Proclaimer Blog
A tale of two sermons
A fortnight ago I heard two sermons in the space of just a couple of hours. Well, I say, sermons, but one was on the radio and was a pretty poor attempt. Both quoted 1 Cor 15. The first was from the Bishop of Leicester. It drew heavily on the reburial of Richard III (what a lot of nonsense!). Death comes to us all, said the speaker. True enough. “For in Adam all die” he said. Brilliant, I thought, we’re going to get the rest of verse 22.
It was not to be. Instead, we just got the burial of Richard III as a reminder that we all die and that – launching straight to 2 Cor 12.9, “My grace is sufficient for you” – that when people we love do die, God gives us sufficient grace to get through.
Never mind the leap of logic (I did not love Richard III and so his death doesn’t make me too sad). It was a wilful omission. To say “For in Adam all die” and NOT to say “so in Christ all will be made alive” is more than carelessness. It is obfuscation.
How thankful I was, therefore, to sit in a quite different sermon just a few minutes on where 1 Cor 15 was also quoted, but fully, together with gospel appeal and gospel comfort.
For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.
Amen and Amen.