1 CORINTHIANS 15

 TEXT TO REFLECT ON

 If the dead are not raised, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.” 1 CORINTHIANS 15:32

REFLECT

In today’s reflections, I want to muse about bucket lists and what bucket lists tell us about what we think of the resurrection – whether we believe in the resurrection, and what we think we will be like when we have died on earth and been raised in heaven. My thoughts are not meant to take anyone on a guilt trip, or to judge each other for what we do, but simply to dig deeper into what we (and especially myself) believe about the resurrection. 

It is common, in fact almost customary, for people, especially those of us approaching our autumn or winter years, to have bucket lists, and to work with greater determination to see our bucket lists fulfilled.  A bucket list (as aptly named) is a list of things we hope to achieve before we ‘kick the bucket’. The list usually comprises things we hope to do while still alive, such as places on earth we hope to visit, crazy things we would love to do like attend a Taylor Swift concert and a soccer match on the same day, or receive a dream award like a Medal of Valour or a Nobel Prize. These are things we sometimes work feverishly towards while we are still on earth. 

Our bucket lists often tell us what we see as of great importance to our being on earth. And sometimes they surprise us. A young man I once ministered to at death row cried inconsolably when the time for his execution approached. Of course I wanted to know what it was that troubled him most. The things that I thought would have troubled him seemed obvious – fear of death, the pain of execution, his parents losing him, the poverty of his family, and similar matters. What really troubled him surprised me – he wept bitterly because he had in these years never had sex before. Having sex was to him a sign of coming of age, that he had tasted life on earth. 

Tasted life on earth – that is what a bucket list is all about. If this life is all that I have, and there is no resurrection, what would I want to have tasted? Someone else told me that it was to be rich for a day – life had been so hard for him, perhaps a life of opulence for even a day would satisfy him. 

But what if I was convinced that this life is a much shorter and very much darker caricature of what forever-living is? What if I was convinced that the resurrected life is infinitely better than the life I have on earth? Would my bucket list be different? If I knew that this world and all its attractions are bland and boring compared to the world that I will go to in a short while, will I live differently while on earth? More than merely living differently, will my goals for living be different?

This was what the Apostle Paul was getting at in this chapter. He wanted to paint for the Christians a picture of what the resurrected life looked like. That that life was so good, it made even torture in this life worthwhile. Let me quote a few examples that Paul gives.

“What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable.  It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body.” 1Corinthians 15:42-44.

Earlier on in the chapter, Paul explained that the resurrected life is vastly different from the earthly life. And then he went on to elaborate. First, that everything in this life is perishable. Whether it is the body and our ability to enjoy the offerings of this life, or it is the attractions of this life themselves, everything perishes. What is good today has rotted tomorrow. This was what Jesus himself tried to convey to his disciples – treasures on earth are susceptible to being stolen by thieves, or destroyed by moths or rust. I know of someone who was so rich he owned a mansion with a large number of ornately decorated bedrooms. I had visited this lavishly furnished mansion on numerous occasions. In later years, this man was confined to a small room as he lay paralysed from a stroke, together with his wife and mother, both of whom were also immobilised by illness. The helpers assigned to care for them found it more convenient to place the three beds side by side in a small room. A family with a massive mansion, squeezed together in a small room. The lavish furnishing of this mansion had perished for them.

Even natural wonders of the world are perishable. Ever so often, we are advised to visit a certain place soon, as that place was in danger of being submerged by water, or worn down by erosion, or dried up in a drought. What were once beautiful and majestic are either no more, or have deteriorated to such an extent they are no longer spectacular. All things on earth are perishable. But things in heaven are imperishable.

Paul then continues to describe the things on earth as dishonourable and weak and to contrast them with heavenly things that are glorious and powerful. And then he writes that that which is on earth is natural, while that which is in heaven is spiritual. And I want us to think about this last one for a while.

If what will last is spiritual, that is, that it satisfies our deepest longings and desires as it touches the deepest parts of our beings, then would that not be something that we should be obsessed with? Would we rewrite our bucket lists so that what we pursue to our last breath is something that appeals to our deepest desires? Maybe we should ask God to show us what we truly long for in the deepest recesses of our souls and then when we know what these longings are, then to seek them with all our hearts.

REST

The Greatest Thing In All My Life Is Knowing You;

The Greatest Thing In All My Life Is Knowing You.

I Want To Know You More, I Want To Know You More.

The Greatest Thing In All My Life Is Knowing You.

The Greatest Thing In All My Life Is Loving You;

The Greatest Thing In All My Life Is Loving You.

I Want To Love You More, I Want To Love You More.

The Greatest Thing In All My Life Is Loving You.

The Greatest Thing In All My Life Is Serving You;

The Greatest Thing In All My Life Is Serving You.

I Want To Serve You More, I Want To Serve You More.

The Greatest Thing In All My Life Is Serving You.

The Greatest thing in All My Life by Mark Pendergrass, 1977.

Chiu Ming Li