Hope in Frailty

Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed (1 Corinthians 15:51). Birth and death both reveal that human life is fragile. To embrace both life and death, we need hope. Christians find their hope in the words of our text, "we will all be changed". The birth of a child is often a beautiful thing. Few things are as awesome as cradling your newborn in your arms. There is so much hope, so much potential. Love and joy overcome our fears. But the fears are real. There is fragility. This living being is totally dependant. Most parents, when they hold their newborn child, encounter that sober reality that some day, this child too will die. Before that, there will be many trials and probably much suffering. To be a parent is not for the faint of heart. As Christians, we do not avoid these realities of evil. Whether it is at the birth of a child or the death of a loved one, we acknowledge evil's grip on this life. There is much wrong with this world, and we cannot escape it. Wars in Ukraine and the Gaza, destructive fires and rains, homelessness, pandemics, all tell the story.  We humans are frail. And as Christians, we acknowledge that evil's hold on us is caused by humanities rebellion against God. When the apostle writes about our flesh, he is usually referring to that reality: that we are rebels, that we have walked away from the God who gives life, we have chosen death. Or as the Heidelberg Catechism puts it, 'we have a naturally tendency to hate God and our neighbour." Yet, as Christians we face this frailty, this fleshness, with courage. This frailty is doomed to die. In his great chapter on the resurrection, the apostle says that 'our flesh and blood' cannot enter God's forever kingdom. Frail, mortal humanity cannot survive in God's eternal and perfectly holy presence. But because Christ took on our flesh and blood, subjected himself to death, and rose again, death has lost its sting and its victory. By faith in him, our bodies too will be raised to new life. We will be changed. In our text, Paul refers specifically to those who are still alive when Christ returns. However, elsewhere he tells us that the dead are raised to their new bodies, and the whole creation is liberated from decay to share in the freedom of the glory of God's children. All who are in Christ will be changed. God will change our mortality to immortality and our perishableness to imperishableness, our frailty to power. When that day comes, death will have no more control over us. Our frailty will be gone. That fleshness will have been rooted out and destroyed. Life eternal will flow in us, forever. Our bodies will be transformed, along with all of creation. God has already done the new thing in the Messiah, Jesus, and he will do it for all Jesus' people through the power of the Spirit. And in that new thing, death and decay will be gone, swallowed up for ever. And so today, in whatever way we face the frailty of human life, we can so with courage and hope. The church gathers to worship God and to remember that "Christ is risen. He is risen, indeed." As you journey on, go with the blessing of God: May the peace of the Lord Christ go with you, wherever he may send you. May he guide you through the wilderness, protect you through the storm. May your day end with rejoicing at the wonders he has shown you.  May you rest in his provision as he brings night, and then new dawn.