On December 23, 2025, Ben Sasse posted something that stopped me cold. The former senator, just turned 54, announced on social media that he had been diagnosed with stage-four pancreatic cancer. He wrote with devastating clarity: he was going to die. But then he said something I haven’t been able to shake. He pointed out that, in a sense, he already had a death sentence before the diagnosis—and so do all of us.

That kind of honesty is rare. And for those of us who know Ben Sasse as a fellow believer in Christ, it was more than sobering—it was a window into what resurrection hope actually looks like when it’s tested.

In a moving interview with theologian Michael Horton, Sasse described his situation without flinching. His torso is filled with tumors. He is poisoning himself with chemotherapy, hoping it kills the cancer before it kills him. And yet, in that same interview, he and Horton found themselves laughing. Not to avoid the weight of it. But because, as Sasse put it, they understood that the “sting” is real—but the victory has already been won. That’s what he called gallows humor. A gallows, if you didn’t know, is a wooden frame built for hanging. They laughed because they know something death doesn’t know.

That interview became a living sermon illustration for me as I closed out our eight-week series, Upside Down Glory: Disability and the Kingdom of God. We’ve been asking hard questions all winter—about bodies, about dignity, about who the church is for. And this final week, Paul pushed us all the way to the end of the story: what happens to the body that has suffered?

Savor the Seed

In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul takes a simple farming image and does profound theological work with it. You don’t plant an oak tree—you plant an acorn. The acorn has to go into the ground and die before the oak tree can come up. What goes in does not look like what comes out. But here is Paul’s crucial point: to each seed, its own body. The oak comes from that particular acorn. There is continuity even in the transformation.

That’s where I spent some time on this passage: the resurrection body is not a generic replacement. God does not hand out standard-issue eternal bodies. He raises you—the specific person He has been shaping through every experience of your life.

Joni Eareckson Tada has written and spoken about this with more theological depth than almost anyone I know. She does not expect to be ‘fixed’ in the sense that her wheelchair years are erased like a mistake. She expects to be freed—and to be more herself than she has ever been. Her wheelchair-formed character, the depth of dependence and empathy she carries, is part of who she is. Resurrection does not erase that. It glorifies it.

Savor the seed. God is doing something in your story right now that you cannot see yet. Don’t disregard the acorn.

Shake Off the Dust

Paul moves from the seed analogy to four stark contrasts: perishable and imperishable. Dishonor and glory. Weakness and power. Natural body and spiritual body. These are not just poetic categories—each one speaks directly to the experience of people living with disability, disease, and limitation.

The word Paul uses for dishonor—atimia—means social shame, low status, being treated without value. We’ve talked all series about how people with disabilities can be made to feel this way. But the resurrection body is raised in glory. All the exclusion, pity, and dismissal of this world will be reversed.

And here is where I want to be careful, because how we answer this question says something about how we view people with disabilities right now: Will disabilities be present in the resurrection body? My conviction is that the resurrection body will be transformed, not just restored. Isaiah promises that the blind will see and the lame will leap. I take that literally. But—and this matters—transformation is not erasure. The disability will be gone, but the person will not. The years of dependence that deepened someone’s faith? That goes with them, glorified. The patience and trust forged through limitation? God does not throw that away. He perfects it.

When the acorn becomes the oak tree, the acorn is gone—but everything the acorn was is now fully expressed in something magnificent. The disability was the shell. The person inside is the oak tree God always intended.

So will my son Josiah be healed? Yes. Will he still be Josiah—joyful, excited about people, clapping his hands? Absolutely. More himself than he has ever been. That is not a contradiction. That is resurrection.

Listen for the Trumpet

Paul saves his best line for last: in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet—we will be changed. Notice the passive voice. The transformation is done to us, not achieved by us. You do not have to fight your way to a resurrection body. God will give it to you.

This word is for anyone who has been fighting for someone who couldn’t fight for themselves. If you’ve navigated the IEP meetings, sat in the hospital waiting room, rearranged your retirement and your sleep—you know what ‘groaning’ means in Romans 8. This is for you. The trumpet is coming. And at that sound, death will have no more authority. As Paul writes—and I love this—Death, where is your sting?

That is the gallows humor Ben Sasse and Michael Horton were laughing about. They know something death doesn’t know. Because Jesus died and was raised, so will we. And when that day comes, we will be more alive than we have ever been.

Therefore

After 57 verses of resurrection theology, Paul does not say: now you may sit and wait. He says: therefore—be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain.

This is the word I want to leave with you. If you are living with disability, if you are a caregiver, if you are a parent who exhausts yourself advocating for your child—God sees you. Your labor is not in vain. The work you are doing to bring heaven to earth matters. It will not be forgotten.

And to the broader church: the gates of the new Jerusalem, John tells us, will never shut. There will be no hour when access is denied, no barrier that says ‘not you.’ We have an opportunity right now to practice for the city that is coming. Open the doors a little wider. Lower the barriers a little further. Make room for the people the world has been telling to wait outside.

One day, there will be no night. The gates will never close. And the city will be absolutely full of people the world overlooked.

Sown in weakness. Raised in power. That is the promise. That is the hope. And that is the call.

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4-Day Bible Reading Plan

Based on “Sown in Weakness, Raised in Power” — 1 Corinthians 15:35–58

Day 1: The Seed Must Die — Continuity and Transformation

Passages: 1 Corinthians 15:35–44 | John 12:23–26

Focus: Paul’s seed analogy and the nature of the resurrection body

Reflection Questions:

• What does the image of a seed teach you about how God views your present circumstances and limitations?
• In John 12, Jesus applies this same seed language to his own death. What does this tell you about the path to glory?
• Where in your life right now is God asking you to trust him with something that looks small or broken?

Prayer Focus: Ask God to help you savor the seed—to trust that He is doing something in your story you cannot yet see.

Day 2: Sown in Dishonor, Raised in Glory — Dignity and the Resurrection

Passages: 1 Corinthians 15:42–49 | Isaiah 35:1–10 | Psalm 8:1–9

Focus: The four contrasts of resurrection and the dignity of every body

Reflection Questions:

• Paul contrasts dishonor with glory, and weakness with power. Where do you see people dishonored or treated as less than in your community? In your church?
• Isaiah 35 describes blind eyes opening and lame people leaping. How does this promise shape the way we should treat people with disabilities today?
• What does it mean that your identity is found not in your circumstances, but in the image you were made to bear?

Prayer Focus: Pray for someone in your life who has been overlooked or made to feel less than. Ask God to help your church become a place that reflects resurrection dignity.

Day 3: The Dust and the Second Adam — Our Identity in Christ

Passages: 1 Corinthians 15:45–49 | Genesis 2:4–7 | Romans 5:12–21

Focus: The narrative arc from the first Adam to the last Adam

Reflection Questions:

• Paul traces the story from Adam (dust) to Christ (life-giving Spirit). How does understanding this arc change the way you think about your own mortality?
• In Romans 5, Paul describes how the second Adam undoes what the first Adam introduced. What does it mean to you personally that Christ came to reverse the curse?
• We are all people of the dust—bearing the weight of fallen embodiment. Where are you most aware of that weight right now?

Prayer Focus: Thank God for the Second Adam. Pray to bear the image of the man of heaven more fully today.

Day 4: Listen for the Trumpet — Resurrection Produces Action

Passages: 1 Corinthians 15:50–58 | Revelation 21:1–5, 25 | Romans 8:18–25

Focus: The promise of transformation and the call to labor

Reflection Questions:

• Paul says the transformation is done to us, not achieved by us. How does that bring comfort—especially to those who are weary from caring for others?
• The gates of the new Jerusalem never shut (Rev. 21:25). What barriers—physical, cultural, attitudinal—in your church still need to come down?
• Paul’s “therefore” in v. 58 is a call to action rooted in resurrection hope. What is one concrete step you can take this week to bring heaven to earth for someone impacted by disability?

Prayer Focus: Ask God to give you ears to hear the trumpet in the distance—and the courage to live toward it now. Pray for steadfastness and ask: Lord, where are you calling me to labor?

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This reading plan is part of the “Upside Down Glory: Disability and the Kingdom of God” sermon series at Millington Baptist Church.