I didn’t understand that sentence the first time I read it -- or the second or third time either. But I think it has something to do with the insight of a 60's Hippie who lived in a refrigerator box. He declared, “Everybody’s got to be somewhere, man.” That, I understand.

Everybody’s got to be somewhere — preferably a special somewhere. I suspect that each person here can imagine a place, a particular room that is the extension of who and what we are. Mine is a wood paneled study with lots of bookshelves, a fireplace at one end, a large bay window looking out on the lake, and a big overstuffed chair. I can even smell it: all brown and leathery, my own little corner of the world. Carol’s psychological room is light and filled with plants and sunshine. I know this because I asked her.

What is the imaginary room that is the extension of your personality? For just a moment, picture it in your mind. See it, feel it, smell it - your place to be and to become.

We have a hard time imagining ourselves without a sense of place. We have an even harder time imagining ourselves being ourselves without a body to call home. Without a body, what would you think with? What would you feel with? How would you express emotion? How would you be you?

The fact is that you wouldn’t be you. You know that. And that is one reason why the Christian gospel meets our true needs. In contrast to some religions, we are told in God’s word that our future is not to float around the cosmos in a disembodied state. Our future is not to be absorbed back into God in a state of personal non-being. Our Christian hope is contained in the great affirmation, the Apostle’s Creed that “I believe in the resurrection of the body.”

The sons of John D. Rockefeller were destined to inherit the vast fortunes of their father. However, old John Rockefeller wanted his sons to know what the life of the working man was really all about. So he insisted that they go out and work in the oil fields alongside the common laborers.

For more than two years the Rockefeller boys worked on drilling rigs. They worked long and hard hours. At the end of the workday they were exhausted and they had to endure the unpleasantness that comes from being covered with oil on a hot, hot day. At night they would sit with their fellow laborers and talk.

One day, as they were trading stories over beer, one of the Rockefeller was asked how he liked being among the common workers. He responded, “I love it! This has been one of the best times of my life.”

The man who asked the question said, “That’s because you know you’re not staying. You know there is something better out there waiting for you when this is all over. You would look at things differently if you thought that working in these oil fields was all there was for you.”

That is true. We see things differently when we recognize that there is something better out there ahead of us. We see the troubles and agonies that go with life differently when we expect a great future.

The resurrection of the body is perhaps the most daring phrase in the Apostle’s Creed. Greek philosophers believed that when you die the soul, which is good, escapes the mortal body, which is evil, and soars off into a spiritual realm.

But the Bible doesn’t buy it. The Bible is materialistic. The Bible tells us that God created humans as whole beings. Body, mind, soul, spirit - whatever labels you use, are all tangled up together. Our bodies are part of who we are. And we are told that even our weak, frail, finite bodies will have a part in the new life of the physical world to come -- the renewed creation Paul describes in Romans 8.

The Greek thinkers were only looking for an escape out of life. But Christians saw meaning even to our present physical life because of the doctrine of the resurrection. The resurrection means that there is nothing God has created that is without meaning. Everything that God made has meaning and purpose -- including our very physicality. For our bodies and our personalities are a complex whole. And it is my whole self that God loves and will raise up.

Our resurrected body will be a physical body. Jesus appeared in the Upper Room with the disciples, and they thought He was a ghost. “He said to them, ‘Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your minds? Look at my hands and my feet. It is I, myself. Touch me and see. A ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see I have.’ When He had said this, He showed them His hands and feet. And while they still did not believe it because of joy and amazement, He asked them, ‘Do you have anything here to eat?’ They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and He ate it in their presence.”

Jesus ate after he rose from the dead. I never though about eating in heaven. But won’t it be great? We won’t have to worry about fat grams or high blood pressure or cholesterol. Jenny Craig will be out of business. The Bible says we’ll sit down at the marriage supper of the Lamb.

In fact, the Lord’s Supper we are about to share is a celebration of that great feast. It is a foretaste of the joy we will share with one another and the joy we will share with our Lord.

Paul’s teaching about the resurrection of the body was very revolutionary to the Greek philosophy saturated people who lived in Corinth. They couldn’t help asking, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?” Paul quotes their question in I Corinthians 15:35. He responds with a simple lesson in botany -- a seed is planed in the ground. It doesn’t sprout unless it dies. When it grows, it has a totally different appearance than it had as a seed, but it is still wheat or corn or grain. That’s how it is, Paul said, with the resurrection of the dead — “What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body -- for just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we will also bear the image of the Man of Heaven.”

Paul used the analogy of seeds. Personally I’ve always preferred caterpillars. I love the old story of the two grungy, earthy caterpillars are crawling along in the dust. A butterfly suddenly soared off into the sunlight overhead. One caterpillar says to the other, “You’ll never get me up in one of those things!”

But it will! One day that caterpillar will curl up on a branch and “die.” But when springtime comes, and the sun begins to warm the earth, the Monarch will burst out in all its glory.

It’s the same with us. If God has the power to make matter out of energy, if he has the power to make Adam out of the dust of the ground, then He has the power to recreate our decomposed bodies. The Bible says, “Nothing is impossible with God.”

It won’t matter if you’ve been dead four days or four centuries or four millennia. It doesn’t matter if you’ve been cremated and spread over the ocean. When Christ commands it, there will be a resurrection of the body. First Thessalonians 4:16 says, “The Lord will come down from heaven with the spirits of those who have fallen asleep, and there will be a loud command and the dead in Christ will rise first.”

Now someone here may be saying, “That’s just too much to believe.” But let me ask you a question: If you never saw a birth, or never had sex-education in Junior High, and I tried to describe it to you in today’s sermon, would you believe it?

The tiny, unseen little sperm is combined with this tiny, unseen little egg and they form a cell and those cells begin to multiply, and nine months later, out comes this baby with hands, arms, eyes and starts screaming. You’d say, “No way. You’ve got to be kidding me.”

That’s a miracle we see over and over again, but we take it for granted because it is so common. But it is no more difficult for God to raise the dead than it is to create life, and new life is what we are promised.

A professional golfer Paul Azinger was diagnosed with cancer at age 33. He had just won a PGA championship and had ten tournament victories to his credit. Azinger wrote: “A genuine feeling of fear came over me. I could die from cancer. Then another reality hit me even harder. I’m going to die eventually anyway, whether from cancer or something else. It’s just a question of when. Everything I had accomplished in golf became meaningless to me. All I wanted to do was live.”

Then he remembered something that Larry Moody, who teaches a Bible study on the tour, had said to him. “Zinger, we’re not in the land of the living going to the land of the dying. We’re in the land of the dying trying to get to the land of the living.”

The land of the living is where Jesus is. He has prepared a place for us. And the promise is that He will raise us up and give life to our mortal bodies -- in the most literal sense. Jesus keeps His promises. That’s why we believe in the resurrection of the body.