and revive them. This kind of thinking still infects the minds of those who attach enormous importance to the preservation of our mortal bodies, but can anyone who trusts in the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ really believe that he would differentiate in the life eternal between one who dies peacefully in bed and the other whose body is blown to pieces by a bomb? When I say “I believe in the resurrection of the body,” I am not thinking of the literal reconstruction of the flesh and bones I now inhabit.
This is not just my private opinion. It is the point of this portion of Scripture we are listening to this morning. The Corinthians to whom Paul was writing were naturally trained to think like the Greek philosophers about the separation of the soul from this body. Therefore some of them when they heard about the resurrection assumed that the Church was saying that this old body would be put together again, and they were scandalized, just as many are today. Paul heard of these objections and didn’t mince his words in replying. “You may ask, how are the dead raised? In what kind of body? How foolish!” (The King James’ Version is nearer to the Greek: “Thou fool!”)
He then concentrates on a simple illustration of the relationship of the body we have now to the body we shall have in the life eternal. He points out how, when we sow a seed in the ground it rots and dies: yet later it springs to life as a new and beautiful plant. “The seed you sow does not come to life unless it has first died; and what you sow is not the body that shall be . . . God clothes it with the body of his choice.” Then he goes on to speak of the vast variety of these heavenly bodies corresponding to the variety we know here on earth. They are related to the earthly bodies but, he says, “The splendour of the heavenly bodies is one thing, the splendour of the earthly another.” “What is sown in the earth as a perishable thing is raise imperishable. Sown in humiliation, it is raised in glory; sown in weakness, it is raised in power, sown as an animal body, it is raised as a spiritual body.”
“A spiritual body.” It is strange how this word of Scripture has been neglected by so many in the Church ever since. If we protest that we can’t conceive what a spiritual body would be like, Paul’s answer would be that of course we can’t while we are still bound in this mortal life. What we can say about those who are in the new dimension of eternity is that, like the seed that has died, “God clothes it with the body of his choice.” The plant is the same being (if I could put it this way) as the seed that has died, but it has now its unique and glorified body, just as the caterpillar is the same being as that magnificent butterfly that he will become.
“God clothes it with the body of his choice.” This wonderful passage illumines for us the Christian view of life eternal. When we hear about this spiritual body that awaits us, this new clothing for the soul, we begin to realize how the doctrine of the resurrection of the body is richer and fuller than the affirmation of the immortality of the soul. It silences such questions as: “What age will we be in the resurrection life? Will babies be forever babies? Will the hundred year-old stay that way to all eternity? Will the handsome be frozen in their beauty and the deformed in their deformity?” God clothes us in the body of his choice—and I know that choice will be the best.
For me “the resurrection of the body” is an expression of my belief that in the new life beyond the grave we shall be the real people we are now, not phantom spirits identical in our invisibility: we shall be transformed but recognizably the same. Since it is with these bodies we have that we recognize one another it is my belief that we shall know others and be known by them in the life to come. It is this kind of life that awaits those who trust in the living God, and this kind of a life, far beyond our imaginings, that is now enjoyed by those whom we have loved here on earth and are now with Christ. As we worship this morning we are in communion, not only with our Lord, not only with one another here present, but with all the company of heaven who are gloriously and totally alive. “For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory . . . thanks be to God who giveth us the victory through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
Thanksgiving: The Smug and the Saintly
Editor’s Introduction
What does a preacher say on Thanksgiving Sunday that hasn’t already been said a hundred times before? Perhaps we shouldn’t worry too much about repeating ourselves. We’ll do well if we can just get the overall message straight and then stop before the pews start nodding. Still, it helps if we can come up with a new angle on the beloved old theme.
That’s what David Read does in this sermon. With the help of a concordance, he conducted a little private poll amongst the characters reported in the Gospels as having given thanks. Surprisingly, he found, apart from Jesus himself, only two recorded instances of actual thanksgiving. The first is the classic story of Jesus’ healing of the ten lepers with only one returning and falling down at Jesus’ feet, “giving him thanks.” The second expression of thanksgiving occurs when a Pharisee gives thanks to God that he is not like other men; “greedy, dishonest, adulterous, or, for that matter, like that tax collector.” Read goes on to contrast the smug and the saintly. Both men are thankful but for wildly different reasons. The kind of thankfulness that the Lord prefers is obvious. Read’s sermon, however, brings this old message alive in a fresh and captivating way.
Thanksgiving: The Smug And The Saintly
A Sermon preached by David H. C. Read at St. James’ Episcopal Church on Thanksgiving Day, November 22, 1984
Text: “In that hour Jesus rejoiced in spirit, and said I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes: even so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight.” Luke 10:21
Jesus speaking—a sudden exclamation of thanks to God. Seventy of his disciples had just returned from what could have been the first Christian mission. They had radiated the message of the Master and shared in his healing power. Now they were back to report and were ecstatic about the response of simple people and the signs of victory over the powers of darkness and disease. Jesus welcomes them joyfully. Then comes this flash of thanksgiving: “In that hour Jesus rejoiced in spirit, and said I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast revealed them unto babes: even so, Father; for so it seemed good in thy sight.”
This one glimpse into the soul of Jesus suggests that this was how he lived day by day. The bias of his mind, the instinctive movement of his heart, the inner melody of his life was thankfulness. From childhood he had absorbed the grateful spirit that rings through the Law and the Prophets of his people, and over his cradle hovered the song of praise: “My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in my Savior.” As he moved through the sunlight and the darkness, the joys and the agonies of his few years among us, his was a life of unswerving gratitude to his Father in heaven. We have many names of Jesus—the Lord, the Savior, the Man of Sorrows, the Liberator, the Man for Others. Do we forget that, beyond all others, he revealed this supreme quality of the saint—gratitude whatever happened. He was simply, purely, and, passing all understanding, the Grateful Man. So it is good to seek his presence as we reach another Thanksgiving Day as a people who try to be his disciples.
In preparation for this service I conducted a little private poll among the characters we find in the Gospels. With the aid of a concordance I sought to discover who among them were said to have given thanks. The result of my investigation was surprising. Apart from our Lord himself, I could only find two people of whom it was reported in so many words that “they gave thanks.”
One of them is a favorite with all preachers on Thanksgiving Day and will, I’m sure, be occupying pulpits all over the country today. Luke tells us the story of the healing of ten lepers, and he notes that “one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, and with a loud voice glorified God, and fell down on his face at Jesus’ feet, giving him thanks” and,
