Central Lutheran Church - Elk River
Weekly sermons from our Central Lutheran Church preaching team plus quick reflections from Pastor Ryan Braley.
Real talk, ancient wisdom, and honest questions — all designed to help you learn, grow, and find encouragement when you need it most.
At Central, our mission is simple: FOLLOW Jesus together, be a community where you BELONG, and LOVE our neighbors across the street and around the world.
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Central Lutheran Church - Elk River
What Happens When You Die? Part 2 {Reflections}
Death touches us all, prompting the universal question: what happens when we die? As someone who conducts many funerals, I've sat with countless families grappling with this mystery. While no living person has empirical evidence, Scripture offers a rich tapestry of understanding that evolves throughout biblical history.
The journey begins with the ancient Jewish concept found in Ecclesiastes—the body returns to dust while the spirit returns to God. Early Jewish thought spoke of Sheol, simply "the land of the dead," without much emphasis on bodily resurrection. This understanding evolved dramatically during the Jewish exile periods when, facing national devastation, the hope of God's redemption beyond death emerged. The suffering of exile became the seedbed for resurrection belief.
Christianity transformed this understanding through Jesus's resurrection. Paul interprets Jesus as the "first fruits"—what happened to him will happen to all believers. When we die, our bodies return to earth while our spirits go to be with God in what Scripture describes as a sleep-like resting state. Just as Jesus told the thief on the cross, "Today you will be with me in paradise," we enter a waiting place until resurrection day.
The culmination arrives with what Paul describes in 1 Corinthians 15—the resurrection of the body. Our mortal, perishable bodies will be clothed with immortality. Death will be "swallowed up in victory." Jesus's post-resurrection appearances give us glimpses of this reality—a body recognizable yet transformed, bearing healed scars that tell his story. Similarly, our resurrection bodies may carry our healed wounds as part of our eternal identity.
While we don't know when resurrection will occur, we wait expectantly, knowing those who have gone before us are with God. Death separates us only temporarily. Tune in next week as we continue this series, and consider joining us in person at Central in Elk River or online at clcelkriver.org as we explore these profound truths together.
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What is up everybody? Hey, my name is Ryan and welcome to our Reflections Podcast. Hey, this is part two. Last week we talked about well, this is like a I don't know, it's two, three, four part series, probably at least three.
Speaker 1:But what happens when you die? And I, as a pastor, I do a lot of funerals and I get asked all the time hey, where did my mom go, where's grandma, where did my neighbor go? What happens when we die? And, to be frank, up front, I don't have any empirical data. What happens? I don't really know exactly.
Speaker 1:I mean, I have never died and come back to life, but the Scripture has a lot to say about it, which is beautiful, and so I want to just unpack it. Because here's the thing about the Scripture the Bible doesn't really have this single detailed roadmap or formula about what happens after death. Instead, there's like this beautifully rich tapestry, tapestry, tapestry, either way this like woven together vision of what happens when you die, and it almost evolves over time. And so in the first last week's podcast, I was talking about the book of Ecclesiastes and how the writer beautifully says when we die, the body goes back into the ground, into the dust, where it came from and the soul, the spirit, the breath, the last thing to leave the body. The breath goes back to God, where it came from, which is awesome. Now here's the deal you might be like. Well, what about the resurrection? Well, that's part of it, but back then in this time in Jewish history, there wasn't much talk about a bodily resurrection. They talked about the land of the dead. They called this, you know, they had several. Sheol was the Hebrew word for this. In many of our modern translations they call it hell. But Sheol was really just the land of the dead. It wasn't some place of eternal punishment, but that's where folks went when they died. They went to the land of the dead and there wasn't a lot of talk about resurrection at all. This does come into the Jewish sort of landscape years later.
Speaker 1:So the Jews, if you remember the Jewish story, they go into exile. They're, because of their disobedience, are taken into exile in sort of two different times in history. One, the northern kingdom is ravaged by the Assyrian army, and then later the southern kingdom, in Jerusalem, is destroyed by the Babylonians. And in both cases many of the Jews were taken into captivity, into exile, and it was around there, according to many sort of Jewish scholars that the Jews began to think about the redemption of God happening after death, that somehow because here's the deal they were the chosen people of God, the people of God that had this intimate covenant with God. And they're like well, why are we in exile? Then God must somehow deliver us on the other side of death. There must be a redemption or a new hope after we die, in a bodily resurrection. Because if the Jews were in exile, many of them for hundreds of years, they're like well, what hope do we have? Well, there must be something that happens after we die. And so they believed, they began to talk about this idea of a bodily resurrection. Now, so that's what happened.
Speaker 1:And then, of course, in early Christianity, you have Jesus, who is resurrected, and then Paul, who comes after Jesus, who's a Jewish, he's a Pharisee, knows the law, knows the Hebrew scriptures and the Torah, knows the Jewish story. He begins to interpret what happened to Jesus as what will happen to all of us. So, okay, so what happens in Jesus? He calls it the first fruits, and that you and I will experience resurrection. And so Paul emphatically begins to talk about hey, after you die, you will go to be with God. So he uses this language of like in a couple of places, like, hey, to be absent from the body. When you die, you will go to be present with God. Of course he doesn't say it this way, but the body goes into the ground, much like the writer of Ecclesiastes says, and then some part of you, the vibrant, the life, the breath, the spirit, goes to be with God. So Paul simply says it this way that you will go to be with God.
Speaker 1:Now for many theologians and scholars, they say, hey, this time will be a time of rest, because the right away It'll happen down the road. And so they begin to talk about death as like a sleep or a waiting. Many times in scriptures Jesus uses that language of being asleep. Paul uses that same verbiage. In fact, in 1 Corinthians 15, in verse 20, he says but Christ has indeed been raised from the dead. Of course Christ. What happened to Christ? Paul interprets that as what will happen to us. It just happens to Christ first. And so what happened to Christ? He's indeed been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those of us who've fallen asleep.
Speaker 1:So many people begin to view what happens after you die the body goes to be with God, I'm sorry, the body goes into the ground, the spirit, the breath goes to be with God and we're with God. But we're in this resting, waiting, sleep-like period until the resurrection, which will happen down the road, when God sort of restores all things. In fact, you'll see this it's beautifully written in the story, with Jesus on the cross and the thief next to him. So Jesus tells the thief next to him hey, today, you'll be with me in paradise. So yeah, somehow this guy, his body, will be sort of remain in the ground or wherever they put it, and part of this guy, the life force, the spirit, the breath of this guy, goes to be with Jesus or to be with God and in paradise.
Speaker 1:Now here's the thing about this. It's kind of a tricky interpretation, because paradise in the ancient world and especially in first century Judaism paradise, or you could also translate it as a garden these were places of waiting, resting, sort of temperate places, and so what Jesus is saying? He's not saying you'll be with me in heaven when you die, kind of a thing. He's saying, hey, today, when you die and your life is over here on earth, you'll come to be with me, I'll absorb you into God in some way. And again, the metaphysics here is kind of, you know, it's metaphorical, there's image, it's image-rich and it's sort of like this beautiful picture the details I don't know, but you'll be with God in this place of like a garden, of resting and waiting, like asleep, waiting for the resurrection. And so that's what happens when we die, we go to be with God in some way, shape or form. We wait and we rest and maybe it's like a sleep.
Speaker 1:And then later on, in 1 Corinthians 15, paul emphatically writes this about the resurrection, which I love it. And so again, what happens in Jesus happens first it happened 2,000 years ago changed the course of human history and the church, and that's what's waiting for us, paul writes. So here's what Paul says. He's like, hey, listen, paul says I tell you a mystery that we will not all sleep, or sleep forever. This won't last forever, this waiting, resting, this in-between time where we're with God, in this paradise, resting garden type place. But we will all be changed Now, in the flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. So again, these are metaphorical images that the Jews would have known For the trumpet will sound and the dead will be raised imperishable.
Speaker 1:So somehow, in this moment that he sort of indicates with this beautiful image of a trumpet being played, the dead will become imperishable I love it and we will be changed from perishable to imperishable, for the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable and the mortal with immortality. So the part of us that's mortal or temperate, or perishable, that must take on the imperishable or become immortal. This is where the flesh and the bones and the blood will become sort of embodied with resurrection. Then he writes this. He says when the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable and the mortal clothed with immortality, then the saying that is written, it'll come true. And here's the saying death has been swallowed up in victory.
Speaker 1:Then he poetically says death, hey, death, where is your victory? And oh death, where is your victory. And oh death, where is your sting. And so Paul's like hey, listen, there will be a time of resting and waiting. So after we die, the body goes to the ground, the spirit, the breath, the soul, whatever you want to say the enlivened part of you goes back to God and you're absorbed into God in this place. It's like a paradise, it's like a garden, it's a time of resting and waiting. Or like Paul and even Jesus indicates. It's like a sleeping and we wait, and I don't know what that will look like exactly, but we wait for the day to come when God resurrects all things and all humans will experience this bodily resurrection, when the perishable will put on the imperishable and the mortal will put on the immortal, like Jesus.
Speaker 1:Now it's cool because when Jesus shows back up after his death and resurrection, he's sort of the same guy but he looks maybe different. He's like a glorified body because he's with those men on the road to Emmaus and they're talking to him about the death of Jesus and he's like, yeah, I know that story, I'm him, and they don't recognize him. Like what in the world? And also there's this moment where all the disciples are gathering in a room and they're praying after the death and the crucifixion, and then, of course, he's resurrected. He's just suddenly it's like he walks through a wall because it says, suddenly he was in their midst and the doors were all locked. How did he get in there? Well, I don't know.
Speaker 1:Something about this body is like it's resurrected and it's different, but it's the same. You can still hold him and touch him. And he says, hey, look, touch my hands and my side and my feet and also. This is really incredibly, it's profound, but in the body of Jesus. He's back to life. He's resurrected. It's new life, he's glorified.
Speaker 1:He still has these wounds in his hands, his feet and his side. They're scars, though now, like these wounds that he suffered, they're no longer open and bleeding and, you know, sore and painful. They're scars, but they're still there, almost like the scars in our life are such a part of our story. They will always be there. They're not going to be open and festering and bloody, but they'll be healed. Scar-type wounds that will always be a part of our story, even our physical body's post-resurrection story. So I gotta imagine that post-resurrection I'm reading into the text here but after the resurrection we'll still have these stories that we've collected over all these years that are part of who we are.
Speaker 1:And so then we wait. We wait expectantly for the day of the resurrection which comes. I don't know when. Jesus says nobody knows the time, not even I know the time when God will do these things, but we wait for it and we wait expectantly. And those who've gone before us, we know that one day we will in fact see them again. Okay, all right, love you guys, hey. So yeah again. So Resurrection, and then I don't know what part three will hold, but tune back in next week. So all right, love you guys. Peace. Hey, if you enjoy this show, I'd love to have you share it with some friends. And don't forget, you are always welcome to join us in person at Central in Elk River at 830, which is our liturgical gathering, or at 10 o'clock, our modern gathering, or you can check us out online at clcelkriverorg. Peace.
