Easter Message: Easter Sunday

The Miracle of the Seed

I Cor 15:35 “But someone will say, ‘How are the dead raised up? And with what body do they come?’
15:36 Foolish one, what you sow is not made alive unless it dies.
15:37 And what you sow, you do not sow that body that shall be, but mere grain-perhaps wheat or some other grain.
15:38 But God gives it a body as He pleases, and to each seed its own body.
15:39 All flesh is not the same flesh, but there is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of animals, another of fish, and another of birds.
15:40 There are also celestial bodies and terrestrial bodies; but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another.
15:41 There is one glory of the sun, another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for one star differs from another star in glory.
15:42 So also is the resurrection of the dead. The body is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption.
15:43 It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power.
15:44 It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body.
15:45 And so it is written, ‘The first man Adam became a living being.’ The last Adam became a life-giving spirit.’ ”

Can you see the seeds that I collected? Please look at them through the plastic…(Everyone has been given a small collection of two types of seeds in a plastic bag)
They don’t look like much as they are…pretty insignificant really. They do have potential however. They carry a promise of something to come…
Seeds have a miraculous power in them.

You pass by seeds every day as you go about outside, to collect the mail, to go to work, to go shopping, to walk in the garden. You look at the pretty flowers or the progress of the vegetables or fruit on the trees, but you do not examine the seeds. (Well, maybe you do, good on you.)

But if you plant these seeds, I have given you, in good soil you will see what they will become. You will discover their nature.

Paul the apostle says it’s a bit like that with our bodies.
1 Cor 15:35 “But someone will say, ‘How are the dead raised up? And with what body do they come?’ 36 Foolish one, what you sow is not made alive unless it dies. 37 And what you sow, you do not sow that body that shall be, but mere grain-perhaps wheat or some other grain. 38 But God gives it a body as He pleases, and to each seed its own body.”
Paul argues against the sceptics’ claims that the resurrection of the body is foolishness. He uses the example of seeds in nature, much as Jesus did in his parables.
In Mt. 13:32 Jesus reminds us that His marvelous kingdom can be seen in a mustard seed, “which indeed is the least of all the seeds; (He says) but when it is grown it is greater than the herbs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and nest in its branches.”
Paul says this process is a picture of eternal life, resurrected life.
So the picture is of a miraculous change in form but not in the nature of what we are now.
The picture is of a miraculous change in form but not in the nature of what we are now.
Each seed reproduces after its own kind.
You plant a carrot seed and carrots come up, not potatoes!
Each seed has a power within it to reproduce its own kind. And this is the thing that is marvelous in nature, but miraculous when we think about what happens when we die.
Both Jesus and Paul say even though the seed that is sown bears no relation to the form that emerges in the new plant, it will be the same with our bodies.

God is able to do what He wishes.
He has told us that while what is “sown” when we die, just like a seed is planted and dies in the ground, as it were, it results in the generation of a new plant.
It has changed radically in its appearance or form, but not in its nature…the flax seed appears as a flax plant not a big Kowhai tree!
For each of us who trust in Christ, God promises a vital continuity, but what we shall be is not identical with what we are now or what we are like at the point of death.
Indeed, it is far better than we can imagine.
Paul says: “So also is the resurrection of the dead.
The body is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption.
43 It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory.
It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power.
44 It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.
There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body.” (1 Cor 15:42-44)
Imagine that!
That everyone who is Christ’s will return alive and perfect.

I said before that God is able to do what he wishes.
Bible teacher Geoffrey Wilson puts it this way: “…since God organizes matter in an infinite variety of ways, there is no reason to suppose that it is beyond his power to raise to eternal life the body that is sown in corruption.”
So eternal life is not some vague promise to the believer in Jesus Christ.

Oh no! The Easter message is that God does a miracle!

When we die, Jesus said, it’s like the planting of a seed in the ground and then God raises us in a perfect body.
This happens because Jesus rose again from the dead on our behalf.
Geoffrey Wilson continues to say:
“As we inherit our natural life from Adam, so we receive our spiritual life from Christ. And as we have borne the image of the earthy, so we shall bear the image of the heavenly. For flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God.”

I said earlier that if you plant these seeds, I have given you, in good soil you will see what they will become. So what will they become?

They are flax seeds and Kowhai seeds.
The black ones are flax and the three yellow ones Kowhai.
One type of seed will produce one kind of plant and the other another completely different one, but each after their kind as God designed them.
The seeds hold a promise, they offer potential. They contain a marvel of God’s power within them. This power of the seed is a picture of the power of the resurrection of Christ.
As we have borne the earthly image so we shall bear the heavenly image…
Again, imagine that! That everyone who is Christ’s will return alive and perfect before God!
We will not be identical to what we are in our present form, but we will be identical in nature.
1John 3:2 “Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.”

That is the Easter message.
May God bless you with that faith this Easter. Amen.