FROM DEATH TO LIFE
Texts: Acts 9: 36-43; Luke 7: 1-17
One of my immigrant doctor friends told me how she just loved “ER,” one of the longest running series on television. “It makes the doctors so real and shows them feeling the pain of losing someone,” she said. “But then,” she continued, “there are those moments when doctors learn how Jesus must have felt when they have rescued someone from death.” Most of us view death as the ultimate enemy, the one thing in life that really is inevitable -- even more so than taxes. When we lose someone we love, we grieve, but we survive; however, when we die, we lose everything within and around us: our consciousness, the world, our families and friends, literally everything.
Although our faith teaches us that in some way we do not comprehend death is not the end of our consciousness, we do not know precisely how that is the case. Each of us has a different image of what may happen our death. Our image of life after death may be of a heaven where we will see all those people we knew in our lives here on earth and who had died; it may be of some sense of the presence of God overwhelming us, enveloping us; it may be a fear of judgment and we may be afraid we will be called to task for all those things we did -- or did not do.
Very few of us do not fear death although for some, death is preferable to a life of shame, abuse, neglect, or even the pain of mental illness. The fear of being outcast from a family or society after being raped, for instance, has driven many women to suicide; the excruciating pain of mental illness or physical pain of constant abuse can lead a person to thinking that death is preferable.
Group pressure, such as exists in war, will lead soldiers to going into a battle with little chance of survival; how else could one account for such battles as D-Day, when the men who hit Omaha Beach knew that half of them would die in their tracks? Or if we go back in history, how else do we account for going into sure slaughter as did those in the charge of the light brigade in Crimea? Tennyson did not write “do or die” but do and die. It’s interesting how that line has been subtly changed to fit our time.
Then there are times when commitment to a cause is so strong that the fear of death is overcome. Our own church cemetery testifies to the commitment our ancestors had towards freedom in the American Revolution and the War of 1812 and the struggle for the very soul of the Union in the Civil War. Those who fought and died did so because they believed in something larger than their individual lives
There are also those who died for a cause or a belief without fighting and are remembered as martyrs. The Book of Acts has the story of the very first martyrdom, that of Stephen full of grace, who was stoned to death for blasphemy. Throughout history, people who have stood for freedom of conscience and justice have been martyred including John Hus, who translated the Bible from Latin into the common tongue, Michael Servetus burned at the stake by John Calvin for questioning his authority, Gandhi assassinated because he stood for Muslim-Hindu tolerance, Martin Luther King murdered because he was the face of the civil rights revolution, and Monseñor Romero shot in the middle of saying mass because he spoke out for social justice in El Salvador. For each of these, their cause was greater than their fear of death.
Although most people fear physical death, I believe there is even a greater death: the death of the soul and the spirit. That death kills us from inside like a cancer and eats away the very center of our lives. Mustering up the courage to face difficult decisions in our lives takes courage though it may be different from the kind it takes to face an enemy on the battlefield.
Courage may develop as the result of long deliberation moving us to make a hard decision; it may be a split second response to a situation based on who we are as individuals; but it is still courage. And it moves us from the death of our spirit and soul to new life even when it seems that all around us is lost.
Just a little over a month ago, our dear sister Ruth Jacques died. For several months she knew she was dying and talked about what she expected after her earthly life was over. She talked a lot about her past, how she had always wanted to be a teacher, about her late husband Roy, telling me some funny and heartbreaking stories about his life and death.
After Hurricane Sandy hit us almost ten years ago, I with the help of a friend managed to get down to this church, Old First, to make sure it was still standing. I was unable to reach people by phone and went around checking on some of the people to make sure they were okay.
One of those, of course, was Ruth. Bundled up in a winter coat, she invited us in and we spent a good hour there. As usual, she was gracious and funny, making light of the fact that she had no electricity but a good bottle of red wine.
As we think about the people we have loved who have died, we come to realize that they are not really dead because they are alive in us. They have become part of us, of who we really are. I have been with people when they died, and what I learned is that the love for them doesn’t stop at their deaths. That love lingers on, and they are alive in us.
The life of the spirit of others is deep within us, not just for the people we have known personally, but also the lives of all those from the generations before us. Some of our memories are joyful, others sad, but it is our collective memory as community that moves us from death to life.
Let us pray: God of infinite grace and mercy, give us hearts and imagination, open to us ways we can share your grace with others so we may be instruments of your peace. In the name of the One who gives us new life in your love, even Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen.