Bet you never knew you were coming here to worship an English goddess? Like so many things, we say them without actually knowing what they mean and this is very true for many traditions we have in the church. For instance, over the past 7 weeks, we’ve been doing a sermon series on Apostles’ Creed, which is something a lot of Christians say without really knowing what it means. I know what you’re thinking, “Whew, I’m glad I wasn’t here for the last 7 weeks!” As boring as it might sound, the purpose of the series was to examine each line of the creed and ask the question: “What did this line of the creed mean to the people who wrote it and what does it mean to us today?”

The idea behind the series is that many modern people, because of our scientific understanding of the world, struggle with the beliefs promoted by the Christian faith. So each week we would take a line and talk about what Christians have traditionally assumed to be true and then we contrasted that with our modern, updated view of the world.

Well, today, Easter Sunday, is where we are examining the last line of the Apostles’ Creed: I believe in the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting. Feels appropriate for Easter, wouldn’t you agree? So here’s what were going to do. I want to take a little bit of time to walk you through the history of what this line of the creed meant to the people who wrote it and then we’ll talk about how we might deal with this line today.

So I want you to imagine that you can step inside of a time machine and travel all the way back to first century Palestine when Jesus was alive. When you step out of the time machine, it’s important to understand that you’re walking around in a heavily Jewish area. Why does this matter? Because Jesus was Jewish and, Judaism, whether you realize it or not, has a huge impact on the Jesus story.

So if we could catch up with somebody walking by and ask them what they believe happens when we die, you would likely get one of two answers. The first answer is nothing. Many Jews in the first century believed that when you die, you’re dead. They didn’t really have a concept of a soul like many people do today, so many Jews didn’t really believe in an afterlife.

The second answer that you might get to this question is that, after you die, you will one day be given a new body in an event called the resurrection. Now, it’s really important to remember what I just told you that the Jews in the first century didn’t believe in a soul that separates from your body after death. For them, if you wanted to have a life after you died, the only way they could conceive of that afterlife is if you had a brand new body. In other words, when the Jews thought of life after death, it was very literal.

But the difference between this new resurrected body and the one you have right now is that this new resurrected body will never die. This new resurrected body will last forever. So the Jews in the first century didn’t believe that you go to heaven when you die. Because you’ve been given this new indestructible body, you will live for eternity on the earth. This is what the kingdom of God is all about where God merges heaven and earth together.

So when we’re talking about the last line of the Apostles’ Creed where it says: The resurrection of the body and the life everlasting, this is what the people who wrote it were thinking. Now jump back in the time machine and fast forward to where we are today. If you poll Christians today and ask them what they think happens when you die, the vast majority of them will say something, “When you die, your soul leaves your body and ends up in heaven or hell.”

Now, technically, even though that’s what most Christians believe, that’s not in the Bible. What’s in the Bible is physical resurrection, just like what happens with Jesus on Sunday morning. What happened to Jesus is what’s supposed to happen to us at some point in the future. So this raises a really interesting question: Why do so many people believe in a soul when that’s not what is really described in the Bible?

The answer is that the soul is a Greek idea, not a Jewish idea. The word soul finds its roots in the Greek word psyche, which means life, spirit, or consciousness, but is most literally translated as breath. Greek philosophers believed that the soul was the animating factor which gave life to the body. From their perspective, once the soul left the body, the body could no longer survive. Furthermore, the soul is immortal, which is why they believed the soul lives on after the body dies.

Somewhere along the way, the Greek idea of the soul became an indelible part of Western culture. What’s fascinating to me is that there is some evidence to suggest that we do have a soul and that the soul does go on after we die. We find this in accounts of what are known as Near Death Experiences or NDEs for short. NDEs have happened throughout human history, but they’ve happened a lot more in the last 60 years because our medical technology has advanced enough to be able to resuscitate people after they have died for short periods of time.

The first person to really write extensively about Near-Death Experiences was Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, a psychiatrist who spent a great deal of time with patients who were terminally ill. Kübler-Ross did her training in the early 1960s and, during that time, doctors didn’t really know what to do with people who were dying. The goal of the doctor was to keep people alive and if the patient wouldn’t respond to any of the treatments, then the doctor was perceived as a failure. Therefore, it was very common for doctors in the early 1960s to completely neglect a patient once the diagnosis was fatal. They would just let the patient languish in dark rooms in the corner of the hospital until the disease had taken its course.

Kübler-Ross was the first doctor to simply ask these patients how they were feeling and what they needed to be more comfortable. The more she did this, the more she realized that doctors needed to be trained on how to properly deal with death and dying. So after years of time spent in hospitals and classrooms, Kübler-Ross wrote a book called On Death and Dying, in which she talked about all manner of issues related to the subject of death, including the now famous five stages of grief. The book was a runaway success making Kübler-Ross one of the most important physicians of the 20th century.

Interestingly, in the original manuscript of the book, there was a final chapter where she outlined a number of very strange cases where certain patients described the experience of leaving their body. The descriptions of these events varied from person to person, but they were happening so consistently that she started to write them down. For instance, one patient, a young girl who was dying of leukemia, told Kübler-Ross that a man visited her in her room. When the young girl described the man, it was clear that he wasn’t a doctor and Kübler-Ross became very upset that this young girl could have been harmed by this stranger.

Kübler-Ross approached her parents and apologized for the lack of security. When Kübler-Ross gave the description of the man and what he had been wearing, the girl’s mother became interested and started to ask more questions. Eventually her mother said, “That’s quite strange because her description sounds a lot like my brother who passed away before my daughter was born. In fact, her description of the clothing is exactly what my brother was wearing the day that he died.”

Another instance of this type of experience came from a patient named Mrs. Swartz, who was suffering from Hodgkin’s disease. Mrs. Swartz went into cardiac arrest as they were wheeling her off an elevator and after doctors revived her, she told Kübler-Ross that she watched the whole experience from the ceiling. Mrs. Swartz even mentioned floating down behind a med student who was taking notes as the situation unfolded. She said that the med student had drawn doodles at the top of the page while the doctors were trying to revive her. Skeptical of the claim, Kübler-Ross checked and found that this was indeed true. Mrs. Swartz had accurately described details that she should not have known.

What’s so interesting about Kübler-Ross’ accounts of Near-Death Experiences is that she wasn’t trying to prove that there was an afterlife. She was a doctor simply caring for her patients and writing these stories down as they were presented to her. Now, obviously, there are many skeptics of Near-Death Experiences who say that what people claim to be a Near-Death Experience is simply an effect of chemical reactions as the brain shuts down.

The only problem with this claim is that the people who have these experiences are often able to recall information that they should not have been privy to like the doodles on the page or the clothing of the dead brother. Moreover, the people who have these experiences are often dramatically changed by what happens to them, especially when they have an encounter with God, which is remarkable because every person experiencing an NDE who has an encounter with God, regardless of their religion, describes God as enveloping them with unconditional love.

But for a moment, let’s assume that the skeptics are right. Let’s assume that there is no soul and those Near-Death Experiences are just effects of the brain shutting down. How then are we to understand the claim of the Apostles’ Creed that we believe in the resurrection of the body and life everlasting?

Well, when it comes to the resurrection of the body, what I find to be amazing is that when we die, all those atoms that make up your body (which, by the way, the average adult has 6.5 octillion atoms that comprise their body—that’s 6.5 with 25 zeros after it), those atoms are reconstituted by the earth and become part of plants, animals, and bacteria. Those atoms, which by the way are eternal and can never be destroyed, will end up being resurrected over and over and over again.

Which leads us to life everlasting. Obviously, when we’re talking about life everlasting, what most of us mean by that is we hope that we personally will live on in perpetuity. But when somebody dies, what is the thing that keeps them alive? It’s the memory of their existence and the stories we tell of their lives. Ernest Hemingway once wrote: “Every man has two deaths, when he is buried in the ground and the last time someone says his name. In some ways men can be immortal.”

It is the memory of our lives that bring us life everlasting. Unfortunately, when most of us hear this idea, our minds immediately think of major historical figures. Unless you’ve done something incredible with your life like Julius Caesar or Jesus, or you’ve made some major contribution to the advancement of the human race like Isaac Newton or Albert Einstein, then you will likely not be remembered beyond your family and friends.

But what I want you to understand is that the value of your memory is not defined by whether or not a historian writes about you. The value of the memory of your life is the degree to which your life left a deep impression for good on the people around you. And again, I know our minds will very quickly go to the extremes. I’m not saying you have to feed thousands of starving children like Mother Theresa or lead a movement for civil rights like Martin Luther King, Jr. to do good for the world.

In fact, I heard a story recently that I thought exemplified just how simple an action of good can be and how it can leave a deep memory of good in the world. I heard this story on a podcast I listen to. It’s a story told by Todd Kashdan about what happened when his mother unexpectedly passed away when he was 13. But rather than simply play the audio for you, I decided that I wanted to bring it to life through film. Let’s watch.

I love this story so very much because of its simplicity. Here’s this poor kid, Todd, who just lost his mother. And because everyone feels uncomfortable about his mother’s death, nobody will look at him, except for one person, Jeff Padgett. All Jeff did was look Todd in the eye and walk him to class, but how powerful was that moment in Todd’s life? This small gesture of kindness was one of the most meaningful memories of Todd’s life.

And what I would like to suggest to you this morning is that act of kindness doesn’t just end with Todd. Because of that experience, Todd has done the same thing with anyone he encounters who has lost a loved one. He looks them in the eye and asks, “How are you doing?” Todd has become like Jeff Padget to the people around him and, in turn, Todd will become their unsung hero, which will inspire them to do the same for others.

So that one memory can keep living on eternally from generation to generation. Sure, Jeff’s name may not be attached to it any longer, but the same memory keeps being relived again and again by people who are inspired to live as he lived. How amazing is that? To think that one small act of kindness could ripple out beyond you and be inhabited by countless people who you will never meet. My friends, that is true eternal life.

But as Todd’s story demonstrates, Jeff Padget had no idea how that one act of kindness influenced Todd’s life. Jeff probably didn’t even remember doing it, which is why your orientation towards the world needs to reflect the kindness, love and understanding of Jesus. If there is anything that Jesus’ resurrection has done for the world, it has kept his message of love alive. That message has eternal life with every new generation who learns about his teachings and who embodies his love.

So as you leave here on the Easter morning to go have lunch with your family and friends, whether you believe in the resurrection of the body, the eternal life of the soul or the eternal life of our memories, I hope you will take some time to talk about the memories of your unsung heroes. Those who were there for you when you needed it most, but who might not even know how important they were for you. More importantly, may that unsung hero inspire you to be that person for someone else so that memory can become an endless chain of good in the world forever. Happy Easter to you all and amen.