There is only one extant example of a theatre trilogy from the Ancient Greeks: the Oresteia of Aeschylus. Now, the plays of Aeschylus are certainly a worth topic (although, tragically, only seven of his nearly one hundred plays survived into the modern era), but it is a topic for another time. Here, I wish to pull just one line, spoken by Apollo himself, in The Eumenides (or, The Furies), the third play in the Oresteia cycle:

But when the thirsty dust sucks up a man’s blood / once shed in death, he shall arise no more. / No chant nor charm for this my Sire hath wrought.

The Oresteia cycle is still performed today, but, more relevant to our purposes here, the cycle was also performed in Paul’s day — and yet more relevant, it was performed in Athens, and yet more relevant still, it was performed right on the other side of the Acropolis from the Areopagus (in the Theatre of Dionysus, which was also where it premiered).

Let me be clear: Paul stood and declared αναστησις αυτου εκ νεκρων — the resurrection of the dead — in the same place — the exact same place, in terms of the location within the play — where Greek actors would stand and declare, in the person of the god Apollo, ουτισ εστ᾽ αναστασις — there is no resurrection. Paul even used the same word; his educated Greek audience would not have missed this. Further, Scripture names two groups: the Epicureans and the Stoics; both of these schools denied the immortality of the soul (the psyche). We could even say that God used the foolish things of the world (i.e., a claim one could return from the real of the dead) to shame the wise. There is even an additional layer in that the common Greek people (some of whom were undoubtedly listening) did not agree with the Epicureans or the Stoics, and held, instead, the classical belief in the realm of the dead as a sort of shadowy limbo; similarly, the elites in Greek society were more likely to be Platonists, who also did not agree with the Epicureans ot the Stoics, because the Platonists did affirm a form of immorality of the soul.

It must be noted that when Apollo speaks of his sire, he is, of course, speaking of Zeus, the chief god and his father. Paul is saying to these educated Greeks that what the chief god of the Greek pantheon did not (or could not) do, God the Father did. Further, Paul is very heavily implying that others, too, may be raised from the dead (that is part of why some mocked him, as the next verse after our reading clearly states). Some of you may be familiar with Greek myth and will undoubtedly be wondering about Alcestis, Heracles, Odysseus, Orpheus (and, I suppose, Asclepius, but we will leave his case for another time); two points: 1) educated Greeks believe these myths to be illustrative or symbolic instead of literal and 2) anyone who returned from Hades in Greek mythology did so only temporarily — they would die again. Contrast the words of Christ: “[E]veryone who lives and believes in Me shall never die.” We will get to Baptism shortly, on the topic of death.

Even if Paul did not know all of this (and much more), God is very clear: “When they deliver you over, do not be anxious how you are to speak or what you are to say, for what you are to say will be given to you in that hour. For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.“, and let us not forget that Paul was well educated, or, in the words of Festus: “Paul, you are out of your mind; your great learning is driving you out of your mind.”, and Paul had just twice quoted Greek poetry. God knew precisely what He was doing, and the mass conversion of Greece (and then the rest of Europe) to Christianity surely proves it. God fulfilled His promise declared through Grandfather Noah: Japheth (i.e., the European race) shall dwell in the dwelling of Shem (i.e., become and build Christendom). God can work wonders with ordinary tools and ordinary men; perhaps the men who created the lectionary knew how excellent of a job they did in selecting today’s Psalm to go with today’s first reading, perhaps they did not; at any rate, the Psalm says the Lord is the One Who places my soul (psyche) into life (ζωη) — He is the One Who resurrects me. Further, when the Psalm says that God ‘led us into refreshment [or revival]’, the word there is quite literally αναφυχη — He re-souled us. Is there a better word for the resurrcetion on the final day when we will be raised bodily to new life in a new Creation?

It is appropriate that Paul speaks of a sort of inversion before the Athenians — what Apollo says Zeus cannot do, the Father demonstrates by raising Christ — for the Christian religion truly is one of a central inversion from all other religions: Whereas every other religion says that man must work his way to god or the gods, by living a good life, making sacrifices, et cetera, Christianity bluntly states that this is impossible; the chasm between man and God is infinite and no finite can ever cross an infinite; rather, the Infinite must Himself do the work — He must cross the chasm (i.e., become incarnate) and then bridge the chasm (i.e., live a perfect life and die on the cross and return from the dead) for us. The world (and every worldly religion) tells you that you must work your way to god; God the Son tells you instead: “It is finished.”

And so let us turn to Baptism. In the waters of Baptism, you are called from and through death into new life; in the words of the Psalm, you are refreshed or revived, and, as already noted, the word there could be quite literally translated ‘re-souled’, and ’revive’ means ‘to live again’. The central good news of the Christian religion is that death is not the end, and not in the sense of the reincarnation of the East, the conflagration of the Stoics, eternal return, or any other such thing; rather, the Christian truth is that all things will be made new — only once to die and thereafter to enter, for the Christian, into the restored Paradise, Creation as God always intended it to be. And it is Baptism that is our portal, our entry into this new life.

Never look at Baptism, like the Enthusiasts do, as mere water, for Baptism is water and Word, and there God’s Word is, there there can never be no effect, for His Word does not return to Him empty, and only blasphemous fools deny that God’s Word has the power to accomplish all that He wills. And yet Baptism is not Word alone, but water and Word, for God knows our frame, He knows that we are dust. We are not soul alone, for we are also flesh; in the water of Baptism, God gives us something that is real and knowable by and to the flesh, while the words enter our mind and soul; it is the fullness of the Gestalt of man that God meets in the water and Word of Baptism. Baptism is the first resurrection. Prior to your Baptism, you were dead in your sins and your trespasses and, in your Baptism, God raised you to new life. When Jesus tells Nicodemus that he must be born again, He speaks of Baptism and of faith. Those who are part of the first resurrection have already passed from death to life, and so we will never taste the second death — Hell. Just as there are two deaths (physical and eternal), so there are two resurrections (Baptism and the Resurrection of the Just); if you would not taste the second death, then you must receive the first resurrection in the waters of Holy Baptism.

And yet there are always those who search for edge cases. If Christ offers you a life preserver, are you truly going to refuse it and drown in the hope that He will reach down and pull you up, fool that you are? Now, certainly, Christ will lose none from His hand and all of the Elect will be saved, but the Elect do not despise the Sacraments. So, first, we must condemn — in no uncertain terms — the pernicious and sinful desire to find exceptions. Satan seeks ‘exceptions’; Christians obey. Second, we must look at what Baptism does. IN the words of Peter: Baptism saves you. Now, in truth, we have the fullness of our answer in those few words, but let us expand and examine them for the sake of certainty and clarity. Helpfully, the word that immediately precedes “Baptism” in this passage in our Bibles is, indeed, “water”. As we all know, Baptism is water and Word, but Peter forecloses certain ‘objections’ of the Enthusiasts when he compares Baptism to the Flood. Only a particular sort of wicked fool would deny that water is clearly in view here. Of course, many of our translations fall short here (for various reasons) and thereby fuel heretics of various stripes. Baptism does not ‘correspond’ to the Flood (at least not in the mind and ear of men not deeply steeped in philosophy, particularly the philosophy of truth); our translators failed here. What Peter actually says is that Baptism is the αντιτυπος of the Flood, which is the τυπος — we are dealing in typology. As a refresher: The antitype is always greater than its types — it must be so. The Flood, as type, saved Noah from the wicked world and temporal death. Peter says that Baptism, the antitype of the Flood, saves. Well, what is the only thing greater than temporal death? Eternal death. Baptism saves you from Hell. And yet we know that salvation is sola gratia sola fide — by grace alone through faith alone. How do we square this? Rather easily: Unlike the Enthusiasts, we do not deny the plain teaching of Scripture that God works through means. We are certainly saved by faith alone, but that faith is a gift from God, and He has ordained Means by which we receive that gift.; one of the Means of Grace is the Word, read or heard, and Baptism is another. Via the waters of Holy Baptism, God bestows the free gift of faith that saves from eternal death. So let us never lightly esteem, as so many fools and blasphemers do, the great gift of Holy Baptism, for it is by the waters of Baptism that we avoid the fires of Hell.

Every Baptism is an assault upon the gates and claims of Hell; every Baptism diminishes and enrages Satan; every time the Baptism rite is performed, Satan is reminded yet again of Christ’s words from the cross announcing the defeat of Satan, death, and Hell: It is finished! In this life, as the hymn says: ‘We walk in danger all the way.’ We are still in the fallen flesh, Creation still groans for the restoration of all things, and we are still best by temptations and fall into sin, but we must never permit sin to transform into despair, for, no matter what accusations Satan may hurl, we can always, must always, retort: Baptizatus sum — I am baptized. What work Christ began when first we received the free gift of faith, He will certainly see to fruition; He has never failed and never will. We are the sheep and He is the Good Shepherd.

And it was good news that Paul proclaimed to the Greek sons of Japheth in the Areopagus: You can be born again. You can escape this wicked and fallen world, as Noah did in his time with the Ark, which preserved him from and through the destruction of the antediluvian world, but it is not an escape from the flesh, as some foolish philosophers believed (and some still believe); rather, it is a restoration, a return to what God intended us to be and what we will be in eternity in Paradise with our Creator, Whom we will behold, as did Moses, face to face. The Jews sough signs and the Greeks sough wisdom; here, then is the sign — Baptism, the sign of the true and enduring covenant — and here, then, is wisdom — what man could never do (cross the infinite divide between God and man), God as man has already done. And so we can dismiss the words of Aeschylus’ Apollo and hear instead the words of righteous Job:

For I know that there is an eternal One Who will release me, / and He will raise up my flesh.

And, indeed, the Greek word there is the verbal form of the same word spoken in disbelief by Apollo, in belief by Paul, and in belief and expectation by each and every one of us in the Creed: Resurrection, for we all with heart and mouth confess the resurrection of the body.

Amen.