Ordinary Time
February 10, 2022
Scripture Reading:
1 Corinthians 15:12-20
Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say there is no resurrection of the dead? If there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation has been in vain and your faith has been in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified of God that he raised Christ—whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised. If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have died in Christ have perished. If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.
But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died.
I believe in a Supreme Being that is love and the source of all that is, I call God. I believe in the resurrection of Jesus, the Christ, who embodied the Supreme Being when he came to earth as a newborn, lived the life of a human, shared the love of God with all, was crucified on a cross, died and rose again. He breathed the Spirit of God on all his disciples as he has continued to do from that time forth. With the Spirits guidance Jesus commissioned us to take the love of God throughout our world and use it as the springboard for the wellbeing of the world God created and all that is within it.
That said, I have no clue what happens after our death. Of this I am sure, I will spend eternity with God and that is all I need to know. Thus, scriptures like the one above perplex me, and, yet, I know others for whom such scriptures speak much comfort. I do not love God in real time only for the promise of something better to come. I hope I share God’s love for the sake of its value for myself and others rather than building my faith resume’. I do believe that to whom much is given much will be required (Luke 12:48). God wants all of us to be fully what God created us to be and God never measures our outcomes against others.
Prayer: Lord, we are in chaos as we stumble through the world’s temptations and try to make sense out of what is of you and what is not. We thank you for your abiding presence and asked that you restore and help us retain our recognition of it and not be mislead by false prophets. Amen.
All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights are reserved.