The Resurrection of Our Lord

Philippians 3:20-21

April 17, 2022

The T in LGBTQIA+ has overwhelmed all the other letters. The T, of course, is for transgender. Transgenderism rejects biological reality, the givenness of creation. There is also another T, another trans, that is somewhat less known: Transhumanism. Transhumanism, at the risk of oversimplifying, proposes joining technology to humans for the purpose of enhancing and lengthening life. For many, this includes a goal of achieving immortality. 

Both of these contemporary trans movements seek to address real human problems: dysphoria, discomfort, disability, dissolution, death. There is something wrong with us. There is something wrong with the world. A trans movement seeks to change the problem. That’s what trans means: change. It can also mean cross, like to cross a barrier or a distance. Hence, transportation. Or, transformation. 

These contemporary trans movements, like others that have come before (such as Transcendentalism), are all doomed to fail, because they have the wrong starting point. The world that God made—which is both material and spiritual—was made good. After the creation of our first parents—humanity now the crown of God’s creation—He declared it to be “very good.”

While intrinsically good, sin brought corruption into the world. This means not only do we die, but our thoughts, feelings, and desires are—to use the technical term—really messed up.

There is a trans that we desperately need. We need a transformation, but we cannot effect it ourselves. The transformation we need is inaugurated by Jesus in His death and resurrection. God became man to transform humanity. St. Paul puts it this way: “We … eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body…” (Philippians 3:20–21), which is to say His resurrected body.

The struggle with sin that began in Lent reveals how desperately we need not just improvement but transformation. The passage I just read talks about the transformation of the body, when on the great day of resurrection Christ will transform us from corruption and decay to a living body no longer subject to death.

But the transformation of the soul begins already at baptism. Earlier in Philippians Paul talks about the importance of a life-change, how he had to give up the things that previously were important to him: 

I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith; that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.

Here the Word of God tells us that to know Christ, to experience the power of the resurrection in ourselves, we enter into the fellowship of His sufferings—and here fellowship would better be translated as communion—the communion of His sufferings by which we are conformed to His death.

Now, that sounds like martyrdom; but this calling—the calling to be conformed to Christ’s death—is not only for the holy martyrs. Each one of us is called to this. How are we conformed to Christ’s death? Well, what does Christ do in His final hours on the cross? He absolves His enemies. “Father, forgive them.” What would it mean for us to be conformed to that way of being?What will it look like to be in communion with Christ? How can we keep this feast rightly?

If Easter is an excuse to get drunk, we are not keeping the feast rightly. 

If Easter is an excuse to return to our former sins, we are not keeping the feast rightly.

If Easter is a triumphalism where we feel righteous and scheme against our enemies, we are not keeping the feast rightly.

Does this offend you? Do you not know that this is the Easter preaching not of Esget or Rogness, but the holy Apostle Paul? “Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.”

Easter is the end of the fast, but not the end of the fight against sin. The festival of Easter is the call to rise from the death of sin, to put off, like grave clothes, the malice and evil that drips off of our lips so easily. Jesus gave His instruction on Maundy Thursday for us to keep the rest of our lives: “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another” (Jn 13.34f).

St. Ignatius, on his road to martyrdom in Rome, said, “Now I begin to be a disciple.” This transformation of martyrdom, this life of a disciple is ours now, whether we die at the hands of an angry mob or quietly in our homes. The Easter life for us Christians is one where—however much of a struggle it may be—we put onto our lips continually the same words that the crucified Jesus prayed: “Father, forgive them.” We shout Alleluia! at the death of death and the forgiveness of our sins; this Easter let’s have the same joy in living reconciled lives in church, home, and world.

In one of his works on the Lord’s Supper, Luther reviews the teaching of the early church fathers, and how they saw the communion with the risen Christ as transformative:

Irenaeus and the ancient fathers pointed out the benefit that our body is fed with the body of Christ, in order that our faith and hope may abide and that our body also may live eternally from the same eternal food of the body of Christ which it eats physically. This is a bodily benefit, nevertheless an extraordinarily great one, and it follows from the spiritual benefit. For Christ surely will make even our body eternal, alive, blessed, and glorious, which is a much greater thing than giving us his body to eat for a short time on earth. Therefore he wills to be “in us by nature,” says Hilary, in both our soul and body, according to the word in John 6[:56], “He who eats me abides in me and I in him.” If we eat him spiritually through the Word, he abides in us spiritually in our soul; if one eats him physically, he abides in us physically and we in him. As we eat him, he abides in us and we in him. For he is not digested or transformed but ceaselessly he transforms us, our soul into righteousness, our body into immortality. [LW 37.132]

“Ceaselessly He transforms us.” That is the trans movement we need. We cannot change our gender or sex, much less fuse human nature with machines. We have fallen into death; but Christ is risen from the dead. We have lost our innocence, but Christ transforms us to be innocent again. He feeds us with His crucified and risen body. He infuses us with the blood that cleanses all sin. “Ceaselessly He transforms us, our soul into righteousness, our body into immortality.”

He is risen, and He will transform you.

He is risen, and He will renew the world.

Jesus is condemned, and Barabbas goes free. 

Jesus is judged, and you are acquitted.

Jesus is fallen, and you are raised up.

Jesus is spit upon, and you are wiped clean.

Jesus is mocked, and you are praised.

Jesus is hated, and you are the Father’s beloved.

Jesus says, “It is finished,” and your debts are paid in full.

The stone is rolled away, and the door to paradise is opened to you.

Christ is risen, and hell is in uproar.

Christ is risen, and you shall rise too.

Christ is risen, and the demons are put to flight.

Christ is risen, and you are transformed.

So sing and dance, clang the cymbals and blow the trumpet, for Jesus Christ is risen today, Alleluia!

Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!