In the Vrijheids (Freedom) Museum in Groesbeek, the Netherlands, there is a remarkable sculpture called Resurrection. In extraordinary detail, it depicts a Commonwealth war cemetery. What is so extraordinary is that the dead soldiers are bursting forth from their graves. Some look astonished (who wouldn’t?); others look filled with joy (indeed!); more embrace comrades who had also lost their lives in battle. Instead of a symbol of solemn remembrance, this sculpture depicts life, hope, and joy bursting forth from death caused by war. But, we might say, ‘Resurrection: so what?’

Belief in the resurrection has always challenged people. Yes, people can and do embrace the ethical teachings of Jesus – including those we read about in today’s Gospel passage. But the idea that Jesus not only died (the common fate of those who stand up for the poor and disadvantaged, who challenge the powers of the day), but was raised from the dead, is altogether harder to comprehend.

Our extract from 1 Corinthians 15, in which Paul wrestles in great detail with the significance of the resurrection, is not so much examining whether Jesus was raised from the dead or not, as responding to the challenge of those who question (or flatly deny) that we can also be raised from the dead.

We live in an age where we pretty much question everything. And anything we don’t like, or disagree with, or don’t understand, we label ‘fake news’. Truth is depicted as lies; lies as reality – and anyone with a smartphone can ‘enhance’ a photograph. Even the BBC has a ‘BBC Verify’ department – to test the truth (or falsehood) of the news stories it receives.

So, it is not surprising that the idea of the resurrection of the dead is hard to comprehend, much harder still to accept. We might (just) accept it for Jesus. But for us? Fake news? Or hope – our hope, and hope for the world, like the hope sculptured into Resurrection?

Paul’s starting point is this: Jesus is raised from the dead. That has been the heart of all Christian proclamation. We are an Easter people! And Paul is equally clear: if Jesus was raised from the dead, there will be a general resurrection of the dead. With searing logic, Paul argues that if there is no resurrection of the dead, then:

1. Christ has not been raised from the dead either;
2. What has been proclaimed is in vain (which, as Nigel Watson suggests, could be translated as ‘empty, lacking substance, ineffective.’). [The First Epistle to the Corinthians (London: Epworth Press, 1992), p.164];
3. Your faith is in vain (empty, lacking substance, ineffective…);
4. We have misrepresented God;
5. Your faith is futile!
6. You are still rooted in your sins;
7. Those who have died have eternally perished;
8. We are to be pitied more than anyone else. We are just so deluded!

That’s quite a list. And all this because, Paul believes, Jesus, who died for our sins, was raised to life. More than that: Jesus is the first fruits, the pioneer of our way to resurrection life. Jesus has prepared the way for us.

Bishop Tom Wright puts it like this: ‘The resurrection is the foundation of the Christian counterculture.’ [Paul for Everyone: 1 Corinthians (London: SPCK, 2003), p.209.] He goes on, ‘With Jesus’ resurrection… a new world has opened up, in which the all-embracing power of sin and death no longer holds sway… there is after all a way forward, a way into a life yet greater, more beautiful, more powerful, than this one.’ (p.210)

Resurrection: so what? If Jesus was not raised from the dead, then neither may we. If we cannot be raised from the dead, then neither was Jesus. Our life is inextricably bound in the resurrection life of Jesus. And because Jesus is raised from the dead, so may we. We too may enter into a greater, more beautiful life than we could ever imagine. And because of that eternal hope, ours is the task to work to change our world in the here and now: realising God’s kingdom on earth as in heaven.

In Lent we shall follow the footsteps of Jesus as he heads toward the cross. Jesus’s suffering may be easier to grasp. Yet his journey leads not only to the tomb, but to resurrection. The sculpture in Groesbeek foretells the joy to come – for us, and for the transformation of the world. We are not deluded, but a people of hope!