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. (1 Corinthians 15:51-52)

Most of the third act of the Messiah is drawn from the fifteenth chapter of First Corinthians where Paul outlines his case for the resurrection of the dead.

The human brain is a great defense mechanism. It seems to me our cognitive abilities evolved to enable our rather frail species to avoid death. Yet we each die.

In confronting the inevitability of death our individual and collective brains have crafted rituals and explanations that presume to overcome even this finality.

I am personally uncertain if we have evolved a profound insight or a comforting illusion. Paul offers a mystery - musterion is the Greek - a hidden purpose, a secret, a mystic vision.

We shall be changed. We will exchange one reality for another. We shall be transformed. We will become as another.

You may listen to Behold I Tell you a Mystery from the Messiah performed by the Academy of St. Martin's in the Fields.