The Rev. Dr. Roger Douglas
St. Margaret's Episcopal Church & School
Biblical Reference
From my mouth, and the meditation of our hearts accept our site Oh, Lord and our Strength and our Redeemer.
A couple of weeks ago, it was Pentecost Sunday, the third most important holiday of the church year. Pentecost, the birthday of the church, the celebration of the coming of the spirit, is a red-letter day in the Christian citizenry. But, it was also Memorial Day week-end, a week-end to remember all those who died in service for our country as well as those who have passed away and are still close to our hearts. Anyway, I missed an opportunity to speak about death and it’s meaning for us. A subject that no self-respecting clergy ought to skip. Fortunately, the church year gives us a second chance.
On this Sunday, it places before us an Old Testament lesson on the Gospel passage that has death as its subject. As we read over the Gospel, I began to ask myself some questions last week; questions like why, why was this incident put there in the Gospel? Any serious reading in the Gospel must conclude that there are vast portions of Jesus’ life which are not included. And so, last week, preparing to preach, I started by raising that question, "why?" Why does Luke include this incident of Jesus, bringing to life a dead man, is this important? Was it to show that Jesus was a miracle worker? Or to convince us that he had compassion upon a mother? Or to demonstrate his ability to resuscitate the dead? I doubt it. I think we were meant to look beyond the facts. I believe we have to search for the truth in back of the words that we read. Haven’t you found that so as you have read scripture.
Now, one conclusion that we might make is that Jesus doesn’t take death very seriously. Certainly, not as serious as we take it. We generally see life as beginning at birth and ending at death. If life is going to make sense to us, it’s going to have to make sense in that span of time. The space between our coming out of the womb and our dying, this is the space we seem to have to make an impact on the world. Most of death is at the end, at least its, if we are going to be honest, the limit of our sight. But then, Jesus comes along and shows us that most of us have a limited, partial sight, a limited partial view of reality, if you will. The Gospel story like the one we just read, reminds us that from Gods’ perspective, death, and life are simply two sides of a coin. There is more to existence that is found in an obituary, death is not the end and therefore, God does not get quite as upset as we do when people die.
The bottom line of this story that we read, is not found in Jesus restoring a son to his grieving mother. The bottom line is that Jesus demonstrates that death and life in some way are connected; they are part of the whole and therefore, grief which is very common to all of us, a feeling that all of us go through; grief need not be over whelming. When a person dies, we should see it in the context of an absence not a loss. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
The Gospel this morning really raises for us the issue of "what do we really believe about death?" And, furthermore, what should we do about it? How should we respond to this part of life? The way we look at death is going to influence us as to the way we look at life! Do we believe that death is an interruption or do we believe that death is end? Is the death of one close to us a temporary absence or an irretrievable loss? You see how these two ideas affect our reactions? For those of you who have questions, and which of us haven’t had a host of uncertainties I’d suggest that sometime you take a look at the burial service in our prayer books. The burial service has one continuous theme, and that’s the theme of hope; there’s more to come. As Christians we believe that there is a future beyond the grave and the burial service also makes it very clear that the physical body is not all that important. It implies that we continue to move from strength to strength even after we slough off our bodies. And in this movement, nothing, no nothing, can separate us from the Love of God. Those thoughts are reassuring and they have sustained many people through the years and yet we must admit the very act of death often scares us. When people that we love die, it often moves us to the point near death ourselves. Let’s be honest. Death has a way of affecting the way we live. So what is death to you? Is it part of life, or is it an ending? Is it a door that opens or closing shut of all that we hold dear?
Let me end our thoughts with a story from our heritage. It’s a story from the Old Testament in the days of King David. When David was at the height of his powers, he had a child that became very ill. There was great anxiety in the royal household. David and the people corresponded in the best way they knew and the best response to the illness was more a theological than a scientific. It took the form of wearing a sack cloth and ashes and of fasting and prayers. They wept and they watched. What the court physicians could do, they did. The people themselves joined the king in the ritual and still the child died. The members of David’s court were afraid to tell him of the child’s death. They were concerned about the possible violence of his reactions. And David heard them talking outside his door and he came out and asked, "Is the child dead?" They reluctantly answered, "Yes, he is." Then, David said, "let us wash our face, change our clothes and have dinner brought to us." The people of the court were amazed and they asked him "how could it be that you could pray and fast and cover your face with sack cloth and ashes and when the child dies, you simply rise, wash your face, and order dinner?" And David replied, "Can I bring him back?" I will go to him and he will not come to me. Through the eyes of King David we are allowed to see ourselves as a face-washed people. We can continue even when someone we love dies. We are dealing with their absence, not their loss. We need not hold on as if this were the end, we can wash our faces, we can order our dinner and we can look forward to the day when all of us will be brought back together.
Good people. Death is cold. A cold reality, few of us like it, none of us can avoid it. It is a cold hard fact, but the promises of God are warm. Jesus reminds us that life continues even when the body stops. The Gospel message is that you don’t have to hold tightly, even when your heart is broken; even when you are crying over the absence of a loved one. There is still a future and the future is that all things will come back together in God’s time. So the word of God is, wash your faces, dry your tears, change your clothes and have a meal at God’s table. Amen.
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