's raised it embodies the spirit The holy spirit currently gives life only from the heart out, a promise of the resurrection.
- Don't sign up for a liquid nitrogen bath: Listen I tell you a mystery - we shall not all sleep, but we will all be changed, in a flash - in the twinkling of an eye - fastest known unit of time then before the nanosecond, at the last trumpet
- Why sleep ? just like a body sleeping through the night, touch the person and they don't respond, they're just away for a while. Has Jesus turned your grave into a bed ? Gordon encourages people when considering funeral arrangements - to get the undertakers to dress people in their coffin in pyjamas not a suit - they're just sleeping.
- How will God wake us - with a loud command, as at creation. Blaise Pascal - What is more difficult to be born or rise again - that that which has never been to be, or that which has been, to be again ? - Teach me to live that I may dread, the grave as little as my bed, teach me to die so that I may rise glorious at the judgement day.
- The trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed The Trumpet - a call to herald the presence of God as at Mount Sainai, or as in Matthew 24: to signal that the troops are on the way.
- Then death will be defeated, Then the saying that is written will come true: 'Death has been swallowed up in victory'
- Challenged to follow the example of Amy Carmichael a missionary to India: refused to be photographed ( despite being rather pretty ): why would you want to preserve your likeness now, when in just a few moments we'll be transformed into his likeness. When he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.
- Not to be so heavenly minded - you're no earthly good, of course it gives us comfort in aging but Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain. - living not just for now - For me to live is Christ, to die is gain.

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Stuff Michael Meeks is doing

2003-11-30: Sunday