Of Death and Life
April 24, 2005 (Fifth Sunday of Easter)
by
The Rev. Linda Yeager,
Deacon
(From The Lectionary Page)
The scripture lessons this week are truly valuable ones, for they tell us both how to die and how to live. The late Dag Hammarskjold said, "In the last analysis, it is our conception of death which decides our answers to all the questions that life puts to us." In today's gospel passage, Jesus has given us the concept of death that should help us answer life's questions. This particular passage is one that is familiar to anyone who attends many funerals, for most families, when selecting a gospel passage for a funeral service, find this one from the Gospel of John to be most comforting. Since all of us here have never personally experienced our own deaths, we frequently seek answers to the unknown.
What is it like to die? What happens to us after we have taken our final breath? Where have our loved ones gone after they have died? Do the dead have new bodies? Do they know what is going on with us?
These are questions we ponder. While we know in an intellectual way that we are going to die, until we lose someone dear to us or we come face to face with our own demise, death may remain academic. But, sooner or later, each of us comes to the reality of our own mortality and of the mortality of our loved ones. And the big question, of course, remains: What happens after death?
C.S. Lewis, in his poignantly honest book, A Grief Observed, chronicles the stark reflection of his grief as he lives it. His wife has died of cancer, and he struggles to understand. He writes:
"Where is she now? That is, in what place is she at the present time? But if H. is not a body -- and the body I loved is certainly no longer she -- she is in no place at all. And 'the present time' is a date or point in our time series. It is as if she were on a journey without me and I said, looking at my watch, 'I wonder is she at Euston now.' But unless she is proceeding at sixty seconds a minute along this same timeline that all we living people travel by, what does now mean? If the dead are not in time, or not in our sort of time, is there any clear difference, when we speak of them, between was and is and will be? Kind people have said to me, 'She is with God.' In one sense that is most certain. She is, like God, incomprehensible and unimaginable."
Pondering life after death has been a popular theme in all the arts. From Dante's Divine Comedy to Dickens' A Christmas Carol; from Thornton Wilder's Our Town to popular films, such as Ghost, and What Dreams May Come, images of life after death range from the grotesque to the enchanting to the ridiculous. Death remains the great mystery.
As Jesus addresses this great mystery, he reassures his disciples. He tells them that there will be places for them, after their earthly life ends, with God. He lets them know that he and the Father are one. When we ponder life after death, we are merely pondering. We do not know what happens to us after we die. What we do know is that Jesus has assured us of a place with him. And that is enough. That is more than enough. When we trust Jesus to take us to the place that he has prepared for us, we are freed to live in this life. It is only when we let God worry about what happens to us after we die that we are freed to serve God in this world.
Looking at the rest of the gospel passage, we find that this is just what Jesus speaks of to his disciples; he goes on to instruct them: Very truly, I tell you, Jesus says, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, if fact, will do greater works than these . . .
In the passage from Acts, we see that Paul is doing that which Christ asked. When Paul and Silas visited Thessalonica, as he usually did, Paul went to the synagogue and, once there, he began debating with those in attendance regarding the scriptures, discussing the death and resurrection of Jesus, the Messiah. With his passion and conviction, he convinced many, both Jews and Greeks, of the truth of the resurrection. But not everyone in the congregation agreed with Paul's picture of a suffering messiah, for there were those who were looking for a messiah who would be a glorious and mighty king. While in Thessalonica, Paul and Silas had taken refuge in the home of a Gentile named Jason. The fact that Paul chose to stay in a part of the city that was traditionally non-Jewish made many locals suspicious of him. His opponents gathered a group of Jews and pagans and barged into Jason's home, demanding the surrender of Paul and Silas. When they discovered that the apostles weren't there, they dragged Jason himself and other Christians before their local leaders. They charged them with supporting men who acted "contrary to the decrees of the emperor, saying that there is another king named Jesus." Luckily, Jason had enough wealth and status to save himself from the mob. Paul, Silas, and Timothy cleared out of Thessalonica and went by night to Beroea where they once again told their story and gained converts. But their opponents from Thessalonica heard about Paul's success and followed them to Beroea to stir up the crowds against Paul. Paul then escaped to Athens to continue his missionary journeys. Astounding, isn't it, that Paul was never discouraged from his task of spreading the word of Jesus and his resurrection and ascension? What drove him to this task even though he was again and again set upon by those who were afraid, jealous and/or angry?
Paul was acting in response to his beliefs, to his faith in Jesus, the Christ. When Jesus told his followers to believe that he was in the Father and the Father in him, Paul had the assurance that he needed. He had the personal, intimate relationship that we all seek, He had found the power from God to perform the works that Jesus sought, because by uniting Jesus with the Father, he gained a share of that power. And the works that Paul and the others performed after the resurrection and ascension were able to glorify both the Father and the Son. Jesus had, in fact, said that his followers would do greater works than the ones he himself did. How could this be? Perhaps Jesus knew that Paul and those who followed him would spread the word of the gospel throughout the world, far beyond the places where Jesus preached, and that many would be converted and, in turn, convert others, until all knew and believed.
So, how do these passages speak to us today? First and foremost, we have been freed from the sting of death by Jesus' sacrifice, by Jesus' death, resurrection, and ascension; we have been freed to serve Christ in the world. This is our job: to believe and to lead others--to be Christ to those in the world. How we do this is very individual, but, for all of us, we must live what we believe. Living our faith is sometimes extremely difficult, for it may mean giving up something that we once found meaningful or sacrificing the familiar for the challenging. If we do live our faith, we will find the voice we need to serve Christ; we will find the action we need to serve Christ; we will find the love we need to serve Christ.
I'd like to tell you a couple of stories that exemplify to me what living, loving, and leading for Christ mean:
A young child diagnosed with cancer and undergoing chemo treatments developed a very high temperature. The parents called the doctor, who advised them to fill the bathtub with cold water, pour in ice and quickly immerse the child into the icy water. The child's screams as he was placed and then held in the water were deafening. The parents, crying themselves, could barely endure their child's suffering. Finally, the father stripped off his own clothes and climbed into the tub and held his son. It didn't take away the son's pain at being in the cold water, but he was no longer alone in his pain. This is what Christ does for us, and this is what we are called to do for one another.
I have a prayer shawl, knitted by one of our parishioners. We have shared many shawls like this one, some knitted, some crocheted. We give them to those who need to be wrapped in prayer. We have given prayer shawls to those who are suffering that from sickness, grief, divorce, sadness -- any kind of suffering. This is a small but powerful way to walk with our fellow pilgrims in love.
These stories are not ones that converted a nation or gained headlines in the news. They are, instead, what Paul and Silas and the others did: the Christians in these stories serve Christ in this world with voices and actions. We, who are freed from the power of death, are called to do no less.