Focus
Relax and listen. Consciously prepare to hear God’s Word. Clear your mind of the worries and tasks that lie before you. Open your heart and allow it to refresh.
Read
35 But someone will ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?” 36 Fool! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. 37 And as for what you sow, you do not sow the body that is to be, but a bare seed, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain. 38 But God gives it a body as he has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own body. 39 Not all flesh is alike, but there is one flesh for human beings, another for animals, another for birds, and another for fish. 40 There are both heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is one thing, and that of the earthly is another. 41 There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; indeed, star differs from star in glory.
42 So it is with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable. 43 It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. 44 It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a physical body, there is also a spiritual body. 45 Thus it is written, “The first man, Adam, became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. 46 But it is not the spiritual that is first, but the physical, and then the spiritual. 47 The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. 48 As was the man of dust, so are those who are of the dust; and as is the man of heaven, so are those who are of heaven. 49 Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we will also bear the image of the man of heaven.
Reflect
I personally came to know the bittersweet emotions associated with Easter Sunday when my own father died on this day in 1985. I felt the bitterness of the loss of his earthly body, but I also knew the promised sweetness of his resurrected body.
In Paul’s analogy of a seed, we again find a paradox. The sown seed is not the harvested seed. The seed is the same, yet different. Paul explains that the seed (body) we sow does not come to life unless it dies.
According to William Barclay, while the seed is dissolved, it is different, yet the same. Even though the seed is transformed, it is the same seed. Barclay states, “This argument proves that our earthly bodies will be buried and will dissolve; they will rise again and the form in which they rise may be very different.”
In the chorus of the song “I’ll Have a New Body, I’ll Have a New Life” (written by Luther G. Presley), Hank Williams sang the words, “Raised in the likeness of my Savior, Ready to live in Paradise, I’ll have a new body. Praise the Lord, I’ll have a new life.”
This Monday after Easter reminds us of this wonderful promise. Praise the Lord!
Pray
Thank you, Lord, for the promise of a resurrected body and a new life with you in our eternal home. Make us worthy of this promise. Amen.
Go with God!
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