“Uncovering The Mystery”


BIBLE READING: 1 Corinthians 15-16
DISCUSSION                                                                      
                As a child my favorite cartoon character was Scooby Doo. I always looked forward to watching Scooby, Shaggy and the gang as they hopped into The Mystery Machine in hopes of uncovering the answers to another mystery.   Whether it was the ghost of the Black Night, Old Miner Forty Niner, or the Phantom there was always a rational explanation to whatever mystery they we seeking to solve. That is what a mystery typically is, something that is unknown but has a plausible explanation that just needs to be solved.  In I Corinthians 15, Paul talks about a mystery in the sense of something that used to be unknown, but now Jesus has provided for us an answer.  The “mystery” under consideration is what happens to the believer after we die?  It was considered a mystery because in our own human weakness we were incapable of understanding the afterlife because of our own mortality.  However, since the resurrection of Jesus, we not only have a plausible explanation, we have a hope of immortality.  So, what happens when we die? Listen to the words of Paul, “Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: "Death is swallowed up in victory." (1 Corinthians 15:51-54).  Honestly, I cannot tell how all this exactly happens, because I have never been beyond this life; but Jesus has!  I do however, trust that what He has revealed to us will come to pass.  He has in effect, uncovered the greatest mystery known to man and at the same time provided for us a path to follow that if we “have united with Him in His death, we will also be united with Him in His resurrection” (Romans 6.5).  That is a mystery that not even Scooby Doo and the Gang could have solved.

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