Marathon

 There is a place called Marathon, and the race known as a marathon is named after that place.

The importance of that place is that there was a battle that took place there, between the Greeks and the Persians.  A battle that was very much up in the air as to who would win.  As it turns out, the Greek forces ended up winning a fairly decisive victory over the Perisans, who were defeated and driven back.  

Now, back in the day, you couldn't just tune into the news, or follow Twitter to see what the results would be.  You had to wait for a messenger.

In the case of the battle of Marathon, the messenger was one Phippides.  Philippides was tasked with bringing the news of the win at the battle of Marathon to the Athenians.  Again, there was no twitter, no radio, no telegram, no telegram, no television, that sort of thing. You had to make do with runners and messengers.  And so Philippides was said to have brought the message all the way from Marathon to Athens, to let them know of the triumphant win.  Now, how far was Marathon from Athens?  Roughly 40km.  How far is a modern Marathon race?  Just a little over 40 km.  It's named for this event.  Now, Philippides was said to have collapsed and died upon completion of his famous run, and anyone who has run a marathon in their lives would largely relate to that result.  But that race, that run was vital to convey news to people who were desperate to hear about the results of the battle.  Philippides saying 'Joy, for we have won!' is a greeting that they were desperate to hear, and which they could only get through messengers.

The Bible asks a great question, which is to say 'how will they believe unless they have heard? And how will they hear with nobody to proclaim?' Paul communicates in Romans that if people are to hear news, someone is going to have to bring that news to them.  If people are to believe in something, someone must be tasked to bring that to them.  And for us, as Christians, that somebody is Mark.

Mark, the Gospel writer, gets his Gospel out to the world extremely quickly.  His Gospel is the one that is written first, submitted first, and is the first written account of the life of Christ known to exist.  It is Mark's Gospel that was brought to the ends of the earth first, and its length and structure embody that.  Mark's Gospel is the one that moves quickly, both in narrative and in global reach.  Mark's Gospel starts right away with John the Baptist proclaiming repentance.  It doesn't start with a family tree, nor with research notes, nor with the mystical pre-incarnate Christ.  It starts with repentance, and the arrival of Christ.

In our day, we have become accustomed to instant communication.  We are very used to the idea that if something isn't recorded right away, then it didn't happen.  And Mark's Gospel is a problem for that, given that the events that it describes (the life and death and resurrection of Jesus Christ) are recorded by Mark a good thirty years after they happened.  That's bad, right?  Like it's a really big problem that the most contemporary account of Jesus is 30 years after the event?  Well, to put it into perspective, Hannibal, the Carthaginian general who threatened Rome, is written about in Livy's 'Roman History.'  The Punic war featuring Hannibal was in 201 BC.  Livy wrote in 31 BC.  That's close to a 200 year difference, and Hannibal is considered to be well known, and well attested to.  Part of what you have to get over is writing the present onto the past, and making standards for the Bible that you wouldn't make for any other ancient information.  Writings about Socrates are typically in the same sort of timeframe as the Gospel of Mark, and we all consider those to be relatively authoritative, and that they speak of a real person who taught real things.  Mark's Gospel is actually insanely early, and very well distributed, especially given that it tells the story of a Jewish preacher from the backwaters of the Empire.

So why is Mark's Gospel so comparatively early?  Well, because Mark has important things to say.  Mark really wants to get what he has to say out to you remarkably quickly and efficiently.  He does this because of what is said in our Old Testament reading.

Just like Athens waiting for the news of the battle of Marathon, the world was waiting for news of the Messiah. Israel, but also the entire world, was waiting with bated breath for news of the victory won through Jesus Christ.  A world groaning in their sins, sitting under the weight of death, was waiting earnestly for news of salvation, and it came to them first through the Gospel of Mark.  Mark's message is too big to fit in a single tweet, of course, but it does come down to the same message: Joy, for we have won. Christ is victorious, sin and the devil are defeated.  A world that knows that it needs salvation is desperate for this news, and Mark brings it quickly out to a tired and needy world.

Just like Philippides' feet being beautiful because of the news they brought, not because they would necessarily be beautiful after a 42 km run, so too are the feet of Mark beautiful because of the message that they bring.  Good News of salvation!  Good news of life for a world that needs to hear it. The speed of Mark's gospel is equivalent to the marathon run, where someone is willing to run a message to the world all night if necessary, so that the watchmen, including you and I, can rejoice at the news.  Joy, for Christ has won.  Joy, for we have won.

Eternal

 A long long time ago, when I was in University, in Calgary, I went to a sort of guest lecture from a Christian evangelist, who was approaching things from a scientific perspective.  His discussion has stuck with me ever since I saw it.  Sadly, I have zero recollection of what his name was, given that I just went to see him on the spur of the moment.  And he talked at least for a while about resurrection.

Up until that moment, I had certainly thought about Heaven, and I had confessed that I believed in the resurrection of the body, but I'd never considered the logistics of the operation.  But I should have.

Considering the resurrection of the body is an important thing to do, because I do sincerely believe that if we examined what we believe properly, it would truly get rid of a lot of our difficulties on these topics. People rightly will get hung up on a couple of topics when it comes to resurrection.  Here are some of the issues that can be dealt with by, shockingly, being orthodox.

1 - If we go to heaven forever as souls, then why were we alive in bodies in the first place?

Answer:  We weren't put on earth just to suffer through having a body for a period of time only to be released from it.  Rather, we were given bodies by the Lord God who looked at us and saw that it was good.  God made matter, he is quite keen on it, and nothing in the New Testament will give you the idea that the end state of humanity is to be divorced eternally from the matter that God made in the first place.  In the Bible, God very much wants to see human beings being human beings forever.  That's the goal, and it is consistent with the beginning of the body, in a way that soul eternity does not.

2 - If souls are the only part of you that survives, then where is that soul located in the body?  And how can your personality and attitudes change due to injuries to the brain, changes to the brain, etc. See Phineas Gage.

Answer:  The Christian perspective doesn't actually argue from your personality, your spirit being completely distinct from your matter.  That is, there is something about your body that is extremely important for your creation.  When Jesus returned from the dead, he came back in his body.  He didn't come back as a spirit or ghost or life force. He came back in his body.  And so too, when we think about our bodies, we can think about our personalities, our humanity, at least being partially bound up on our human bodies, which is good and pleasing, given that when God makes humanity, he makes them out of the base elements of the earth, and doesn't only attribute a body to them later.

3 - If we are supposed to have bodies forever, what do we do with the fact that people die, and get buried or cremated? There aren't enough atoms on earth to resurrect literally everyone on earth at the same time, given that human beings will share atoms between them.

Answer: This was one of the most interesting things that the lecturer said.  When he was talking about resurrection of the body, he talked about our DNA.  That is, we all have a very particular fingerprint of our DNA which is unique to us.  There is a pattern that makes you who you are. That pattern is distinct, and doesn't get replicated.  When we reproduce, we do so by taking two unique humans and combining them to make another unique person.  No replication of humanity.  Now, when we're talking about the pattern that makes us who we are, I want to talk about Isaiah 49:15-16.  In this passage, God says that he has engraved us on the palms of his hands. What does that mean? It means that you, the individual you, for which there is no replacement, that you has been engraved on the palms of the hands of God.  There is one pattern that makes you you.  That pattern doesn't make anyone else. So when God resurrects us, and resurrects our bodies, that pattern, the pattern that is for you and you only, is remembered and redone.  This isn't a matter only of dragging dead flesh out of a grave and dressing it up, for when Lazarus rose from the dead, he rose with his decay undone.  When Jesus rose from the dead, he rose with decay undone.  This isn't a zombie thing, you know. This is a resurrection thing.  The DNA, the pattern that makes you into who you are is crucial, vital.  Resurrection is a rebirth, with all the problems, weaknesses and injurious mutations scrubbed out of that pattern.  But the pattern remains.  The pattern that makes you into you.

4 - Will we know each other in heaven?

Answer:  Yes.  Because you will be you. And your parents will be your parents.  And your grandparents, and great grandparents, all the way back.  God loves you.  He doesn't love a spirit or a ghost, he loves you.  Very sincerely.  And you are what Jesus Christ came to save, all of you.  The you that he made, the you that he sustained, the you that he redeemed.  There isn't a fake you, or a part of you that he came to save.  He came to save you.  Completely.  The pattern that He made, that he loves, that's the you that he wants to save for eternity.  Do you know each other here? Then you will know each other in paradise.  Except now you know in part, but then you will know in full, even as you are fully known.

5- Will we be angels sitting on clouds?

Answer: No. You will be you.  If you don't have wings now, you're not going to pick them up later.  That's a straight up truth.

All in all, these are better answers than the corrupt ones that you will hear.  And in keeping with Dorothy Sayers, the dogma is the drama. We were all conditioned to think about Christian dogma as being in some way a barrier to what is good and true and worthwhile, but in reality, the dogma is the most important part.  Without this dogma of the resurrection of the body, all of a sudden 'resurrection' begins to mean something ghastly.  A false dogma gives you a hope that you may someday see your family in the form of wispy ghosts.  But the truth of the scripture will give you an eternal family that you can actually cling to.  

I'm well aware of which one I prefer.

And in keeping with Dorothy Sayers, show this to a person in the world, and he may not believe it, but he will at least see something there that is worth believing.

Be careful but not afraid

 Last year I made a similar point to this year, which is that we are suffering under an epidemic of fear these days.

What do I mean by that?  I don't mean in any way that you shouldn't get vaccinated, wear a mask, wash your hands, or do anything else that the public health guidelines would suggest. Quite the contrary.  Do all those things.  But don't be afraid.

The Bible says many times to anyone who will listen 'do not be afraid,' and this is one of those moments where Jesus would say 'he who has ears, let him hear.'  For truly, we are not supposed to be afraid.  Now this doesn't mean that we shouldn't take these precautions, because we take all kinds of other precautions as well.  We normally wash our hands, or at least we should.  We look both ways when we cross the street, lock up our bicycles, fasten our seatbelts, wear motorcycle helmets, that sort of thing. And very few people, if any, would say to someone who was fastening their seatbelt 'what, you don't trust God?'  Sure, you may find the odd person who would suggest that, but most people would say, and confidently so, that we absolutely do trust God, but that's no reason to not buckle up for safety.  

But I've never met anyone who buckles their seatbelt in fear.

People fasten their seatbelts as a matter of course, they do it because that's what you do when you get into the car.  People put on their helmets when they ride their motorcycles not in fear, but as a matter of course.  This is what you do when you hop on your Harley.  Normally, when people wash their hands, they don't do so in fear, but in relative confidence.  All of these things are done, and done routinely, without any sense of fear whatsoever.  And they demonstrably save lives.  Modern sanitation has saved countless lives, so have seatbelts, helmets, nutrition, all those sorts of things.  They all work, and we all use them without any sort of fear whatsoever.  We use them with confidence, courage, even as routine, for we are that confident in their efficacy.  

Now, your odds of dying in a road collision are higher than your odds of dying from COVID, if the stats are to be believed, but almost nobody approaches driving with fear.  We take sensible precautions, but are not paralyzed with fear every time we get behind the wheel.  And it's that kind of confidence that I would like to talk about when I talk about Christ and salvation.

We are people who are living in an Easter worldview - Christ raised from the dead.  We believe that the men and women who were witnesses to the resurrection witnessed something of profound importance.  That meant that they had crucial things to think about, in relation to who they were following that moment.  The disciples had all shown that they were capable of fear in the face of persecution.  That much was obvious.  The crucifixion was state terrorism, basically, in which Jesus was publicly killed in the hopes that his movement would die with him.  His disciples were supposed to be cowed into submission with the simple message that if you deviate from the state position, that your fate will be the same as his. And it mostly worked.  

Until Christ rose from the dead.

And when he did, the disciples preached without fear.  Not that they weren't concerned, nor bothered, but they didn't live in fear anymore.  Our Gospel reading for today definitely says that they were afraid, which they clearly were, but the time of Easter in our church calendar has the disciples moving beyond fear to confidence - to boldness.  If the disciples still believed in the relentless destruction of Christ as a final issue, you'd better believe that they're never leaving that upper room to proclaim the gospel. They'll just speak it to one another, in fear.  But seeing the risen Lord has them become fully confident, bold speakers of truth.  And yes, they will be killed for it, they will be beaten and wounded, crucified and stoned.  But they will not live in fear. 

Our world right now is paralyzed with fear, because our world knows nothing of the Gospel.  It knows nothing of life everlasting.  It knows only the material conditions of this world, and lives in fear accordingly.  But we believe that Jesus died and rose again.  So we can actually bring some confidence to a world that needs it.  Not that we won't be cautious.  We will.  Not that we won't follow guidelines.  we will.  But there is one thing that we will not do.

We will not be afraid when we do it.

Eventually all must die.  Our current climate of fear is based around that realization that we haven't had to have for some time.  But we all must die.  You can either live every day trying to cheat death, living in fear and trepidation, or you can refuse to live in fear, and treat even these precautions the same as you do all the others.  Trusting in God not just to spare you for the next week or year, but to bring you to life everlasting.  That's how you face the current climate with confidence, knowing that for sure you will be brought from death to life.