1 Corinthians 15:58: Work That Comes Undone

Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.

1 Corinthians 15:58 (NIV)

Work That Comes Undone

If the dead are not raised, then the preaching is useless and the believing is useless and everyone who has already died is gone for good. Paul says that much without softening it, and then he turns over into thanks. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you.

Before the store opens, Marcus is facing the shelves in the canned goods aisle, pulling every can and box forward until the front row is even and the gaps stop showing. It’s his first job and nobody has told him why it matters. He gets the corn straight because the man who trained him gets the corn straight. By noon on Saturday a crowd has been through and the aisle looks the way it looked when he clocked in.

There is a reason under the instruction. Because a grave came up empty, work done for God is not wasted, and a Saturday crowd can’t undo it. Take the resurrection out and the promise about labor that is not in vain has nothing holding it up.

Almost nothing anybody does in a day stays done. Meals get eaten, floors get walked on, the laundry is never a finished thing, and the same conversation with the same teenager comes back around on Thursday. I’d rather do a job that stays done, and there aren’t many of those. You are told to give yourself fully to work that keeps coming undone, on the grounds that a grave gave a body back.

Paul writes let nothing move you to people he has told that death loses. Marcus hasn’t heard anything that big this week. He has an even front row, a crowd coming at nine, and a sentence that was written to him too.