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In a few minutes we will hear the Shofar. The sound of the Shofar shares many truths with us. This evening I want to focus on one specific truth. The Shofar’s blast thunders the truth that God’s power transforms us in life and in death. Rabbi Paul, through the Holy Spirit, shared this truth with Messiah’s Community at Corinth and with us in 1 Corinthians 15:50-58. Rabbi Paul writes:

I tell you this, brothers: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the shofar will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality.

As flesh and blood, our bodies are incapable of inheriting the kingdom of God. We cannot contain the transforming power of God. Since these bodies are inadequate, the Lord has declared that they must change. So, during a single moment in the future, those who are alive and those who are dead will all be changed.

God has declared that we must be transformed; we must be raised immortal. Nothing can stop this promise of the Lord, carried out through His unyielding power. So everyone who is part of God’s kingdom, living and dead, must be changed so that we can experience our inheritance of everlasting life.

What will announce the pouring out of God’s infinite power? The Shofar. This is fitting because the Shofar demands we pay attention, demands we obey. However, as loud and powerful as the blasts we hear tonight will be, they are effectively silent compared to the worldwide Shofar of the Lord. The Shofar’s blast thunders the truth that God’s power transforms us in life and in death.

This promise of resurrection, of eternal life, is not new. It is found in the Tanakh, in the Old Testament, as Rabbi Paul quotes Isaiah 25:8 and Hosea 13:14.

When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.” “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Messiah Yeshua.

Death stings. Death is painful. I am reminded of this truth as we mourn the passing of Jay Miller. His sudden passing leaves a hole of grief, a longing for more moments with him. But though we mourn that Jay is not with us tonight, our mourning is different from the world’s. We know that those like Jay, who have inherited God’s kingdom, are not lost forever to death.

In life Jay, like us all, experienced the pain of sin. But that is no longer true. He has passed from this fallen world into the kingdom of God. And one day Jay, along with all those who have lived and died faithful to Messiah, will hear the sounding of God’s shofar.

On that day the Shofar will announce the resurrection of all God’s people. When we are raised imperishable, we will not simply inhabit perfect versions of these bodies. God will make us anew. Sin’s power will be completely extinguished. Then we will have the victory of eternal freedom from sin’s destructive touch. We praise the Lord because He has accomplished this victory for us through Messiah Yeshua, who is the first to be raised to eternal life. Therefore, sin and death are both powerless, their sting is gone.

We wait for that glorious last Shofar blast, but it has not happened yet. What are we to do as we wait for the call of God and His final work of transformation?

Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.

Therefore, because those who are part of Messiah’s kingdom have the promise of eternal life and freedom forever, we must be steadfast and immovable. We must resist the pull of sin and distraction, the pull of everything wrong, broken, and dying in this world. It lures us away from the real and lasting work of being God’s servants. Every distraction in this world is dying and will be destroyed.

Death, and everything that perishes because of it, has a way of forcing us to focus on what remains. This week many other distractions fell away at Jay’s passing from this world. There is a clarity in dealing with the death of a loved one. Grief can be like the sound of the shofar, drawing us to the brevity of our lives and urging us to focus on what comes after.

What comes after, for those joined to Messiah, is the promise of new life, eternal life, where grief and mourning have ended. We know these promises are not in vain, and the work we do in this life for the Lord is not in vain either.

As we open this season of High Holidays, the Shofar sounds and demands that we change. Two kinds of change: the change that comes from our labor in this life, and the final, instant change that will come with the Shofar announcing our eternal transformation and resurrection. So, as we listen to the Shofar sound, let us also pray for the Lord to reveal in what ways we need to change right now and in this new year. Because the Shofar’s blast thunders the truth that God’s power transforms us in life and in death.

May we all experience the renewal that comes only from the Lord. May the Shofar awaken and encourage us to do the work the Lord is calling us to this year. May we all praise the Lord, thanking Him for the victory He has given us right now, and the eternal victory we will experience forever with Him.