September 4, 2005 Sermon

I Say Goodbye / I Say Hello
I Corinthians 15:42-50

I plan my sermons out a couple of months in advance. It gives me the chance to mull over the Bible passages involved, and to find good illustrations for my main points. So back in May I planned to preach this weekend on the resurrection. I would focus on the BibleÕs contention that we will see and know each other in the resurrection life. Death separates Christians only temporarily. Then came Katrina.

Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast with sustained winds of 165 miles per hour and, at its center, a wall of sea water 30 feet high. We have all seen the videos of Biloxi , Mississippi , which now looks in aerial footage like a vast pile of matchsticks and crumpled tin foil. New Orleans , scrunched between the Mississippi River (which drains half the continental United States) and Lake Pontchartrain (the second-largest salt-water lake in the western hemisphere), sits seven feet below sea level. When the levees broke all that water had to go someplace. Ê80% of New Orleans went underwater to an average depth of eight feet.

As they say in the plumbing trade, ÒWater always wins.ÓÊ Last week water won; people lost. The governor of Mississippi estimated that Katrina killed over 2,000 in his state. National Guardsmen pushed dead bodies to the sides of streets so their amphibious trucks could penetrate deeper into the destruction in search of survivors. Interstate 10 used to cross Bay St. Louis and Biloxi Bay on miles-long bridges. Today only the steel supports remain. The hurricane sliced the pavement like cheese and plopped it into the water. ÊThe situation grew so desperate a man in Hattiesburg shot his sister in the head after arguing over a bag of ice.

At first, New Orleans appeared to have escaped catastrophe. The storm damaged property and a few people lost their lives, but the city seemed to have dodged the long-dreaded ÒBig OneÓ. Then two levees along Lake Pontchartrain broke. Cubic miles of water mixed with sewage and petrochemicals poured over the city. Though the mayor had ordered an evacuation perhaps as many as 200,000 people had stayed in town. Now they had to flee the flood. Many climbed into their attics and out onto their roofs. There they waitedÑsome for as long as three days in 95 degree heat and 80% humidityÑfor rescue. Many did not make it.

The ÒluckyÓ ones slogged through to the few points of ÒhighÓ ground. One such place, the French Quarter, became a center for looting. Increasingly brazen (and better armed) mobs stole not just food and water, but designer shoes, DVD players, motorcycles, and of course, guns. Helicopter rescues stopped intermittently when idiots took potshots at the aircraft. More than 60,000 souls spent five days sheltered in the Superdome. The power there went out and the toilets broke. The storm tore holes in the metal roof. The temperature inside rose to over 90; medics wore masks to keep out the stench and disease.

Richard Zeuschlag, head of Acadian Ambulance and the man in charge of trying to evacuate the most diseased and injured from the Superdome, told the Associated Press that he was getting cell phone calls from crying EMTs inside reporting that gangs with guns were forming and rampaging in the stands. When officials in Houston sent busses to transport people from the Superdome 300 miles to the Astrodome, people trampled one another and fired guns in the air to get on board first.

NBC News spoke with 40-year-old Kevin Montgomery, who spent three days shuttling between his attic and a tarp he rigged on his roof. Every once in a while he would see a dead body float by. But he cannot swim and had to fight the urge to jump in and try to secure the bodies somehow. ÒIt was terrible,Ó he said. ÒAll I could do was let them pass and hope that God takes care of the rest of that.Ó

Let the bodies go by and hope God takes care of the rest of that. I thought I would preach about the resurrection today and, what do you know? ÊI am. Death has happened along the Gulf Coast. Death has happened literally, in that thousands of peopleÕs bodies have died. And death has happened symbolically, in that an entire region has seen the death of its property and, perhaps, an entire way and place of life.

But death, unlike water, does not win. Death is only temporary. As Christians, we believe Jesus died and came back to life expressly to make resurrection real for us. ÒWhat is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable,Ó the Apostle Paul writes in his first letter to the Corinthians. But what is sown?Ê Us, thatÕs what. We are born. But who and what are we?Ê Do our bodies incorporate all there is to us?Ê NO, Paul would reply. ÒIt is sown a physical body, but it is raised a spiritual body.Ó

Clearly the physical bodies of the dead do not come back to life. We can say this with confidence despite the horror movies that claim otherwise. The evidence is overwhelming. Yet Paul believes we experience resurrection after physical death: ÒIf there is a physical body there is also a spiritual body.ÓÊ He then jumps into the business about Adam, the first human, and Òthe man from heaven,Ó or Jesus. Adam is of dust, of flesh and blood. Jesus had one of those bodies, too, for a time. But when we are Òof heavenÓ our bodiesÕ deaths do not mean the end of it all for us. No, our Òspiritual bodiesÓ live on.

If being Òof heavenÓ punches our ticket to resurrection life, then maybe we ought to ask what it takes to be of heaven. Praise God the answer is simple!Ê Being Òof heavenÓ means believing in Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. Jesus, the first to experience resurrection, leads us through resurrection. All we must do is start following him now.

Okay, then, what does it mean to follow Jesus?Ê It means, again, to believe in Him. Pray for faith in Jesus as your resurrected Savior. Worship Him in the company of your fellow believers. Let your trust in the Good News of the resurrection grow stronger as you walk with Jesus and with one another. He has experienced death and he has entered into eternal life. He has risen from the dust.

Already President Bush has spoken about rebuilding the City of New Orleans. Already someÑthough by no means allÑof the victims of Hurricane Katrina have spoken to the media about building new houses. Others remain paralyzed by the sheer enormity of their losses. They have lost wives who were literally torn from their grasp by the raging flood currents. They have lost children, elderly parents, friends. They have lost cars and photo albums. Along one stretch of the Biloxi waterfront the storm threw up so much sand the people who used to live there have actually lost their land. They have lost everything. They have lost hope.

We cannot condemn them. While we might naturally ask why they lived in the path hurricanes occasionally take; while we might ask why so many stayed when the authorities begged them to evacuate; yet we cannot possibly condemn them. What would you do in their place?Ê You do not know unless you have actually been there.

Meanwhile, we can pray for their spirits. We canÑand no doubt we shallÑwork to help them recover. And we can rejoice that death does not win. Life wins. Resurrection life. Life with Jesus in the presence of God. Life that lasts forever. Life in a spiritual body that cannot know pain nor death. Praise God!Ê Death is only temporary. Even the horror of the hurricane cannot beat life. Life wins. Life in Christ. Amen!

Please join me in prayer for the victims of Hurricane Katrina. Let us pray for the living, that they might recover. Let us pray for the dead, praising God that those who believed in Jesus now see him face to face.