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Grace and peace

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be to you

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from God our Father and from the one who overcomes the separation of

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death Jesus Christ.

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Amen.

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First Corinthians 15.

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This is the resurrection chapter St. Paul packs

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it full of good news and a whole bunch of great one-liners.

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The last enemy to be conquered is death.

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He has put all things under his feet.

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God will be all in all.

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And this isn't even touching the parts that our pericope gets so

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cleanly cut out, right?

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A good exegete

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could spend months preaching on just this chapter alone.

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And so a middling seminarian cannot hope to do it

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justice in a single sermon.

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So today, I've decided to tell you a story

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about fruit.

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I like to garden and like many fathers

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I have inflicted my hobbies on to my children.

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And so, last year on vicarage, we planted a garden.

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We planted some herbs and some veggies

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and we actually did some fruit. And it's technically fruit because it

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had the seeds on the insides in case you didn't know, that's what

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makes a fruit of fruit.

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It's got the seeds on the inside.

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I'm an expert in these things.

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I have a child in second grade.

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And so we planted this garden

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It was a great Covid activity.

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It gave the kids something to look forward to.

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It

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got us doing things with our hands doing things together in the flesh.

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And it was good to, you know, just kind of touch grass as the Zoomers

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say. And our crops

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they did pretty well.

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We moved them inside during the winter months and we even gave them

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names.

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We had Basile the basil basking in the bathroom window.

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We had Selena the celery, stalking over the sink in the scullery.

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We spent a lot of time inside but it was good to be a family together

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and do these things.

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And there was one other plant.

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We called him

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Jim, and Jim was a jalapeno fruit plant and jalapenos are a fruit.

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The seeds are on the inside. And being a jalapeno

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Jim preferred more direct sunlight.

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And so, we took Jim, and we put him in the spare room with the big

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window

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so he could go all of a sun

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he needed.

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He was

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separated from us.

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And unfortunately the name, you know, Jim the jalapeno fruit plant,

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who lives in the spare room.

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It doesn't quite ring off the the lips in the same way that those

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alliterative plants did before.

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So Jim was forgotten and separated from us who watered him.

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His leaves withered, his little white flowerets

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dried up into

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burial shrouds and Jim the jalapeno

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died.

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Separation means death.

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Well, the girls were absolutely devastated as you can imagine.

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It was very sad.

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There was this whole ordeal, they wanted to have a funeral for the

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fruit plant and bury the thing.

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I had to explain that plants aren't people. That not all flesh is the

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same. That God gives to each kind of seed its own body as he has

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chosen.

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There's one kind for humans another kind for animals another kind

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for birds another kind for fish and jalapeno

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fruit plants, don't even make the list.

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Now, I didn't specify further at the time, but I could have continued

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as Saint Paul did.

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There are heavenly bodies and Earthly bodies.

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And the glory of the Heavenly is not like that of the Earthly.

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There's a glory of the sun and a glory of the moon

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and there's different glories for the stars

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because star differs from star in glory.

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Each is a unique creation with unique glories.

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And human beings

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well, we reflect God's glory in a different way than all the rest of

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creation.

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We were made in God's own image.

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And so this may surprise you, but you are of more value to God than a

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jalapeno fruit plant.

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You reflect a different kind of Glory.

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But anyway, back to Jim the jalapeno

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fruit plant. He was dead and suddenly this hobby, which I had

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inflicted upon my children, had become an infliction on myself.

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How could I explain what it means to be buried?

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I wish I would have been able to do that in that moment.

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Because it would have prepared my children for what we would

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experience the following year.

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After a wonderful vicarage, we returned to the parsonage

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at my fieldwork congregation where we've been living for two years and

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it was good for the girls to return to a familiar garden.

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It was good to reunite with old friends in the flesh.

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But the pews were a little emptier.

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And not just because we had to keep everybody six feet apart.

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It was also because

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somebody's were six feet lower.

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During our year along, separation four members had passed away because

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of Covid,

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died.

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Four people could no longer be seen in the flesh. Four families were now

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separated from their loved ones.

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That is what death is.

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It is the ultimate separation.

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The separation of soul from body, the unnatural separation.

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It runs contrary to our creators intention for us.

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Death does not see unique creations with unique glories.

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It sees only another victim to separate.

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Death is an enemy.

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And it has been an enemy ever since our first parents chose separation

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from God and separation from one another

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by eating that forbidden fruit.

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In Adam all die.

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Those stark words remind us that we are powerless against that enemy

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of death.

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Our perishable flesh for whatever Glory it reflects cannot overcome

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the separation of death.

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And so God himself overcame that separation.

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He reunited himself to his Creation in the flesh.

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Jesus Christ took on a body and

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Yes, it's good news.

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We clap for that is awesome.

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He took on that flesh because he needed to join us to grieve as we

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grieve to mourn as we mourn.

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He was left to wither and dry in some old spare tomb and yet his flesh

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did not wither and dry, he rose from the dead.

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He was sown in dishonor, but raised in dishonor.

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He was like a seed that burst forward with life

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from the dry Earth of the Tomb.

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And there was no greater comfort, no greater joy than knowing this.

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That God joined himself to our perishable flesh

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and therefore, we have been joined to his imperishable life.

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His resurrection means our resurrection.

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Jesus Christ has been raised from the dead.

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The firs fruits of those who have fallen asleep for as by a man came

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death

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by a man has come

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also the resurrection of

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the dead. For as in Adam all die.

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So also in Christ shall all be made alive.

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Brothers and sisters Christ is the first fruits and that makes you

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the second. He has overcome all separation, and nothing can separate

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you from his life.

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Not your sins, and not even death itself.

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And if you should ever have any doubts, what our baptism and the

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Lord's supper, if not God uniting us, inseparably to himself.

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In baptism that life-giving, water quenches are dried and withered

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souls.

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You are, you're even restored to a rightful name.

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You are now Christian, the creature called to care for creation.

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And in the Lord's, Supper Christ is present in the flesh.

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So near to us that we can see touch smell and taste him, even hear his

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good words for you.

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When St.

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Paul reflects on this, good news, and he thinks about what this

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Resurrection means for us.

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He can't help but burst out in a hymn from his childhood.

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He, he references Psalm 8.

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He says he has put all things under his feet.

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All the work of our great Gardener's fingers, the moon and the stars,

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the sheep, and the oxen, the beasts of the field, the birds of the

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heavens, the fish of the sea.

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All creation will be reunited to its proper order.

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How magnificent that day will be.

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We did not have a funeral for Jim, the jalapeno fruit plant.

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It's not like he produced any fruit that had seeds anyways, but even

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if he had

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we are about a different sort of planting.

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Take a look at the resurrection window behind me here.

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You'll notice that there's something down at the bottom.

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Inside the crown of thorns surrounded by death.

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It's a fruit.

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In particular, it's a pomegranate.

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Told you this was about fruit.

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Now, in some rabbinic traditions, pomegranates are thought to be the

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fruit in the Garden of Eden.

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That forbidden fruit that's as good, a guess as any the seeds are

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after all buried on the inside.

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And if you look closely, you'll see that the seeds of that

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pomegranate

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they aren't staying put.

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The perishable flesh has died away and the seeds of everlasting life

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are spreading forward into the world from where there once was only

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death.

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What is sown is perishable.

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What is raised is imperishable.

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And this good news has to be shared.

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Some of us will be sent out into the world to do

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just that in about 63 days, 9 hours and 35 minutes or so.

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Not that anyone is counting.

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Some of you have already been called to do this sort of sharing,

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you've been doing it for some time and each of us in whatever our

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vocations are tend to some Garden that God has given us.

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And in each of those Gardens, we are encircled by death that

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separation follows us and haunts us everywhere. But

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you have been made a unique creation with unique glories.

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And in this world of death, you Christian called to care for creation.

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You get the privilege of planting

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of watering, of sharing that seed of eternal life.

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You will not do this perfectly because you like a meddling seminarian

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are a sinner.

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But you are never sent to do this work alone.

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You are inseparably linked to the life of Jesus Christ.

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In his name.

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Amen.