#96 - 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.

Join us! Facebook | Instagram | www.clcelkriver.org

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:15):
What is up everybody?
Hey, my name is Ryan andwelcome 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 partseries, probably at least three.
But what happens when you die?
And I, as a pastor, I do a lotof funerals and I get asked all
the time hey, where did my momgo, where's grandma, where did
my neighbor go?

(00:35):
What happens when we die?
And, to be frank, up front, Idon't have any empirical data.
What happens?
I don't really know exactly.
I mean, I have never died andcome back to life, but the
Scripture has a lot to say aboutit, which is beautiful, and so
I want to just unpack it.
Because here's the thing aboutthe Scripture the Bible doesn't
really have this single detailedroadmap or formula about what

(00:57):
happens after death.
Instead, there's like thisbeautifully rich tapestry,
tapestry, tapestry, either waythis like woven together vision
of what happens when you die,and it almost evolves over time.
And so in the first last week'spodcast, I was talking about
the book of Ecclesiastes and howthe writer beautifully says
when we die, the body goes backinto the ground, into the dust,
where it came from and the soul,the spirit, the breath, the

(01:20):
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 mightbe like.
Well, what about theresurrection?
Well, that's part of it, butback then in this time in Jewish
history, there wasn't much talkabout a bodily resurrection.
They talked about the land ofthe dead.
They called this, you know,they had several.

(01:41):
Sheol was the Hebrew word forthis.
In many of our moderntranslations they call it hell.
But Sheol was really just theland of the dead.
It wasn't some place of eternalpunishment, but that's where
folks went when they died.
They went to the land of thedead and there wasn't a lot of
talk about resurrection at all.
This does come into the Jewishsort of landscape years later.

(02:01):
So the Jews, if you remember theJewish story, they go into
exile.
They're, because of theirdisobedience, are taken into
exile in sort of two differenttimes in history.
One, the northern kingdom isravaged by the Assyrian army,
and then later the southernkingdom, in Jerusalem, is
destroyed by the Babylonians.
And in both cases many of theJews were taken into captivity,

(02:22):
into exile, and it was aroundthere, according to many sort of
Jewish scholars that the Jewsbegan to think about the
redemption of God happeningafter death, that somehow
because here's the deal theywere the chosen people of God,
the people of God that had thisintimate covenant with God.
And they're like well, why arewe in exile?
Then God must somehow deliverus on the other side of death.

(02:44):
There must be a redemption or anew hope after we die, in a
bodily resurrection.
Because if the Jews were inexile, many of them for hundreds
of years, they're like well,what hope do we have?
Well, there must be somethingthat happens after we die.
And so they believed, theybegan to talk about this idea of
a bodily resurrection.
Now, so that's what happened.
And then, of course, in earlyChristianity, you have Jesus,

(03:06):
who is resurrected, and thenPaul, who comes after Jesus,
who's a Jewish, he's a Pharisee,knows the law, knows the Hebrew
scriptures and the Torah, knowsthe Jewish story.
He begins to interpret whathappened to Jesus as what will
happen to all of us.
So, okay, so what happens inJesus?
He calls it the first fruits,and that you and I will
experience resurrection.

(03:28):
And so Paul emphatically beginsto talk about hey, after you
die, you will go to be with God.
So he uses this language oflike in a couple of places, like
, hey, to be absent from thebody.
When you die, you will go to bepresent with God.
Of course he doesn't say itthis way, but the body goes into
the ground, much like thewriter of Ecclesiastes says, and
then some part of you, thevibrant, the life, the breath,
the spirit, goes to be with God.

(03:54):
So Paul simply says it this waythat you will go to be with God
.
Now for many theologians andscholars, 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 aboutdeath as like a sleep or a
waiting.
Many times in scriptures Jesususes that language of being
asleep.
Paul uses that same verbiage.
In fact, in 1 Corinthians 15,in verse 20, he says but Christ

(04:16):
has indeed been raised from thedead.
Of course Christ.
What happened to Christ?
Paul interprets that as whatwill happen to us.
It just happens to Christ first.
And so what happened to Christ?
He's indeed been raised fromthe dead, the first fruits of
those of us who've fallen asleep.
So many people begin to viewwhat happens after you die the
body goes to be with God, I'msorry, the body goes into the

(04:37):
ground, the spirit, the breathgoes to be with God and we're
with God.
But we're in this resting,waiting, sleep-like period until
the resurrection, which willhappen down the road, when God
sort of restores all things.
In fact, you'll see this it'sbeautifully written in the story
, with Jesus on the cross andthe thief next to him.
So Jesus tells the thief nextto him hey, today, you'll be

(05:00):
with me in paradise.
So yeah, somehow this guy, hisbody, will be sort of remain in
the ground or wherever they putit, and part of this guy, the
life force, the spirit, thebreath of this guy, goes to be
with Jesus or to be with God andin paradise.
Now here's the thing about this.
It's kind of a trickyinterpretation, because paradise
in the ancient world andespecially in first century

(05:23):
Judaism paradise, or you couldalso translate it as a garden
these were places of waiting,resting, sort of temperate
places, and so what Jesus issaying?
He's not saying you'll be withme in heaven when you die, kind
of a thing.
He's saying, hey, today, whenyou die and your life is over
here on earth, you'll come to bewith me, I'll absorb you into

(05:43):
God in some way.
And again, the metaphysics hereis kind of, you know, it's
metaphorical, there's image,it's image-rich and it's sort of
like this beautiful picture thedetails I don't know, but
you'll be with God in this placeof like a garden, of resting
and waiting, like asleep,waiting for the resurrection.
And so that's what happens whenwe die, we go to be with God in

(06:05):
some way, shape or form.
We wait and we rest and maybeit's like a sleep.
And then later on, in 1Corinthians 15, paul
emphatically writes this aboutthe resurrection, which I love
it.
And so again, what happens inJesus happens first it happened
2,000 years ago changed thecourse of human history and the
church, and that's what'swaiting for us, paul writes.

(06:25):
So here's what Paul says.
He's like, hey, listen, paulsays I tell you a mystery that
we will not all sleep, or sleepforever.
This won't last forever, thiswaiting, resting, this
in-between time where we're withGod, 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.

(06:47):
So again, these aremetaphorical images that the
Jews would have known For thetrumpet will sound and the dead
will be raised imperishable.
So somehow, in this moment thathe sort of indicates with this
beautiful image of a trumpetbeing played, the dead will
become imperishable I love itand we will be changed from

(07:09):
perishable to imperishable, forthe perishable must clothe
itself with the imperishable andthe mortal with immortality.
So the part of us that's mortalor temperate, or perishable,
that must take on theimperishable or become immortal.
This is where the flesh and thebones and the blood will become
sort of embodied withresurrection.

(07:31):
Then he writes this.
He says when the perishable hasbeen clothed with the
imperishable and the mortalclothed with immortality, then
the saying that is written,it'll come true.
And here's the saying death hasbeen swallowed up in victory.
Then he poetically says death,hey, death, where is your
victory?
And oh death, where is yourvictory.

(07:52):
And oh death, where is yoursting.
And so Paul's like hey, listen,there will be a time of resting
and waiting.
So after we die, the body goesto the ground, the spirit, the
breath, the soul, whatever youwant to say the enlivened part
of you goes back to God andyou're absorbed into God in this
place.
It's like a paradise, it's likea garden, it's a time of
resting and waiting.
Or like Paul and even Jesusindicates.

(08:14):
It's like a sleeping and wewait, and I don't know what that
will look like exactly, but wewait for the day to come when
God resurrects all things andall humans will experience this
bodily resurrection, when theperishable will put on the
imperishable and the mortal willput on the immortal, like Jesus
.
Now it's cool because when Jesusshows back up after his death

(08:35):
and resurrection, he's sort ofthe same guy but he looks maybe
different.
He's like a glorified bodybecause he's with those men on
the road to Emmaus and they'retalking to him about the death
of Jesus and he's like, yeah, Iknow that story, I'm him, and
they don't recognize him.
Like what in the world?
And also there's this momentwhere all the disciples are
gathering in a room and they'repraying after the death and the

(08:57):
crucifixion, and then, of course, he's resurrected.
He's just suddenly it's like hewalks through a wall because it
says, suddenly he was in theirmidst and the doors were all
locked.
How did he get in there?
Well, I don't know.
Something about this body islike it's resurrected and it's
different, but it's the same.
You can still hold him andtouch him.
And he says, hey, look, touchmy hands and my side and my feet

(09:18):
and also.
This is really incredibly, it'sprofound, but in the body of
Jesus.
He's back to life.
He's resurrected.
It's new life, he's glorified.
He still has these wounds in hishands, his feet and his side.
They're scars, though now, likethese wounds that he suffered,

(09:42):
they're no longer open andbleeding and, you know, sore and
painful.
They're scars, but they'restill there, almost like the
scars in our life are such apart of our story.
They will always be there.
They're not going to be openand festering and bloody, but
they'll be healed.
Scar-type wounds that willalways be a part of our story,
even our physical body'spost-resurrection story.
So I gotta imagine thatpost-resurrection I'm reading
into the text here but after theresurrection we'll still have
these stories that we'vecollected over all these years

(10:03):
that are part of who we are.
And so then we wait.
We wait expectantly for the dayof the resurrection which comes
.
I don't know when.
Jesus says nobody knows thetime, 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.

(10:27):
So yeah again.
So Resurrection, and then Idon'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 arealways welcome to join us in
person at Central in Elk Riverat 830, which is our liturgical

(10:48):
gathering, or at 10 o'clock, ourmodern gathering, or you can
check us out online atclcelkriverorg.
Peace.