6C22.    Jeremiah 17:5-8.    “Cursed is the one who trusts in human beings, who seeks his strength in flesh, whose heart turns away from the Lord.”  The people of Judah had put their trust in their leaders who acted as though they knew better than God.  They went against God’s leadership for his people.  The result was disastrous when the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem and carried the Hebrews off into slavery.  “Blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord, whose hope is the Lord.”  Anything that depends on what is earthly and not heavenly will go back to dust and dirt.

Luke 6:17, 20-26.    These are the Lucan beatitudes where what is blessed is set against what is cursed or woeful.  The blessed are those who put their faith in what is God-centered and valuable in the eyes of God; the cursed or woeful are those who put their trust in what the world considers worthwhile.

1 Corinthians 15:12, 16-20.    Paul is responding to the belief among some of the Corinthians who thought that “there is no resurrection of the dead.”  There were many who accepted the philosophy among the Greeks that the body imprisons the soul and so death frees the soul from prison.  And so for them resurrection meant to return to imprison the soul again in the body.  However, for us life in Christ means death to placing ourselves first so to rise in living God’s will, submitting ours to his, so to live in the eternal happiness that only God can give.