Tag Archives: Death

Wholeness and Death

Eastertide

May 6, 2019

Scripture Reading: Acts 9:36-43

Now in Joppa there was a disciple whose name was Tabitha, which in Greek is Dorcas. She was devoted to good works and acts of charity. At that time she became ill and died. When they had washed her, they laid her in a room upstairs. Since Lydda was near Joppa, the disciples, who heard that Peter was there, sent two men to him with the request, ‘Please come to us without delay.’ So Peter got up and went with them; and when he arrived, they took him to the room upstairs. All the widows stood beside him, weeping and showing tunics and other clothing that Dorcas had made while she was with them. Peter put all of them outside, and then he knelt down and prayed. He turned to the body and said, ‘Tabitha, get up.’ Then she opened her eyes, and seeing Peter, she sat up. He gave her his hand and helped her up. Then calling the saints and widows, he showed her to be alive. This became known throughout Joppa, and many believed in the Lord. Meanwhile he stayed in Joppa for some time with a certain Simon, a tanner.

A well-known, respected Christian writer Rachel Held Evans died recently at the age of 37. It is hard to face the death of anyone we love and harder to understand how such a gifted person could die so young. I am sure that was how all of Tabitha’s friends and family felt. The New Testament only shares the stories of the people who were returned to life but surely there were many more families and friends to whom Jesus and his disciples ministered in their grief.  The same could be said for those who were healed and others who were not. Why? Why did any children have to die in our scourge of school shootings and why those particular children? Jesus said that it rains of the just and the unjust (Matthew 5:45) but that, while a fact, is little comfort. It is important that he said it as it somewhat puts to rest thoughts that death was punishment for sin.

There is no easy answer. Someone said after the Oklahoma City bombing that when it happened the first heart that was broken was God’s. I believe that is true. We live in a world in progress. We were given the gift of free will at our creation and the result of that is life is not perfect and we are thus challenged every day to work toward God’s wholeness for all, which seems to move at a snails pace at times but then a breakthrough happens and we know that God is traveling with us on our journey toward God’s perfection.

Prayer: Lord, we pray for those who have lost loved ones and those who have experienced the joy of healing. Guide us as we strive toward wholeness in your love. Amen.

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights are reserved.

Death Where is Your Sting

Lent
April 1, 2017

Scripture Reading: John 11:1-45

Then after this he said to the disciples, ‘Let us go to Judea again.’ The disciples said to him, ‘Rabbi, the Jews were just now trying to stone you, and are you going there again?’ Jesus answered, ‘Are there not twelve hours of daylight? Those who walk during the day do not stumble, because they see the light of this world. But those who walk at night stumble, because the light is not in them.’ After saying this, he told them, ‘Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going there to awaken him.’ The disciples said to him, ‘Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will be all right.’ Jesus, however, had been speaking about his death, but they thought that he was referring merely to sleep. Then Jesus told them plainly, ‘Lazarus is dead. For your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.’ Thomas, who was called the Twin, said to his fellow-disciples, ‘Let us also go, that we may die with him.’ –John 11:7-16

The point of no return is a reality in all lives. We routinely experience such events of lesser magnitude but none as final as death itself. The soldier who throws his body on a live grenade to save his buddies faces the point of no return with a split-second decision. The family holding the do-not-resuscitate form in their hands nods in agreement as the hospital staff pull the plug. Knowing all along this was their loved ones wishes, does not make it any easier. While some identify the transfiguration as Jesus’ point of no return, I tend to see the story of Lazarus being the time when Jesus’ march to the cross began.

Jesus life was in danger and it was his choice to carry out his mission or not. He demonstrates his ultimate teaching that loving God and loving our neighbor, friend also in this case, is more important than life itself. While Lazarus was apparently a good man, was saving his life worth the loss of one like Jesus? Jesus clearly saw that it was.

Of course, that was not the end of the story. God conquers death for Lazarus setting the stage for death being conquered for all. Paul stated it this way, 1 Corinthians 15:55 ‘Where, O death, is your victory?   Where, O death, is your sting? John Donne put it like this:

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;
For those whom thou think’st thou dost overthrow
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul’s delivery.
Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well
And better than thy stroke; why swell’st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.*

Prayer: Lord help us live your mission in the sure and certain blessings of your abiding presence each day and in eternity. Amen.

*See at https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/44107

Picture credit:<!– HTML Credit Code for Can Stock Photo –>
<a href=”http://www.canstockphoto.com”>(c) Can Stock Photo / kostiuchenko</a>

All scriptures are quoted from the new Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights are reserved.

Death be not proud

Death be not proudLiving in the Spirit
September 2, 2014

 

Scripture Reading: Exodus 12:1-14

 For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike down every firstborn in the land of Egypt, both human beings and animals; on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the Lord. — Exodus 12:12

A truck transporting a boxcar sized container hit a too-low bridge knocking the container off onto a pickup truck whose driver was killed instantly. A doctor doing his life’s work in Africa contracts the deadly Ebola virus and dies. A plague moves over Egypt killing all the first born even among the animal. John Donne perhaps said it best in his Holy Sonnets: Death, be not proud

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;
For those whom thou think’st thou dost overthrow
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul’s delivery.
Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well
And better than thy stroke; why swell’st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.

Good or evil, we all face the same reality of death and the same uncertainty of time and circumstance. Those of us who call ourselves Christian face it with a different perspective than those without a relationship with God. For we know that our redeemer lives even though he died on a cross. It disturbs me to think that God would kill all those Egyptians even though they had ample opportunity to free the Israelites and did not. I certainly do not believe that God wants the children of Gaza or Israel to die in onslaughts of mortars and missiles or for that matter the children of Syria or Ukraine or anyplace else. I do know that God wants us to do all that we can to introduce the entire world to his ways of love and to live those ways ourselves. When Love ultimately rules, death will die.

Prayer: Lord make us instruments of your love. Amen.

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of American. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Living in God’s Shelter

Living in the Spirit
July 21, 2014

 Scripture Reading: Genesis 29:15-28 

Then Laban said to Jacob, ‘Because you are my kinsman, should you therefore serve me for nothing? Tell me, what shall your wages be?’ Now Laban had two daughters; the name of the elder was Leah, and the name of the younger was Rachel. Leah’s eyes were lovely, and Rachel was graceful and beautiful. Jacob loved Rachel; so he said, ‘I will serve you seven years for your younger daughter Rachel.’ —Genesis 29:15-18

Marriage rituals differ from culture to culture and have evolved over the centuries. While we may recoil in disgust thinking about a father bartering his daughters for a laborer, the admiration Jacob had for Rachel apparently was mutual.

The value of a human life is one of the great debates of our times. It is interesting how some lives are deemed more important than others and how some are designated as not worth keeping. The value of lives also still vary from culture to culture. In the Middle East and Africa rape is a weapon of war. As I write this, the fate of hundreds of African school girls is still unknown. They were taken as hostages from their classrooms and are most likely being sold into the sex trade industry while their captors release YouTube videos making fun of the girls’ parents protesting the lack of effort to rescue them.

In the United States, we have what I think is a very strange mixture of deep set concern for children before they are born but show little concern for them after they are born. We are one among mostly third world countries who continue the used the death penalty.  And as a nation that literally grew and thrived on the immigration of peoples from all the cultures of the world still have problems welcoming the stranger when they come to us in hope of a better life as they escape death and persecution.

As Christians we are called to welcome the stranger and love our neighbors, learn from the beauty that is in each of their cultures, model the justice of Christ in our interactions with them, and recognize the Christ that is in each of them.  Let it be so.

Prayer: Mother God, Let me abide in your tent for ever, find refuge under the shelter of your wings (Psalm 61:4), and may I stand beside, love, and seek your justice for all of your children as you also shelter them. Amen.

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of American. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Death

Living in the Spirit
June 20, 2014

 Scripture Reading: Romans 6:1-11 

For whoever has died is freed from sin. But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. The death he died, he died to sin, once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.  – Romans 6:7-11 

My definition of “sin” in modern nomenclature is being out of synch with God. More traditional descriptors are missing the mark or being separated from God. According to our scripture today, death frees us from sin. At that point, it is too late to worry about it. Whatever will result will result.  By becoming a part of Christ death, however, we also become a part of his resurrection. We enter into that state of being when we accept him as our Lord and Savior. But notice the next admonition but the life he lives, he lives to God. Death through Christ is not a door closing but a whole new life opening.

I don’t think I grasp what that meant until my bad knee got really bad. Being fairly immobile, I gained a lot of weight. My first goal, after getting that knee replaced, was to set about losing the excess weight. Nothing I tried worked. I was so out of shape that every exercise I tried resulted in negative outcomes. For some, eating less might result in weight loss by itself but, for me, it had to be combined with exercise. I was hopeless. My doctor referred me for physical therapy and that helped, but it was time limited and did not take me to the next level. I walked out of my last PT visit about as depressed as I have ever been. Got in my car and prayer without thinking, “God, what do I do now?” The immediate answer I got back surprised me. It was, “Realize you have a terminal illness—obesity, and live like it.” And that is exactly what I have worked at doing ever since. I have loss the excess weight, am in better shape than I have been in years, and my life is dedicated to wholeness—oneness—justice among all peoples.

Being out of synch with God is a terminal illness that leads only to misery and suffering and ennui. Dying with Christ lifts us out of that muck and lets us live again.

Prayer: Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us. Amen.

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of American. Used by permission. All rights reserved.