Isaiah 43:1-3 “But now, this is what the Lord says–he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: ‘Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze. For I am the Lord, your God the Holy One of Israel, your Savior…’”

Notice that the Lord doesn’t say you aren’t going to have any crisis. Even people who follow him faithfully live in a fallen world. It is broken beyond anyone’s ability to repair. That’s why utopian schemes to create a perfect society will always fail. About the best we can do is try to keep the evil in check. Racism, injustice, violent crime, war, corrupt government and institutions, exploitation: these things are all like the poor. Remember what Jesus said about them? “They will always be with you.”

We are broken people, too. We don’t just suffer crisis. We cause it. Pastor Curtis believed the gospel he preached. He really did. But he got into a compromising position with a woman he wasn’t married to. He had ordinary male desires. He stumbled into an affair. It blew his ministry and his family apart. He had to resign. His wife left him. His children resented him.

Gerry was a genuine Christian woman, and it showed in her generosity and her service to others. But the stress of a large family and certain childhood demons led her to drink too much. Then she didn’t handle relationships so well. Her marriage survived, but some of her children were scarred. They fought with each other and struggled in their own marriages.

So whether the crisis comes from the world around us or is the product of our own sinful stupidity, we are going to “pass through the waters.” We will “walk through the fire.” It is not a matter of “if” but “when.” Sometimes we find ourselves waiting for it to happen. We are afraid, because we have had it too good for too long.

Then comes God’s promise. When the crisis comes, “I will be with you.” The rivers “will not sweep over you.” The flames “will not set you ablaze.” That doesn’t mean you won’t be gasping for air, coughing and sputtering and convinced that you are about to drown in it. The Lord is not suggesting that you will feel cool and comfortable in that fire, ready to pull out a bag of marshmallows and make some s’mores.

But he is going to jump into the water with you. He walks through the fire right beside you. You may not perceive him. A lot of flotsam and jetsom bump into a person swirling around in a flooded river. You may not perceive his hand pulling you toward shore. Smoke and heat make it hard to see in the fire. You may be passed out when he carries you to safety. But the Redeemed don’t have to be afraid, because the Lord sees them through the crisis.

Did you notice why he does it? He bookends his promise with expressions of his value and regard. He “created you” and “formed you.” You take pride in the things you have made, don’t you? When you were in school, did you ever have something you made in school, maybe a picture you drew, that had an honored place on a shelf in your room or on your bedroom wall for years to come? You are that thing God made, that picture he drew, in his own image no less, that he wants to keep and display and show off.

Even more “I have redeemed you, I have summoned you by name; you are mine.” Even though he made us, the Lord paid a second time for us to belong to him. Who buys what is already his? But that is what he does. In Old Testament history he had redeemed Israel out of Egypt. They were already his, but he bought them out of their slavery to Pharaoh with the power he poured into the miraculous plagues and the parting of the Red Sea.

All of that foreshadowed our Redemption, when he bought us out of our slavery to sin and death by pouring out the blood of his Son, and traded the life of Jesus for our own. So doubly he can say, “You are mine.” This is what you are to me.

Then he turns that around. He concludes, “This is what I am to you:” “I am the Lord, your God, the Holy one of Israel, your Savior.” He is not ashamed to be the God associated with us. He is proud to be the God who rescues and saves us. Don’t be afraid. The Lord will see you through every crisis.

1 Corinthians 15:53-56 “For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: ‘Death has been swallowed up in victory.’ ‘Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?’ The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ”

People often ask me what we will look like in our new imperishable, immortal bodies when Jesus raises us from the dead. If someone dies as a child are they raised as a child, with a little body? Will we all look like supermodels? Will we shed those unwanted extra pounds we have been carrying around? We are obsessed with the cosmetics, the externals of immortality.

Friends, look deeper. We will be imperishable. Imagine running around like a little child sometimes does, running for the sheer joy of it, and never getting winded, never feeling a burn in your lungs because they can’t keep up with your body’s need for oxygen.

Imagine pushing your body hard at work or play for long hours, and never getting fatigued today, and feeling no soreness tomorrow.

Imagine never wondering what this ache or pain might mean, because there never is an ache or pain, and because there are no unhealthy conditions or dread diseases to fear.

Imagine your soul so saturated with love that all you know is peace, and joy, all the time.

Imagine your memory filled with experiences many times the sum total of all events of all human history, and none of them ever boring or disappointing. Every one of them is only pleasant and fulfilling, because your life has gone on for the equivalent of many millions of human ages, and yet you don’t slow down, you show no signs of wear, the thought never crosses your mind that you might like something else, or just an end.

And though we might still die before we attain this future (“might,” I say, because Jesus might also return and give it to us while we are alive), even death is no longer what it looks like. It is not a defeat. It has been defeated.

Some victories have a partial or temporary feel. Japan won the battle of Pearl Harbor. They destroyed 19 American ships, but they missed our aircraft carriers, which were not in port that day. The United States had some key pieces for rebuilding our navy in the Pacific. Less than four years later Japan was the nation signing an unconditional surrender, somewhat ironically on the battleship Missouri.

Jesus isn’t giving death any such second chances to come back and win. Death has been “swallowed up,” the Apostle says. It hasn’t just been nipped at, or nibbled around the edges. It hasn’t just had a big bite taken out of it, like the survivor of some shark attack who is missing a hand or a leg. It has been swallowed whole, chugged down till nothing is left.

Picture the college drinking game, and some rowdy student has just downed his whole mug of beer in a few seconds. Even the foam is gone. The glass is empty. There is nothing left. Picture some poor fellow in one of the Jurassic Park movies, practically swallowed whole by one of the dinosaurs. He isn’t coming back. For the child of God, the believer in Jesus, death has been completely taken out of the picture. It gets no second chance at us once it has given us up.

So complete, so utter is this victory, that Paul, quoting the Old Testament prophets, trash talks the enemy. Maybe we miss the tone of his questions because of the formal style of the language, “Where, O death, is your victory?” In 21^st Century America, we might say it more like this: “Hey death, where is your victory? Hey death, where is your sting?” It’s taunting. It’s rubbing the loser’s face in it. It is that confident the victory belongs to us.

For a moment Paul even offers the answer to his taunts. “The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.” Death needs our sin to win. It needs the penalties of God’s law to win. But you know what Jesus did to those. He erased every sin at the cross. He paid everything the law demanded by his sacrifice. He stripped death of all its weapons. In the end, he destroys death itself.

“Thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

1 Corinthians 15:51 “Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed–in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.”

How long would you like to live? When I was a little boy, there was something attractive about the idea of living to be 100. I think it was a combination of the fact that 100 of anything seems like a big number to a four year old. I also had a sense that it was a relatively rare achievement because I didn’t personally know anyone that old, and people who did reach that milestone sometimes made the news. As a little boy I wanted to be stronger, and faster, and smarter and taller than anybody else. Why not older, too?

Then you meet some people who have lived so long that they have outlived their good health. They may be far from 100, but they live in constant pain, or they are too weak to take care of themselves. You meet others who have outlived their mind, their memory, their reason. At best they have entered second childhood. At worst they are practically comatose. All of a sudden living so many years loses its appeal.

Jesus promises those who believe in him eternal life–not 100 years, but forever. This wasn’t an obscure idea he once floated, a side comment he made while preaching about something else. It was a major theme of his ministry. Read John’s gospel again. Almost every chapter deals with immortality. In light of the unpleasant consequences of old age, we might ask, “Is this really a good idea?”

Paul settles our concerns with the mystery he unveils in this part of his letter to the Corinthians. Among other things, that mystery involves a profound change.

The things we fear about long life aren’t really features of living. They are symptoms of dying. They are evidence that we are infected with death, and we have reached advanced stages of that infection. But everyone reading these words is suffering symptoms already.

When I was still in grade school it got harder and harder to see the blackboard from the back of the room. I needed glasses because my eyes were dying. I went through puberty and my skin didn’t function right anymore. Blemishes started to appear. It mostly recovered when puberty ended, but now it gets too dry and chapped, especially in the winter. I have already reached the age of back pain, and occasional insomnia, and monthly contributions to my local pharmacy. I used to laugh at the old people who didn’t need to talk about the weather to keep a conversation going. They could talk about their ailments for hours. I am quickly becoming one of them.

More than symptoms of death, these are symptoms of our sin. Not everyone I meet is convinced they have much to repent of. “I am a good person,” they object. Really? I may not know enough details of their lives to know the specifics of their sins. It’s not my job to play private investigator and try to point them out. But their symptoms still betray the sickness is present, just like mine do. “The wages of sin is death.” “The soul who sins is the one who will die.” There is no mystery about what is wrong with us. We are dying because of our sin.

But Jesus promises us change. That change first dealt with the sin-sickness underneath. On Good Friday he created the cure. At the cross he produced the medicine of immortality. His blood cleanses us from every sin. His death redeems us from them. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours, but also for the sins of the entire world.

Between Friday evening and Sunday morning, however, Jesus himself went through an astounding change. His body came back to life. But it wasn’t raised the broken and battered body that hung on the cross. His wounds no longer ran with blood. His bones were no longer out of joint. This body was glorified. It passed through sealed stone and locked doors. It materialized, and then disappeared, in a moment, instantly traveling between locations to show himself to his own. It could still be touched and embraced. It could still eat and drink. But now it was elevated, perfected. The only things Jesus kept from his cross were the scars on his hands and feet and side, but those were like badges of honor, the most meaningful and beautiful things ever “tattooed” on human skin.

Earlier in this same chapter of 1 Corinthians, Paul assures us Jesus’ new life is a promise and foretaste of our own: “For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.” And later: “Just as we have born the likeness of the earthly man (Adam), so shall we bear the likeness of the man from heaven (Jesus).” Jesus is both promise and picture of the change waiting for us.

John 19:28-29 “Later, knowing that all was now complete, and so that the Scripture would be fulfilled, Jesus said, ‘I am thirsty.’ A jar of wine vinegar was there, so they soaked a sponge in it, put the sponge on a stalk of the hyssop plant, and lifted it to Jesus’ lips.”

Do you know what Scriptures weighed on Jesus’ mind just moments before his death, what words he needed to fulfill? Buried deep within the psalms, Psalm 69 to be specific, are these seemingly incidental words, “They put gall in my food and gave me vinegar for my thirst.” They are hardly the most important detail of the great mission he accomplished this day. They are not directly a part of the price he paid. They simply describe a moment in the misery of the cross. Would anyone have noticed if Jesus never addressed this, or if the gospel writers had left it out of the historical record? Would you?

Didn’t Jesus have more urgent things to be thinking about? He can no longer draw a satisfying breath. His heart is beating like a drum, overworked to the point of failure by the cruel torture he is suffering. His muscles cramp from exhaustion and dehydration, and there is no way to stretch or relax them. Who can even say what the greatest source of pain is for him as he hangs there: these cramps and the struggle to breath? The spikes tearing at his hands and feet? The flesh torn from his back? The wounds from his crown of thorns, now invaded by the burning salt of his own sweat? In literally seconds, he will be dead. Let the obscure prophecy from the psalm go. What does it matter?

It matters deeply to the perfect Son of God. This is his word, after all, and every word of God is true. We don’t take his word so seriously, I am afraid. We don’t see the problem with fudging on it here or there. Sometimes it makes my life harder, or so we think. Why should I give up my pleasure, or my freedom, for something written thousands of years ago? It’s probably just Paul’s, or Peter’s, or a prophet’s opinion anyway. Sometimes it seems so hard to understand. All these details about trinities, and virgin births, and complicated systems of redemption from sin, and distinctions between justification and sanctification–being saved or living saved: all this theology makes my head spin! Isn’t it enough just to be good to other people? Isn’t the Bible just words on a page? Shouldn’t we avoid putting too much trust in a book?

Such casual attitudes about God’s carefully crafted record of his saving love may be popular. But there is nothing Christian about them. In his ministry Jesus preached, “The Scriptures cannot be broken” (John 10:35). “Blessed, rather, are those who hear the word of God and obey it” (Luke 11:28). “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished” (Matthew 5:17-18).

And so Jesus could not let this one go, either. He called for a drink. He took the bitter combination of wine vinegar and gall, one last insult to his abused system. There are 419,687 words in the Hebrew Old Testament. This prophecy of Psalm 69 is just six of them. But Jesus took the drink so that every detail of God’s word and our salvation would be fulfilled.

Matthew 26:26-27 “While they were eating, Jesus took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying, ‘Take and eat; this is my body.’ Then he took the cup, gave thanks and offered it to them, saying, ‘Drink from it, all of you. This is my blood of the new covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.”

Let’s not pass over the context in which this happens. “While they were eating,” Matthew writes. They were eating the Passover meal. That meal commemorated Israel’s deliverance from Egypt 1400 years earlier. It wasn’t like your anniversary dinner or birthday lunch–random food choices that change every year, because they are really incidental, secondary, to what you are celebrating. This was the marriage of feast and worship. Every item on the menu was ripe with meaning, chosen by God for the message it delivered. The conversation at the meal was scripted. Even the guests were carefully chosen.

You see, citizens of Cairo, Athens, or Rome didn’t observe the Passover, not unless they were also Jews. They could come, but only if they would be circumcised if they were males. In other words, they first had to join the Jewish people and embrace the Jewish faith. This table fellowship was more than a casual meal. It meant something. At the very first Passover, God was saying to Israel, “You are my special, my chosen people. I have redeemed you from Egypt as my very own.” At every Passover afterward he was making the same claim. These were the people he desired as his very own.

Meals and tables have a way of saying that sort of thing, don’t they? If you are sitting at the diner, then who knows who might take the stool next to you at the lunch counter. But if you are at a table with family or friends, you enjoy a special relationship with each other. It would be odd, wouldn’t it, if a stranger came and took a seat with you, at least in most settings? Nothing against the person, but there is something about breaking bread together that says, “We already share something.” It is intimate. It reflects and it nurtures a relationship. Those who eat together have sought out each other’s presence.

Jesus integrated this same intimacy, this same personal claim, into his own supper. At the beginning of the meal, Luke tells us, he said to the disciples, “ I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer.” And when it came time to create his own new rite of eating and drinking out of the elements of the Passover, it was this intimate circle of his disciples with whom he shared it. “Jesus took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to his disciples…” It wasn’t the five thousand seated on the hillside to whom he fed the loaves and fishes. It wasn’t the masses of people who welcomed him into Jerusalem. It wasn’t the crowds to whom he preached. It was these twelve men who understood and knew him best, the ones he called “friends” and “brothers.” Others would be invited later, too, after they came to know Jesus better. But on this night, this was the family whose presence he desired.

When we commune, Jesus eagerly desires to share this meal with us as well. You are his disciples by faith, not casual acquaintances but the men and women he has called by name and now claims as brothers and sisters in his family. He gives you a seat at his table. Take what he is offering: his own body and blood “for the forgiveness of your sins.”