Resurrection Hope | Easter | 1 Corinthians 15
The resurrection of Jesus Christ is everything. It is the pivot in history that changed everything. The center of our faith is ultimately not the cross but the empty tomb. Paul doubles down on this in 1 Cor. 15 (55 verses!) and says without the Resurrection, your faith is in vain and collapses. In this passage, we will see that the Resurrection of Jesus changes what we believe about the Gospel and world and then changes how we actually live. It is the Resurrection that ultimately makes the Good News the Good News.
Gluttony and Feasting | Glittering Vices | Ecclesiastes 2: 1-11; Psalm 63: 1-5
Gluttony is often thought as an overindulgence in food and drink. It is certainly that but it is much more. It is a vice of excess pleasure or pleasure whose aim is self-gratification. It is the pursuit of pleasure as a sort of self-mission, rather than as a gift from God. It creates a paradox: we fill ourselves up on emptiness, costing us our souls. Scripture’s response is twofold. First, there is a spirit of fasting that frees us from dependence on pleasure (food/drink or otherwise) so we might see our true need of God. And it is Jesus is truly fasted (“I thirst” at the Cross) to free us from sin. Second, there is a call to feasting. God is the Lord of the Feast throughout Scripture and as the psalmist shows us, he is what satisfies that then allows us to enjoy the pleasures of the world as part of His mission. So, in the end, we learn how to feast, which is not pleasure seeking and we learn to worship him through an enjoyment of God’s creation.