Reflection on the Word for EASTER SUNDAY of 2022 We desperately need resurrection – Matthew 28 : 1-7 Behold, there was a great earthquake, for an angel of the Lord descended from the sky and came and rolled away the stone from the door and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow. For fear of him, the guards shook, and became like dead men. The angel answered the women, “Don’t be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus, who has been crucified. He is not here, for he has risen, just like he said. Come, see the place where the Lord was lying. Go quickly and tell his disciples, ‘He has risen from the dead, and behold, he goes before you into Galilee; there you will see him.’ ” …………………………………………………………………………… We need the resurrection so much desperately. As the night is followed by the day, and the winter by the spring, so the sorrow must be followed by joy, the grief by comfort, war by peace, horrible death by the renewing of life. Similarly, the victory in Christ must make an end to our repeating defeats versus the evil forces in this world and in our hearts. As we need our daily bread for the mere survival, so we need resurrection, because the earthly bread nurtures only our earthly body for the death, but by resurrection we will gain the eternal life, which is not perishing in a hurricane or buried by an avalanche, or falls down like an airplane, or might be blown up by a malevolent grenade. The eternal life can not be destroyed or touched by the dark, because it is fully immortal, as it was promised in the Book of Isaiah, chapter six that “Things which an eye didn’t see, and an ear didn’t hear, which didn’t enter into the heart of man, these God has prepared for those who love him.” The earthly life is short, as it is witnessed by all the former generations, however sometimes we are just not aware of it consciously enough, that the hour will come really, surely and speedily, when there will be our own turn to go to the other side of the old river, when the main question will be not anymore the daily bread on Earth but the peace in the heart and the forgiveness we can offer and we can receive. A lot of people are very busy with the fight for the daily bread, or with the trivial battles for the extra piece of butter and honey or for the bigger size beef-steak or for the means of being able over-consuming anything, which is consumable on Earth and sea and beyond. In this everyday social cavalcade the general population hardly have time to sit down for a minute, having a very hard time to make time for pausing for a meditation on the bigger picture of life and death, redemption and resurrection, or even just for having a God glorifying short prayer, saying thank you to the Lord for life and providence. On the top of the pyramid structured class societies of the nations, the mind of the elite is mainly set on the wrestling for the global domination, which is fought brutally and without any inhibition or any scruples, as the military-industrial complexes of the world powers are deeply involved in cold or armed wars for real in every generation, meanwhile waging also economical warfare, global scale cultural wars empowered by the usual divide and conquer manipulation of the interconnected mass media. However, in the only final frontier of the the ultimate reality we have only one single enemy. This is the myself, our own Ego, as it is written in the letter of apostle James: " But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust. Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death. " Thus, when we fight off our desires, we are fighting against sinning, and when we are fighting against sinning, we are fighting against death itself, because ultimately the cause of death is the sin. Let us say, though a bit inaccurately, that resurrection cures death. So what kind of resurrections are mentioned in the Bible? Resurrection type one: Somebody died, and that somebody was awakened from death. Not from tonic immobility or apparent death, but from real death. They were more frequent than we may usually assume, like the raising of the son of the widow of Zarephath by Elijah, or the raising of the son of the woman of Shunem by the prophet Elisha, or a young man Eutychus fell asleep, fell from a window out of the three-story building, and died. Paul then embraced him, insisting that he was not dead, and they carried him back upstairs alive. Or Peter raised Dorcas in Joppa, or the ones Jesus resurrected. All of these had a common feature, that they were dead and then the soul returned into them, and they became alive again. However, we can see that this kind of resurrection is just a temporary earthly relief, because they just received a little extension, and they had to die again at their appropriately postponed time. Resurrection type two: It is not directly in the Bible, it is just hinted in the Scriptures, that the ancient sages believed in reincarnation, as officially do Jews today, that the souls after death might be given second chances on Earth to relearn their lessons, making amendments and improve until they merit the admission into Heaven. Resurrection type three: The former two were personal, this third one is the general resurrection depicted by the Apostle Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, chapter 15, that “So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised 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.” Paul insists that the general resurrection of humanity will be a spiritual and not a physical resurrection, as he continues that “And just as we have borne the image of the earthly man, so shall we bear the image of the heavenly man. I declare to you, brothers and sisters, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. ” We can look at Jesus, as he died with real death on the cross, then he was resurrected temporarily. If he would not have ascended into Heaven, which was a necessity, but if he would not have ascended, then he would have died again, in order to cross the physical barrier between this world and Heaven. As he ascended into Heaven, he crossed the barrier between this world and Heaven by ascension as Enokh and Elijah did. By His Ascension we can see that our ultimate aim is not Earth, not even a physical resurrection on Earth, but a spiritual resurrection in the Kingdom of God. And at this point it becomes very interesting and exiting, because “Being asked by the Pharisees when God’s Kingdom would come, Jesus answered them, “God’s Kingdom doesn’t come with observation; (it is invisible), neither will they say, ‘Look, here!’ or, ‘Look, there!’ for behold, God’s Kingdom is within you.” This also means that it is always present. Entering this spiritual kingdom is a soul event. As Jesus told Nicodemus that “Most certainly I tell you, … That which is born of the flesh is flesh. That which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Don’t marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born anew.’ Thus, the spiritual event of the resurrection and the spiritual event of being born again are the same or at least they are intertwined. The ones, who were born again in their heart, although they are physically walking on Earth, nonetheless, their soul has been already a part of the Kingdom of Heaven, belonging to the Lord, which means that they had been already spiritually resurrected. They had already crossed the boundary between Heaven and Earth. May our graceful Lord grant us living Faith in order to be born again by the water and the Spirit, so to be admitted into the Kingdom of God already in this life, then in Heaven, Amen. https://korakowa.blogspot.com/p/sunday-sermons.html
