Text: 1 Cor 15:1-11

Alice in Wonderland laughed and said to the White Queen “One can’t believe impossible things”. The Queen observed that Alice simply lacked discipline and practice, boasting that she sometimes believed “as many as six impossible things before breakfast.” This begs the question: Does the church encourage you and I to believe impossible things? And then to feel guilty if we can’t? I think this is a problem for many thinking Christians – perhaps most obviously with the resurrection of Christ.

Paul explained his understanding of the Christian message that, “Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day.” (15:3-4) Paul then gives a long list of appearances of the risen Christ: to Peter, then to the 12 apostles and then “He appeared to more than 500 brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died.” And “last of all to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. For I am the least of the apostles because I persecuted the Church of God.” (11:7-9).

Obviously, Paul believed that Christ could be seen. Paul was trying to be rational and cited the evidence of many people including himself. He did not add, though possibly worth noting, that many died as martyrs for their Christian faith. Maybe it was a more credulous age? Maybe unexplained things were more common?

Now what do we do with this? Most of us consider ourselves educated, rational people, inhabiting the 21^st century. My close friend Shayleen used to chide me that I believed in Jewish fairy tales, and I suppose believing in the risen Christ amounts to an impossible thing or less charitably a fairy tale.

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I am continuing a sermon series on Christology. I am asking who is Jesus and what did he do? The Uniting Church stands in the Protestant tradition which placed the death of Christ at the centre of its ‘protest’ against the Roman Catholic Church. So it is important, I think, to look at the various ways in which the atonement, meaning of his death, has been interpreted in the church. It is not surprising that there are various theories since the New Testament does not speak with ‘one voice’.

Since the beginning of humanity: How many people have lived and died? I asked Dr Google who estimated 117 billion. How many lives have been really significant? Just a few, maybe Ghandi and Nelson Mandela in recent years? How many deaths have had significance? Even less. There have been martyrs for a cause, but only one death has changed western civilization.

I am continuing a sermon series on Christology. I am asking who is Jesus and what did he do? The Uniting Church stands in the Protestant tradition which placed the death of Christ at the centre of its ‘protest’ against the Roman Catholic Church. So it is important, I think, to look at the various ways in which the atonement, meaning of his death, has been interpreted in the church. It is not surprising that there are various theories since the New Testament does not speak with ‘one voice’.

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JJ Hamilton

In the lectionary, today is called Christ the King Sunday. It’s the last Sunday before advent. Which mostly means that you have one more week before you have to be worried that you’re Not Ready For Christmas.

And because the liturgical year starts with advent, that makes this (in some ways) the last week of the year.

So if you’re willing, let’s put our reflecting hats on. Last week was the church’s AGM. We reflected on our community, its struggles and successes over the last year. The Annual Report came out, and in its preparation I am sure many of you thought deeply about the year past.

We also elected and affirmed our church council for the new year.We considered our hopes for the year to come.Circles are like that of course – the ending is the beginning, so in all our reflection we also look forward.

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Is Jesus God?

What is theology? It is simply thinking about what matters to Christians. And it is too important to be left to clergy or only taught in theological colleges. There is no more important theological question, for Christians, than who is Jesus Christ? We follow him. We identify with him. And today we gather to worship God in his name.

It has been said that in Hollywood, over-estimating the intelligence of the audience is a sure way for a picture to lose money! Do I follow this principle? Do I ‘dumb-down’ the four-sermon series on I plan to give on Christology? Sometimes I get feedback that I expect you, my patient listeners, to have a PhD in theology or psychology. Perhaps I risk that again, but I will do what I can to give a sophisticated argument on central themes relating to our faith. You will have a copy of the sermon on GUC website, I am happy for there to be questions and even controversy. I will address who Jesus is in terms of central doctrines of:

• Was Jesus God?
• What does it mean that “Christ died for us?”
• Did Jesus rise from the dead? Bodily or spiritually?
• Did God come to us in Christ (including the question of the Virgin Birth)

This first sermon is on whether Jesus was God.

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Unconscious Spiritual Learning

Verse: “In Christ every one of God’s promises is a ‘Yes’.” (2 Corinthians 1:20).

To be alive is to learn. This begins from birth (or arguably in the womb). Initially we learn without language. And this continues but is rarely noticed. For example can you ride a bike? Can you describe exactly how you ride a bike? Arthur Reber called this “implicit learning”, or learning without words, a term that is familiar in academic psychology.

I wrote a book called Before Belief: Discovering first spiritual awareness (Lexington, 2020), which argues that such learning helps to form our spiritual and religious attitudes. Unfortunately almost no one has read it – it was published Feb 2020 when COVID hit the world. In my frustration I bought 50 copies and sent them free to major libraries. So it is out-there but probably still unread. But you, my ‘captive’ congregation will hear something about why this largely unnoticed dimension of experience is important.

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