How are we raised?

There are a lot of things in life that intrigue me, out of which I have to say faith and spirituality are right up there on the list.  In the past recent few months we have been learning about God and the Holy Spirit and a lot of questions have come to mind.  Out of which, the question which I have long asked even before attending church was of immortality.

A question, which I am sure is on everyone’s mind, what happens after death?  And the slightly mundane version of that, how are we actually raised from the dead?

In the Christian faith (pardon me if I do get things wrong), Jesus’s resurrection is the corner stone.  Even more so, it is the cornerstone of time.  This gives extra meaning to what I learnt a few days ago at church by merely reading a few paragraphs of Corinthians I.

I always wondered how was Jesus raised from the dead?  How did he appear to the number of people in the days following?  Was he a figment of their imagination?  Maybe a hallucination?  To tell you the truth, I don’t really know what form or body Jesus took after death, maybe it has been stated in the Bible although I haven’t got to that passage yet.  So the verse which got my attention more than anything was Corinthians I 15:35-38 which goes:

“But someone will ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?”  You foolish person! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. And what you sow is not the body that is to be, but a bare kernel, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain. But God gives it a body as he has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own body.”

This is then followed on in Corinthians I 15:42-45:

“So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit.”

These particular words resonated with me dearly, as to when a man is born he is impure and when he is “raised” he is purified.  Put simply, the act of bringing life into existing can be seen as dishonor although the process of life after death is glorious.

This gives new meaning to the word death, who knows what lies beyond, as this particular chapter in the Bible puts it, it is something to dearly look forward to, if for nothing else, then to answer the questions which burden not the mind, but your soul.

In Corinthians I it also says how each form of life/body/presence is different from the rest.  Like the Sun and the Moon are different and how our flesh is different from that of any animal, fish or reptile.  Although I am afraid it doesn’t draw any conclusions to what a resurrected body might look like, that is up to us to find out but rest assured that it will have its own unique “body”.

I hope this blog article creates more questions in your mind than answers, after all the best answer is one which surfaces when there are no more questions to ask!