[Mcgregorpage] McGregorPage 606, Easter 6, 4/27/08

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Easter 6 – April 27, 2008

Acts 17:22 31
Psalm 66:8 20
1 Peter 3:13 22
John 14:15 21


The Resurrection As Final Judgment

"They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them."  (John 14:21)

"While God has overlooked the times of human ignorance, now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will have the world judged in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead."  (Acts 17:30-31)

"He was put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit, in which also he went and made a proclamation to the spirits in prison, who in former times did not obey, when God waited patiently in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were saved through water."  (1 Peter 3:18-20)

"You brought us into the net; you laid burdens on our backs; you let people ride over our heads; we went through fire and through water; yet you have brought us out to a spacious place."  (Psalm 66:11-12)

Judgment is implicit in the Resurrection.  It is significant that it was Jesus who was raised and appeared to the disciples and not either thief crucified with him.  Implicit is God's judgment on whose commands are final -- not those of the thieves, not those of the Romans, not those of the Pharisees, but the commandments of Jesus.  Which commandments John has in mind is a big question because Jesus doesn't appear to have been long on commandments.  His commandments are short and broad.  "Love one another as I have loved you."  "Believe in God; believe also in me."  These two would top John's short list.  Indeed, they might be the list.

In his sermon to those in Athens, Paul explains that the resurrection of Jesus means the end of ignorance as a legal defense for idolatry.  He says in so many words, "You had an excuse for coming up with all these gods and their statues when it was just one invisible God's claim against another, but now that Jesus has been raised and shown to us, you have only two alternatives: to embrace Christ or reject the one and only God revealed in Christ.  Against the eternal consequences of this latter choice there will be no appeal.

Peter, preaching on the meaning of the crucifixion and resurrection, uses the figure of another watershed event, the flood, in which only eight people of all those on earth were saved.  Presumably, the resurrection of Jesus will divide humanity in a way that includes more than eight on the saved side, but to a church that was minuscule in its surrounding culture and threatened with extermination, eight might have been a reassuring number -- eight saved and all the rest swept away.  Now, that is terrifying judgment.  Ah, but you could be one of the eight.  That is resurrection.

Being one of the eight, or whatever number God chooses, is the reason for celebration in Psalm 66.  The horrible human suffering that God permitted is set aside by our emergence into God's promise.  The resurrection of Jesus is the fulfillment of God's promise.  Through faith in Christ we emerge from the suffering of this life into God's promise.

That the resurrection is judgment is clear enough.  That it is final judgment on us is challenged by God's steadfast love.  Like a frustrated parent, God has said, "All right, that's it; we're having no more of that!"  So, here came the flood.  But the children began acting up again -- and right soon.  "All right, that's it; we're having no more of that!"  And Moses had to stay in the wilderness another forty years.  "All right, that's it; we're having no more of that!"  And Israel fell.  "All right, I'm telling you for the last time!"  And Jerusalem fell.  Peter says that Jesus, "made alive in the spirit", went and proclaimed to those spirits who were on the wrong side of the judgment in the flood.  Proclaimed what?  Certainly not a taunt.  Surely a message of hope.  And if a message of hope, then their sentence was not final.  Oh, oh, here comes purgatory.  Can God really live with final damnation?  As long as there is one human being left to love, won't God find a way to love?  And as long as there is one human being left alive, won't there be that behavior God can't tolerate.

We can rest assured that the resurrection of Jesus is the final judgment on the identity of God, the nature of power and the eternal potential for human beings.  Since we now know that the essence of God's power is love, we have even less assurance that the saved are only eight or only any number at all.


May these thoughts strengthen you. 
 
An Open Letter to Fellow Pastors 
>From Roland McGregor, United Methodist Pastor 
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