Behold We Live

(Death does not have the last word!)

(from the Sunday Sermons On CD-ROM Collection)

"Be constantly on the watch! Stay awake! You do not know when the appointed time will come" - Mark 13:33

• An elderly woman named Maude had a window seat on a big "747" jetliner that had just taken off for Rome. She had been scrimping for years to fulfill her dream of travelling to Europe and visiting the exotic places she'd read about all her life. But it was her first flight and she was terrified! "O Lord, what am I doing up, here?" she kept repeating to herself. Even the stately presence of the four bishops seated behind her didn't help. With fear and trembling, she finally opened her eyes and peeped out the window just in time to see one of the plane's four engines break loose from the wing and disappear into the clouds below. Maude sounded the alarm: "We're going to die! We're going to die" she cried out. The chief stewardess immediately consulted with the pilot, then announced to the passengers the news that everything was under control. "The captain assures you", she said, "that he can fly the airplane back to New York and land safely on three motors." But poor, panic-stricken Maude continued to cry out, "We're going to die! We're going to die!" The stewardess went to her and said, "Don't worry, my dear, God is with us. We have only three motors but, look, we have four bishops." To which Maude replied, "I'd rather have four motors and three bishops."
• Philip of Macedon gave one of his slaves a strange standing order. Every morning this slave was to march into the king's chamber, and no matter what the king was doing, announce in a loud voice, "You must die!" I doubt if many of us would appreciate that kind of daily reminder of the inevitability of our own death, much less order it.

Christians in the Middle Ages seem to have been terribly preoccupied with the subject of death. The pictures and writings of that time are filled with images of skeletons and everlasting judgment. But at least it can be said of those times that the reality of death was not eroded. It has been said that in the past everyone in polite society talked about death but no one talked about sex; whereas today everyone talks about sex but no one speaks of death. In truth, the person who has not confronted death is not prepared to confront life.

Sociologist Peter Berger has written that "The power of religion depends upon the believability of the banners it puts in the hands of men as they stand before death ... as they walk inevitably toward death." We should not think about death because we enjoy being morbid. We should think about death so that we can better think about life. Death is the final and most terrifying challenge to the meaning of life. St. Paul has rightly called death the "last enemy." In the final analysis, the biggest question we are faced with is the question of death. We can put it off. We can pretend we are not bothered by it. We can put it off so successfully that, in fact, we are not bothered by it. Our lives then lack a certain integrity that comes from being utterly honest, especially about the one reality we would like to forget.

• In Las Vegas, at the funeral of a notorious gambler, a friend was delivering the eulogy. The speaker went on and on with those flowery phrases that try to cover up the fact of death. At one point he said, "Let us not look upon our dear friend as dead, but merely asleep!" To which one of the deceased's gambling pals standing in the rear of the funeral parlor said to those around him, "I'll give you eight-to-five he's dead." There were no takers.

Death is the last enemy. It stands against us as the great "No!" to all the "Yesses!" in our life. It shatters our dreams, destroys our hopes, refutes our ambitions and makes a mockery of our security. But ... if death has the final word, then all other words are empty. If the final destiny of man is destruction, then what meaning is there to our hopes and struggles for a new humanity. The ominous cloud of nuclear warfare has, for our generation, posed this question in new and more urgent terms. At one time, persons could speak about living beyond death through deeds that would bear fruit long after they had died. But today, the very future of the human race itself seems imperiled. And even if mankind survives, what does this say about personal life after death?

As Christians, we believe that every person is unique. There is no such thing as an ordinary person: each person is extraordinary. Each person is a genuinely new event in history. We reject the notion of some cultures that history is going around in circles and that we are reincarnations of former existences. A woman was asked if her husband believed in reincarnation. "Are you kidding?" she replied. "Why he doesn't even believe in life-after-dinner!" The threat of death is that once the candle of life is extinguished we will not be at all. The degree in which we sense this threat is in direct proportion to the degree we treasure our life. The horror of destruction is measured by the quality of the life destroyed. The Ages have strained to catch the final words of great and noble persons, knowing that death is uniquely the final moment of truth and believing that the convictions expressed in the face of death reveal the quality of the life lived.

We know, of course, how much Christian thought and devotion has focused on that greatest of all deaths because it was the greatest of all lives: the death of Jesus. This death never loses its compelling power for us as we follow Jesus in the Gospels, moving in unqualified obedience toward the radical vision of God's coming Kingdom. He was human like us. In the Garden of Gethsemene He prayed with agony and sweat that the Father would arrange things so that He could go on living and still be faithful to the vision. But when the choice had to be made, He made it clearly.

If Jesus had not died, He could not be the Savior of us all "as we walk inevitably toward death." He did die. And God raised Him from the dead, vindicating the trust of all who hope in Him. Jesus is the New Man for all men, truly the Man For All Seasons and all times. He is, St. Paul says, "The first fruit from the dead," the advance sign of a new creation.

We come together today, fully aware of our mortality. We pledge ourselves to struggle in His company for the new humanity of God's promise. We stand together with Him in life as we walk confidently toward death -- confidently, because He leads us through death to life. We can trust His promise that those who lose their lives for Him will gain the fulfillment of life in the end of history, when the Kingdom of God is finally established among men. No longer need we evade or belittle the reality of death. Death does not have the last word. The Lord of Life has the last word.

Be constantly on the watch! Stay awake! You do not know when the appointed time will come," Jesus tells us in today's Gospel Lesson. But how? How are we to stay awake to the reality of our own personal death? We know that whatever else we overcome, we all -- great and small, rich and poor -- are finally overcome by death. And yet, in being overcome, we overcome.

There is no one style, no one mood that is appropriate to being a Christian. But there is, indeed, one absolutely essential element that all true Christians must share in common, and that is, in the Apostle Peter's words, "the reason for the hope that is ours." The Risen Lord Jesus Christ is "the reason for the hope that is ours." Only in the Risen Lord can we celebrate our fullness of life together.

There is a time for reason and a time for emotion; a time for sorrow and a time for ecstasy; a time for ups and downs, highs and lows. Stay awake! Stay awake!: THE RISEN LORD IS ALWAYS IN SEASON.

(Reprinted with permission from the Sunday Sermons on CD-ROM Collection. This collection, which contains seven complete fully-illustrated sermons for each Sunday of the three year lectionary cycle and regularly sells for $297, is available through December 24, 1999 for the special price of $199.95. For more info or to order, please visit the Homiletic Resource Center.)