St. Paul’s United Church Sunday, March 21, 2010

In Life, in Death, in Life Beyond Death

Rev. David Mundy

Psalm 126 Philippians 3:7-11 John 12:1-8

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It was a busy Sunday morning as always when a young mother approached Rev. Cathy with her seven-year-old son in tow and said “he has a question to ask you – I’m going to the bathroom and I’ll be right back. It turned out that what might have been an innocent query was actually a biggie: “why did Jesus have to die?” he wanted to know.

Cathy admitted to him that some people spend their whole lives attempting to answer that question because it is such a difficult one. But she also told him that while Jesus’ death was unfair, he didn’t stay dead, and the resurrection tells us of God’s love.

This junior theologian wasn’t done with the clergy at St. Paul’s. Just a few weeks ago I lighted our Christ candle during worship and acknowledged that there were flowers in the sanctuary in memory of two of our elderly members who had died a year before. This same little guy stuck up his hand and I assumed that he wanted to mention a birthday of someone in his family. Oh no. He wanted to know why these two women had died. So, in front of the congregation I let him know that both were older and their bodies were tired, and so that had died and were now in God’s presence. At least that’s the way I remember it because I was definitely on the hot seat!

Kids are so innocent aren’t they, oblivious to the tough stuff of daily living? Actually, this boy is proof that children are often thinking much more deeply than we give them credit for. At age seven he was posing two of the most important questions any of us face as Christians. Why has a loving God created us to die, and why did Jesus need to experience death the way we do? Whether you believe that Jesus was a human prophet who pointed us toward God, or accept as I do that he was God incarnate –God in the flesh– his painful execution is a sobering reminder that death is an inescapable aspect of the human journey.

This morning is the fourth Sunday of Lent and while the emphasis of the psalm is joy, the gospel lesson is much more sombre. In the previous chapter of John we hear the story of the death of a friend of Jesus named Lazarus. When Jesus arrives in their hometown of Bethany, the funeral is over and Lazarus’ sisters Mary and Martha are in mourning. Both of them appear to get angry with Jesus, asking why he didn’t show up earlier and heal their sick brother. We’re told that Jesus is deeply moved by their grief and sheds tears of loss. Then he dramatically calls for the tombstone to be rolled away, much to everyone’s horror.

Our story today follows on this one, and Jesus is now in the home of these same three friends on the evening before Palm Sunday. While he is sharing a dinner with them Mary does an extraordinary thing. She takes a pound of expensive perfume and anoints Jesus’ feet, using her hair as a towel. If this sounds unusual, it is! This is a very sensual story, although it is also ominous. This anointing foreshadows the anointing of Jesus’ body after his death on the cross.

In a way John, the gospel writer, is rehearsing Jesus’ death in the story of Lazarus and now in this anointing. We are alerted to the truly world-changing events of the passion, the crucifixion, and the resurrection of Jesus the Christ. But it is important to realize that we can’t avoid death or minimize its impact on us, even if we have strong convictions about the resurrection and the life to come.

Are you accustomed to death yet? Maybe that seems like an odd question, but after all, as the years go by we get plenty of practice. We hear about the illnesses of loved ones and the deaths of strangers and we do our best to make sense of it all.

Humans are not the only creatures who mourn – we now realize that other animals of higher intelligence actually grieve – but humans may be the only ones who ponder the brevity of this life and the possibility of the next. And it is humans who try to make sense of loss. A chimpanzee doesn’t dig up the grave of a compatriot, take up the skull, and offer “alas poor Bonzo, I knew him well” after the fashion of Hamlet.

Yet practice doesn’t necessarily make perfect, does it? When we are confronted by death we still struggle, whether it is a close family member, or a soldier who dies in Afghanistan, or innocent victims of an earthquake in Haiti.

And this life seems to pick up speed alarmingly as the years go by. Some of you saw the animated film Up! which won an Oscar a couple of weeks ago for best animated picture but was also nominated for best motion picture. Up! is a lot of fun but it also packs a serious punch about how we live our lives and how we deal with loss. There is a four minute sequence in the film which moves wordlessly from the time the couple, Karl and Ellie Fredrickson were newlyweds through the fullness of their life together to their final separation when Ellie dies. This montage is quite moving and does an impressive job of conveying a range of emotions.

Now, for those of you who are younger and in the thick of family life and work may be wondering how a discussion of death applies to you. There are so many demands of the day-to-day that there probably isn’t a whole lot of time to be pondering death. And that’s a good thing. Yet eventually we are all confronted by loss, and avoidance is not an option.

A couple of years ago I was called to the hospital bedside of a man in his eighties who had slipped into a coma after a prolonged illness. His son, a grandfather himself, had to make some hard decisions.

After a sobering discussion with the medical staff he decided that the kindest thing for his dad was to remove life support and let him go. But there was a complication. The adult granddaughter of the dying man was angry that her father wasn’t going to take whatever measures necessary to keep him alive. In a way she was like Mary and Martha, wondering why this needed to happen. She spoke of it as a betrayal, and her folks were startled by her reaction. But I realized that there was the underlying desire that her young children would get to know the man she cherished. Eventually she came around, realizing that “there is a season for everything, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born and a time to die . . .” as the Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes tells us.

Okay, this may be where you say to yourself “let me out of here!” Pondering death really isn’t pleasant and as I said earlier, it doesn’t connect well with the theme of joy. Yet if we acknowledge the reality of death it is important as Christ’s people to consider how we live with meaning and die with a sense of peace and promise. We need to ask ourselves, first of all, what we want this life to be and how we can savour each day rather than just aiming our way through them.

There is a bunch of songs by recording artists such as country star Tim McGraw, and American idol Kris Allen, and others which are all about living as though there is no tomorrow. The song Live Like I Was Dying by McGraw is a conversation between a younger man who has received a tough diagnosis and an older man who offers advice based on his brush with death. In the chorus it says:
I went skydiving
I went rocky mountain climbing
I went two point seven seconds on a bull named Fu Man Chu
And I loved deeper
And I spoke sweeter
And I gave forgiveness I'd been denyin'
And he said, some day I hope you get the chance
To live like you were dyin'

I listen to that and I think that if I have to ride a bull or jump out of a plane to be fully alive, then Lord please take me now! Still forgiveness is always important, and one of the verses of the song gets us closer to the gospel:

He said I was finally the husband, that most the time I wasn't
And I became a friend, a friend would like to have
And all of a sudden goin' fishin, wasn't such an imposition
And I went three times that year I lost my dad
Well I finally read the Good Book, and I took a good long hard look
At what I'd do if I could do it all again . . .

It’s always good to slow down enough to consider how we will live our lives with purpose. And when I read the Good Book I realize that life is not about grasping and getting. I hear the call to act with compassion and mercy and generosity in each and every day. We have an unending opportunity to speak love and to exhibit love to those we cherish, rather than take them for granted. There is someone to whom you can express love today and there is no time to waste.

We can also receive our own anointing that will allow us to live with a sense of peace in the face of that terrible mystery which is death. One of the most requested passages at funerals is also from the gospel of John and the setting is the last meal Jesus shares with his followers. All of them must have been confused by Jesus’ veiled comments about life departure, it is the disciple Thomas who admits to Jesus that he doesn’t have a clue where he is going. In his response Jesus says;

"I will not leave you orphaned. I'm coming back. In just a little while the world will no longer see me, but you're going to see me because I am alive and you're about to come alive. At that moment you will know absolutely that I'm in my Father, and you're in me, and I'm in you... That's my parting gift to you. Peace. I don't leave you the way you're used to being left—feeling abandoned, bereft. So don't be upset. Don't be distraught.

John 14:18-20, 27 The Message

Death is a sobering and even scary prospect, but Christ brings us peace and the promise of new life if we are willing to put our trust in him. Our United Church creed says it differently, but it is the same hopeful and even joyful message:

In life, in death, in life beyond death, God is with us,

We are not alone.

Thanks be to God.