24th week of ordinary time, Friday, Sept.22,2006

Scripture: I Cor.15:12-20 Psalm 17:1.6-7.8.15 Luke 8:1-3

After having preached about love and the Agape Meal or the Eucharist, St. Paul now turns to teach the Corinthians about the greatest event and mystery of the Christian religion which the Apostle has embraced after his conversion on the road to Damascus. And, for the record, there was no "horse" involved in this conversion story told several times by Luke and, of course, by Paul. So, too, in the Resurrection of Jesus, no body is found! Paul is extremely strong and clear about this belief in the bodily resurrection of Jesus that he says without this mystery Christianity is a fraud and a hopeless bunch of do gooders! Even the highly sceptical and apostate Bishop Pike who was famous in the 1970s and 1980s said that he was really stumped by Paul in this chapter 15 of Corinthians and could not come up with an adequate critique of what Paul was saying. I find that an unusual remark on his part and remember it first hand from speaking with him. It is near the end of today's passage that Paul leads me to connect this with the narrative of Luke about the women who followed and assisted Jesus in his ministry. Paul says, "If our hopes are limited to this life only, we are most pitiable." The women named are Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Susanna. These women followed Jesus and assisted him in his material needs. Their faith and hope in Jesus was stronger and lasting in comparison with his own twelve apostles who fled and denied at the time of the crucifixion. They may have been either near the cross or at a distance, but they were there. Is it any wonder then that the women were the first to have experienced the Resurrection, at least, according to some Gospel accounts. Somehow they believed that they would see Jesus again and they did. Now this is Resurrection faith. Do you as a Christian have such faith? You should, otherwise you are among the most pitiable that Paul is talking about. Amen.