440. Wednesday after Twenty-fourth Sunday after Trinity.
Let thy word of life, O God,
strengthen and quicken
our hope of resurrection. Amen.
1 Corinthians 15, 35-44. But some man will say, How are the dead raised up? and with what body do they come? Thou fool! that which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die: and that which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body that shall be, but bare grain, it may chance of wheat, or of some other grain: but God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him, and to every seed his own body. All flesh is not the same flesh: but there is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of beasts, another of fishes, and another of birds. There are also celestial bodies, and bodies terrestrial: but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another. There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars: for one star differeth from another star in glory. So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption: 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. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body.
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The fact that our body decays should not frighten us; on the contrary, it shall give us the assurance that we are to be raised in glory. If the grain remained whole in the earth without dying, there would spring up from it no new grain; it must die in order to live, decay in order to be renewed. Thus it is with our body also. “Well,” say you, “this may be true; but the grain puts forth new shoots while it still lives; our body, on the other hand, dies and is destroyed before the new begins to sprout.” Are you, then, sure that our body has ceased to be, merely because we see it no more? In that which to your eyes seems to be empty space there are countless particles of matter. If we do not see even that which is of the earth, is it surprising that we do not see that which is of heaven? The matter of which your body is composed is renewed, perhaps several times in the course of your life, and yet you have the same body. There is in it a vital germ which cannot die. The body may disappear from the eye of man, in the earth, in the sea, or in other bodies, no matter where; the Lord shall quicken it again, and give it a new and heavenly shape. We do not mean to say that your reason shall make you sure of this; “the resurrection of the body” is an article of faith. But suppose that you were ignorant of the nature of the seed which we sow; would you not call it foolishness to bury the grain in the earth? Or suppose that you knew nothing of the evolution of the butterfly; would you not regard the caterpillar in the cocoon as being forever dead? What is to prevent the omnipotence of God from raising our body from the dead? As the new grain is one with the seed from which it sprung, so our new body shall be one with the body which we now have. “I know,” declares Job 19, 25-27, “that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth; and though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God; whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another.” Nevertheless, as the new grain is a new and other body than that which was sown, so also the body of our resurrection. Now we have the image of the terrestrial, of Adam and of our Savior in his state of humiliation; then we shall bear the image of the celestial, that of our glorified Savior. Who can know the solemnity of death, feel its strength in his members, look into the dark and cold grave; and then read the Bible lesson before us without heartily thanking God for it? Our resurrected bodies shall be like unto the glory of the sun and the stars. How marvelous shall be the perfection, beauty and glory of all God’s children! And this is a reason why we should now strive earnestly to sanctify both soul and body, and to make manifest to all the world that we have a living hope. Help us to do this, O God, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.*
’Tis sweet to rest in lively hope,
That when my change shall come,
Angels will hover round my bed,
And waft my spirit home.
Soon too my slumbering dust shall hear
The trumpet’s quickening sound;
And, by my Savior’s power rebuilt,
At his right hand be found.
[Church Book 564; listen here]
* Here the head of the family says a short morning or evening prayer in his own words, and closes with the Lord’s Prayer and the Benediction. This is to be done every day. If the stanzas are not sung, they may be read in their proper place before the impromptu petition and the Lord’s Prayer.