Christ in risen! He is risen indeed! Allelujah!

Grace, mercy and peace be unto you from God, our Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

Back in 1997, the Heaven's Gate cult made headlines because its members thought that there was a UFO trailing the Hale-Bopp comet which would retrieve their souls if they committed suicide. Thirty-nine people took their own lives in an effort to transport their souls to the "afterlife." Their religion assumed that the physical body is unpleasant baggage from which the soul needs to be freed, so they wanted to escape the body so their souls could enjoy their version of the afterlife.

Most people recognize that the members of the Heaven's Gate were out of their minds, but surprisingly, roughly two-thirds of people in the world share that cult's outlook on the physical realm. For example, Hindus, Buddhists, Taoists, and Shintoists share the common Eastern religious idea that there are two eternal principles (or gods) in the world—one god of matter and one of spirit. They believe that human beings are from the spirit god, but somehow, either by design or by fall, they've become trapped in material bodies. The goal of life, then, is to be freed from the body. Salvation is found in the putting off of our earthly flesh. This is similar to the ancient heresy called Gnosticism, which once infiltrated the Christian church and rears its ugly head from time to time.

In fact, many people who call themselves Christians live like Gnostics or Heaven's Gate cult members. They treat their body as if it were unimportant. If you look at your body as something to harm out of anger, as many do by "cutting" themselves; or if you use it for extramarital or homosexual sex, or if you abuse it with drugs, then you are thinking like a Gnostic, like a Heaven's Gate cult member. On the other hand, if you protect the living bodies of the unborn and aged, if you feed and clothe the bodies of the poor and sick, if you honor the bodies of the opposite sex with pure thoughts and actions, if you use your body to honor God in worship with bended knee and confessing tongues, then you are rejecting Gnosticism in favor of Christianity.

True Christianity is radically different from Eastern spirituality and Gnosticism. Our salvation is not found in the putting off of our earthly flesh, but in God the Son putting on our earthly flesh so that He could suffer and die in the flesh for our sins. "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…And the Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us." The Incarnation of God the Son proclaims that God deems the material world worthwhile, even worth redeeming, and that our bodies are not inherently bad. God created us with both bodies and souls, and said, "It is very good." He did not ever say, "flesh is bad/spirit is good" or even "flesh is good/souls are better" but rather, "I created you good, but sin has corrupted both body and soul and introduced death."

Enter Jesus. He entered flesh, lived a perfect life, and died to redeem us from eternal death, to save us body and soul, and He has a human body and soul for eternity, as Thomas found out quite tangibly in this morning's Gospel reading. Jesus said, "Thomas, put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand and place it in My side. Do not disbelieve, but believe."

Now Thomas was a good Jew. From childhood onward he had been taught to worship the Lord God of Israel alone, especially using these words from Deuteronomy: "Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might". His Lord and God was not a man, but was the transcendent creator of mankind who had revealed Himself to Israel and dwelled invisibly in the Tabernacle and Temple.

But the resurrection of Jesus changed Thomas's theology for good. Standing there with his mouth gaping open at the nail-and-spear-scarred Jesus, there was no question He was alive, and that He was not just a spirit. Only God can pull off a resurrection, and so Thomas makes the great confession to Jesus, "My Lord and my God." In other words, Thomas was saying, "Jesus, I believe that You are Yahweh, the Lord of Israel, God Almighty." And what Thomas believed upon seeing the resurrected Jesus, we now believe based on the testimony of all the apostles who witnessed Jesus' death and resurrection. It is a blessed thing, to believe this testimony: Jesus said to Thomas, "Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed."

But what's the point of all this believing? We know that our bodies still are going to die. The Heaven's Gate cult members sincerely believed there was a UFO trailing the Hale-Bopp comet, and look what it got them. This shows us that faith itself accomplishes nothing, unless the object of faith can give life. The difference is all with Jesus, our Lord and God. Faith in anything or anyone besides Jesus leads to eternal death in body and soul. St. John concludes chapter 20 of his Gospel by saying, "Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name."

Life in His name. This is the goal of all Jesus came to accomplish for you. Not just short-term life, "your best life now" sort of worldly health, wealth, and happiness life, but everlasting life, life without end, life after life, resurrected life in body and soul. If you want to know what eternal life looks like, look at Jesus—forever a man, though His body is glorified—that is our future, because God has sent us the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of Life, to bless us with the fruits of Christ's own resurrected life.

In chapter 1 of John's Gospel, he wrote, "To all who received Jesus, who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God". We all need to be born twice, first of our parents, then of God. Jesus said, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God". We need our bodies to receive this second birth unto everlasting life, for you cannot apply water to a soul. Think about that a bit: you cannot baptize a soul unless that soul is attached to a body.

And so Baptism delivers the forgiveness of all of your sins in body and soul, and wherever sins are forgiven, eternal life and salvation are there as well. Baptism delivers the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of life. Baptism unites us with Christ's death and resurrection. And Baptism places the name of Jesus upon us, the full name of God that He revealed to us when He told His church to make disciples of all nations by baptizing and teaching them—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Only God's name can give life, and Baptism is the way He places His name upon us in body and soul.

And so life in the name of Jesus is something we possess presently but look forward to in its fullness on the Last Day. In the Creeds we confess, "I believe in the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting…I look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come." And our Baptism is what guarantees that to us, as St. Paul says in Romans 6:

"Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his."

Certainly! As certain it is as Jesus Christ is risen from the grave, lives and reigns to all eternity, that is how certain it is that your soul is saved today and that your body will rise on the last day. And that is full life in the name of Jesus. Believe it and you have it. In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

And the peace of God which passes all understanding will keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus unto life everlasting. Amen.