Second Sunday of Holy Cross

Second Sunday After the Holy Cross
Book of Offering page 606 1Cor. 15:19-34 Mt 24:1-14

SECOND SUNDAY AFTER HOLY CROSS

Reading: 1 Corinthians 15:19-34
If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are the most pitiable people of all. But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since death came through a human being, the resurrection of the dead came also through a human being. For just as in Adam all die, so too in Christ shall all be brought to life, but each one in proper order: Christ the firstfruits; then, at his coming, those who belong to Christ; then comes the end, when he hands over the kingdom to his God and Father, when he has destroyed every sovereignty and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death, for “he subjected everything under his feet.” But when it says that everything has been subjected, it is clear that it excludes the one who subjected everything to him. When everything is subjected to him, then the Son himself will (also) be subjected to the one who subjected everything to him, so that God may be all in all. Otherwise, what will people accomplish by having themselves baptized for the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, then why are they having themselves baptized for them? Moreover, why are we endangering ourselves all the time? Every day I face death; I swear it by the pride in you (brothers) that I have in Christ Jesus our Lord. If at Ephesus I fought with beasts, so to speak, what benefit was it to me? If the dead are not raised: “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.” Do not be led astray: “Bad company corrupts good morals.” Become sober as you ought and stop sinning. For some have no knowledge of God; I say this to your shame.

I. The Context:
Corinth was an important and wealthy city on the isthmus (narrow strip of land) separating Northern and Southern Greece. The Apostle Paul spent eighteen months there on his Second Missionary Journey and established a church there. Acts 18 gives us considerable detail about Paul’s work in Corinth during that time.
At the conclusion of his visit to Corinth, Paul left to visit Ephesus, Jerusalem, Antioch, and Galatia (Acts 18:18-23). After leaving Corinth, Paul wrote a letter to the Christians at Corinth warning them “to have no company with sexual sinners” (5:9), but that letter has been lost to us.
Paul is writing this letter in response to a report from Chloe’s people about problems in the Corinthian church (1:11). In this letter, he provides apostolic guidance for dealing with those problems. These included:
• Questions about Paul’s apostolic authority (chapters 1, 4)
• Divisions in the church (chapters 3-4)
• Sexual immorality (chapter 5)
• Lawsuits among believers (chapter 6)
• Questions about marriage and sexuality (chapter 7)
• Questions about eating food sacrificed to idols (chapters 8-10)
• Abuses at the Lord’s Supper (chapter 11)
• Issues regarding spiritual gifts (chapters 12-14)
These were (with the exception of questions regarding Paul’s authority) moral and ethical issues—issues related to how the Corinthian Christians behave. However, now in chapter 15, Paul begins to deal with a doctrinal issue—and issue related to what these Corinthian Christians believe. The doctrinal issue is the resurrection of Christ—and how that belief undergirds the belief in the resurrection of deceased believers.
In chapter 2, Paul dealt with Christ’s crucifixion. Now, in chapter 15, he deals with the resurrection, both Christ’s resurrection (15:1-11) and our own (15:12-58). Chapters 2 and 15, then, serve as bookends around the parts of this letter that deal with ethical issues.
Some Corinthian Christians have questioned the resurrection of believers. Their doubts arose from two sources:
First, some of them are Jewish, and Judaism was divided regarding the issue of resurrection. The Old Testament speaks of Sheol as the abode of the dead—a place where those who have died are separated from the living and from God. In their early history, Jewish people tended to think of Sheol only as the grave. As time progressed, their belief system progressed in the direction of resurrection. While the Old Testament doesn’t use the word resurrection, it does include several allusions to resurrection:
• “I kill, and I make alive” (Deuteronomy 32:39).
• “Yahweh kills, and makes alive. He brings down to Sheol, and brings up” (1 Samuel 2:6).
• “But as for me, I know that my Redeemer lives. In the end, he will stand upon the earth. After my skin is destroyed, then in my flesh shall I see God” (Job 19:25-26).
• “He has swallowed up death forever [and] will wipe away tears from off all faces” (Isaiah 25:7-8).
• “Your dead shall live. My dead bodies shall arise” (Isaiah 26:19).
• “Behold, I will open your graves, my people… You shall know that I am Yahweh, when I have opened your graves, and caused you to come up out of your graves, my people. I will put my Spirit in you, and you shall live” (Ezekiel 37:12-14). However, these words from Ezekiel were intended to portray the rebirth of Israel as a community of faith rather than the resurrection of faithful people as individuals.
• “After two days he will revive us. On the third day he will raise us up, and we will live before him” (Hosea 6:2).
By New Testament times, some Jews (such as the Sadducees) denied any possibility of resurrection or life after death, while other Jews (such as the Pharisees) did believe in the resurrection of the dead (Matthew 22:23; Mark 12:18).
Second, Corinth is a Greek city, and Greeks have been heavily influenced by Platonic dualism. Dualism divides things into two parts, such as good and evil or matter and non-matter. Many dualists considered matter (such as our bodies) as unimportant and/or evil and non-matter (such as our souls) as good. Plato taught that our physical bodies are imperfect copies of ideal Forms that exist in a spiritual realm. He taught that our bodies are mortal but our souls existed prior to our life on earth—and will continue to exist beyond this life. Greeks (including these Corinthian Christians), raised in a dualistic environment, found it difficult to believe in the resurrection of the body. For them, the body was something to leave behind gladly—good riddance. Their focus was the preservation of the soul.
Judaism, however, emphasized the wholeness of the person—body and soul. That emphasis continued in the Christian church. Paul wants the Corinthian Christians to know that belief in the resurrection—both Christ’s resurrection and the general resurrection of believers in the last days—is foundational to the Christian faith.
Later in this chapter, Paul will explain that the resurrected body is different from the body as we know it now. He says, “What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a physical body, there is also a spiritual body” (15:42-44).
As noted above, in this chapter Paul deals both with Christ’s resurrection (15:1-11) and with our own (15:12-58).

Biblical Exegesis
[15:20–28] After a triumphant assertion of the reality of Christ’s resurrection (1 Cor 15:20a), Paul explains its positive implications and consequences. As a soteriological event of both human (1 Cor 15:20–23) and cosmic (1 Cor 15:24–28) dimensions, Jesus’ resurrection logically and necessarily involves ours as well.

[15:20] The firstfruits: the portion of the harvest offered in thanksgiving to God implies the consecration of the entire harvest to come. Christ’s resurrection is not an end in itself; its finality lies in the whole harvest, ourselves.

[15:21–22] Our human existence, both natural and supernatural, is corporate, involves solidarity. In Adam…in Christ: the Hebrew word ’ādām in Genesis is both a common noun for mankind and a proper noun for the first man. Paul here presents Adam as at least a literary type of Christ; the parallelism and contrast between them will be developed further in 1 Cor 15:45–49 and in Rom 5:12–21.

[15:24–28] Paul’s perspective expands to cosmic dimensions, as he describes the climax of history, the end. His viewpoint is still christological, as in 1 Cor 15:20–23. 1 Cor 15:24, 28 describe Christ’s final relations to his enemies and his Father in language that is both royal and military; 1 Cor 15:25–28 inserts a proof from scripture (Ps 110:1; 8:6) into this description. But the viewpoint is also theological, for God is the ultimate agent and end, and likewise soteriological, for we are the beneficiaries of all the action.

[15:26] The last enemy…is death: a parenthesis that specifies the final fulfillment of the two Old Testament texts just referred to, Ps 110:1 and Ps 8:7. Death is not just one cosmic power among many, but the ultimate effect of sin in the universe (cf. 1 Cor 15:56; Rom 5:12). Christ defeats death where it prevails, in our bodies. The destruction of the last enemy is concretely the “coming to life” (1 Cor 15:22) of “those who belong to Christ” (1 Cor 15:23).

[15:27b–28] The one who subjected everything to him: the Father is the ultimate agent in the drama, and the final end of the process, to whom the Son and everything else is ordered (24, 28). That God may be all in all: his reign is a dynamic exercise of creative power, an outpouring of life and energy through the universe, with no further resistance. This is the supremely positive meaning of “subjection”: that God may fully be God.

[15:29–34] Paul concludes his treatment of logical inconsistencies with a listing of miscellaneous Christian practices that would be meaningless if the “resurrection were not a fact.

[15:29] Baptized for the dead: this practice is not further explained here, nor is it necessarily mentioned with approval, but Paul cites it as something in their experience that attests in one more way to belief in the resurrection.

[15:30–34] A life of sacrifice, such as Paul describes in 1 Cor 4:9–13 and 2 Corinthians, would be pointless without the prospect of resurrection; a life of pleasure, such as that expressed in the Epicurean slogan of 1 Cor 15:32, would be far more consistent. I fought with beasts: since Paul does not elsewhere mention a combat with beasts at Ephesus, he may be speaking figuratively about struggles with adversaries.

Gospel: Matthew 24:1-14
Jesus left the temple area and was going away, when his disciples approached him to point out the temple buildings. He said to them in reply, “You see all these things, do you not? Amen, I say to you, there will not be left here a stone upon another stone that will not be thrown down.” As he was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples approached him privately and said, “Tell us, when will this happen, and what sign will there be of your coming, and of the end of the age?” Jesus said to them in reply, “See that no one deceives you. For many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am the Messiah,’ and they will deceive many. You will hear of wars and reports of wars; see that you are not alarmed, for these things must happen, but it will not yet be the end. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be famines and earthquakes from place to place. All these are the beginning of the labor pains. Then they will hand you over to persecution, and they will kill you. You will be hated by all nations because of my name. And then many will be led into sin; they will betray and hate one another. Many false prophets will arise and deceive many; and because of the increase of evildoing, the love of many will grow cold. But the one who perseveres to the end will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached throughout the world as a witness to all nations, and then the end will come.

[24:1–25:46] The discourse of the fifth book, the last of the five around which the gospel is structured. It is called the “eschatological” discourse since it deals with the coming of the new age (the eschaton) in its fullness, with events that will precede it, and with how the disciples are to conduct themselves while awaiting an event that is as certain as its exact time is unknown to all but the Father (Mt 24:36). The discourse may be divided into two parts, Mt 24:1–44 and Mt 24:45–25:46. In the first, Matthew follows his Marcan source (Mk 13:1–37) “closely. The second is drawn from Q and from the evangelist’s own traditional material. Both parts show Matthew’s editing of his sources by deletions, additions, and modifications. The vigilant waiting that is emphasized in the second part does not mean a cessation of ordinary activity and concentration only on what is to come, but a faithful accomplishment of duties at hand, with awareness that the end, for which the disciples must always be ready, will entail the great judgment by which the everlasting destiny of all will be determined.

[24:2] As in Mark, Jesus predicts the destruction of the temple. By omitting the Marcan story of the widow’s contribution (Mk 12:41–44) that immediately precedes the prediction in that gospel, Matthew has established a close connection between it and Mt 23:38, “…your house will be abandoned desolate.”

[24:3] The Mount of Olives: The disciples: cf. Mk 13:3–4 where only Peter, James, John, and Andrew put the question that is answered by the discourse. In both gospels, however, the question is put privately: the ensuing discourse is only for those who are disciples of Jesus. When will this happen…end of the age?: Matthew distinguishes carefully between the destruction of the temple (this) and the coming of Jesus that will bring the end of the age. In Mark the two events are more closely connected, a fact that may be explained by Mark’s believing that the one would immediately succeed the other. Coming: this translates the Greek word parousia, which is used in the gospels only here and in Mt 24:27, 37, 39. It designated the official visit of a ruler to a city or the manifestation of a saving deity, and it was used by Christians to refer to the final coming of Jesus in glory, a term first found in the New Testament with that meaning in 1 Thes 2:19. The end of the age: see note on Mt 13:39.

[24:4–14] This section of the discourse deals with calamities in the world (Mt 24:6–7) and in the church (Mt 24:9–12). The former must happen before the end comes (Mt 24:6), but they are only the beginning of the labor pains (Mt 24:8). (It may be noted that the Greek word translated the end in Mt 24:6 and in Mt 24:13–14 is not the same as the phrase “the end of the age” in Mt 24:3, although the meaning is the same.) The latter are sufferings of the church, both from within and without, that will last until the gospel is preached…to all “nations. Then the end will come and those who have endured the sufferings with fidelity will be saved (Mt 24:13–14).

Sample Homily

Until recent days even until a few months ago, we were able to listen to this passage from Matthew’s Gospel from a slightly objective distance. Jesus uses phrases here that we could barely imagine relating to us: “Nation will rise against nation”, “They will hand you over and will put you to death”, “You will be hated by all nations because of my name”. These may have sounded to us, in previous times, like phrases from a bygone age when Christians faced real persecution or, at the very least, relevant only to those parts of the world today where our Christian brothers and sisters are persecuted for the faith.
Perhaps now though, we don’t have the luxury of objective distance anymore. The rise of ISIS in the Middle East and the reality of Islamist terrorism on our own doorstep, almost quite literally, has meant that we must re-interpret and re-hear these words for ourselves today. Every day now, the news is full of stories of Christians being persecuted for the faith. And it is something we must engage with as we stand in solidarity with our brothers and sisters around the world.
What we want to do, of course, is try to make some sense of the times in which we live. As Christians, we don’t believe that history is a series of random events but that, even in the darkest of times, God is still in control and he is Lord of all. Well, of course, the desire to understand the course of world events is deeply embedded in the psychology of all human beings because we have been created as spiritual beings. And that was just as true during the times of Jesus as it is for us now. And the passage we have today from Matthew’s Gospel is an example of his disciples trying to make sense of the signs of the times and work out what it meant for God to be sovereign over all creation. And this passage has a lot to say to us in our particular day and age.
The disciples and Jesus were leaving the Temple area in Jerusalem and one of them looks up at the incredible building around them. And the Temple was truly incredible! In terms of space, it took up one-sixth of the whole of Jerusalem. The Courtyard of the Temple was the size of six soccer fields. The south-east corner of the Temple platform was 200 feet above the floor of the Kidron Valley beside it. The Temple was truly, truly impressive – an incredible sight that dominated the city and the skyline. So, it’s no wonder that his disciples said were marveling at this amazing place.
But the response that Jesus gives in verse 2 is absolutely mind-blowing: “You see all these, do you not? Truly I tell you, not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down.”
Jesus is making a profound comment that cuts to the very heart of the national identity of the Jewish nation; the nation that found its identity in its relationship with Yahweh the one true God, the nation that symbolized its place as the Chosen Race in this magnificent Temple. Jesus’ words are not a comment on the demise of a building. They are words that cut to the very heart of how the nation of Israel should understand itself. The power and the privilege will crumble and be overthrown.
This was a shocking statement that left the disciples absolutely stunned; they simply did not know how to react. And we know that, because the next verse begins, “When he was sitting on the Mount of Olives…” The disciples had been stunned into silence in the Temple courtyard and gave no response to Jesus there or as they left that huge area or as they descended into the Kidron Valley or as they crossed it. It was only when they had eventually made their way onto the Mount of Olives that the conversation picks up again.
The other Gospel writers tell us that it was Peter, James, John and Andrew who ask the question: not about the Temple, but about the demise of the nation and the re-writing of culture and society as they know it. Verse 3: “Tell us, when will this be?” they ask. “What will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?” And Jesus makes two points, both of which are pertinent for us today.
1. Do not be deceived
In verse 4, Jesus says, “Beware that no-one leads you astray. For many will come in my name saying, ‘I am the Messiah!’ and they will lead many astray.”
There are many people who will try to sell books and ideas on the back of cultural shifts and wars and difficulties in society. There are many preachers who will try to grow their churches by interpreting the Scriptures in dramatic ways that, as Paul says in his letter to Timothy, will tickle the ears of their hearers. Some examples of this are quite famous and very shocking. You may remember the James Jones cult in Jamestown, Guyana, where 900 members committed suicide in 1978. You may remember the Waco, Texas disaster in 1993, where 73 people died under the orders of David Koresh. But, most of the time, deception can come in far more subtle ways. There are some who will interpret the Scriptures in ways that excite and try to reveal meanings in the Bible that frankly are just not there…
And Jesus counsels against such preachers and teachers. We are not to be deceived. We are to take a measured approach to Scripture and seek to find in it the Word of God to us in ways that will lead us into a deeper walk with God. We are not to be deceived. And so, in the light of that, Jesus makes his second point to us: that we are to change the subject from these false preachers.
2. Change the story
As Jesus makes clear here, wars and famines and natural disasters are not signs of the ends of the age. They are the beginning of the birth pangs. And I think that what he is trying to say is this:
When we reflect on the tragedies of the world, it is wrong for us to use those tragedies to somehow turn it into a theological debate, an abstract argument, about when Jesus may or may not be returning. That’s what the false teachers do… What we are called to do is to recognize that tragedies are a call for us to be transformed and for us to work for the transformation of society and the systems that oppress people. Jesus uses the destruction of the Temple as a symbol of the destruction of all those systems and institutions that oppress people and exclude them. The end of the Temple is the beginning of the birth pangs: the birth pangs of justice and freedom from oppression.
The destruction of the Temple does not mark the end – it marks the beginning! It marks the beginning of the overthrow of systems and institutions that oppress and perpetrate injustice. It is the beginning of an era where peace and justice and freedom reign. And so, ultimately, the question for us in the light of this passage is this: Not “When will Jesus return?” but “What can we do, as individuals and as a church to bring peace and justice and freedom to a world in need?”
Crucially, we need to examine our own lives and our church to see if there are any ways in which we perpetuate injustice or do not promote peace or stifle freedom and then do everything we can to face up to that and make the changes necessary. Our God is a God who longs for us to experience peace. Our God is a God who offers each one of us ultimate freedom. Our God is a God who is jealous for justice. And we are to do all that we can to reflect the character of God in our community and beyond.
The disciples asked: “What will happen to show us that the time has come?”
What will happen is this: The Church of God – will promote peace in the community. The Church of God – will challenge injustice and work for justice for the poor and oppressed. The Church of God – will promote freedom for individuals and society as a whole.