Sermons
"Death is Swallowed Up"Pastor Ken Hilston |
(Paul: I Corinthians 15) "Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?"
We like the victory part. We relish in all those stories where against incredible odds, something great happens, the person who sacrifices much time, effort, ridicule, and then, finally, wins out, showing all the work was worth it. We like the warmth of victory, where all the dire predictions are proved wrong and reports of failure, are proved premature. The one laughed at and scorned, is the one who laughs last. The one looked down upon as silly, naive, stupid and a fool, rises up to be honored, acknowledged and thanked profusely.
However, these are only our mini, quasi Easter reversals in life, where the Good Friday temptations to prudence and adherence to cautious fears are tossed aside, where instead of finding excuses to justify taking care of yourself first we embrace selfless servant hood, and it still leads to joyous victories.
We rejoice when the child accidentally entombed in a well, against all odds, is brought back to life, brought back to the surface, with all the risks and sacrifices made, when all wonder if any of this is worth it.
The Easter joy is that sign which reminds us, the sacrificial efforts are not always in vain, the sacrificial efforts can be taken on, with at least some degree of hope. Both aspects are part of the great story of faith: the victory brought about by the great costs.
Faith tells us quite plainly, even though we want to bask in the Easter glory, there is no Easter glory that does not travel first through the Good Fridays of life. Even something as simply as watching the Red Sox in their clubhouse celebrate a World Series Championship, we all know underneath there is a lot of pain and effort needed to get there. You don't start out with the champagne and strange Irish step dancing of Paplebon, you start off where they are now, in training camp, stretching, complaining, planning, going over fundamentals and all the boring hard work of repetition; turning a double play or practicing to make sure you hit the cut off man properly.
Those mini views of the Easter story obviously give way to deeper levels. Most of these so called Easter reversals have nothing to do with the faith, simply people doing more than they thought they could accomplish. You don't need religion to work hard to dig a young child out of a well. Or maybe the next time, David could have slipped and missed with his slingshot. Spring is a great sign of Easter hope and renewal, but we also know, fall and winter come upon us just as reliably!
This is why I've always wanted to do an Easter service, where it counts the most, in a cemetery. Easter challenges not just long odds, but most importantly death. I was always puzzled as a child and youth that our church which had a church cemetery, didn't hold one there. The closest we came was the church service there on Memorial Day.
In the cemetery we see the real barrier to hope in life, and that is death. Easter is that challenge of Paul that cries out, in the face of death and the grave, "O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?" The challenge to Easter's credibility is not a possible World Series Championship or even getting a child safely out of a well. These are only mini analogies of hope surviving despair and possible defeat, great efforts that lead to success.
The challenge to Easter's credibility is the grave, death and eternal despair. The test of our Easter faith is facing the gravestones, or cremains, and saying, "I know that my redeemer lives. I know that I am a part of that great congregation. I know that the grave is no longer the barrier to eternal life with our Lord."
Think of this service in a cemetery, looking at, at least in my hometown, the graves of relatives and friends, and at least for me, at one point, wondering if this would be my resting place, alongside the railroad tracks of the FPE, the "Fairport, Painesville and Erie Railroad."
While we are in the cemetery we see the true threat to the faith. Easter is much more than human beings learning how to live better and more peacefully, finding ways to cure different illnesses, even creating ways to make sure everyone is fed and all have places to live in safety. These are all things we can and should do, but don't. Yet, even if we did all these things, as human beings, we could lose them just as quickly as we find them.
In the back of our mind we know for every child rescued from a well, others are not so fortunate. We also know that with each brand new invention that saves time and drudgery, that same invention causes as many problems. The personal sized computer made it so we could go to space, but we all know that with computers and the internet, we have reaped many grave problems.
Death is another problem that puts us in different league with all the others. We would rather cheat to find ways to deal with it, usually with denial and rationalization: doesn't she look good, or he's better off without the pain, chin up, be brave, life just goes on, they've lived a full life, we all got a go sometime, or someone chimes in a too helpful way with, "God needed another angel in heaven."
Instead of facing head on with the faith, death, we do many things to make death sound not so daunting, to dull the pain, but never does anything but gloss it over, and if truth be told, no one really is convinced deep down inside with this death denying logic. Even the disciples in the gospels quickly found ways to adapt to the death of Jesus. The men hid, and the women went about preparing His dead body, just as they would any other human being. They accepted His death as final, almost too quickly.
Actually, because of all of this, the first Easter was quite disquieting and unnerving, even to the disciples. They had their first major realization that without a doubt, Jesus was much more than just a great person, but Son of God. And to be Son of God, He voluntarily went to a death on a cross before rising. What kind of Son of God were they dealing with? With Easter, they found out He was nothing like they thought He was, and maybe if they knew the extent of His majesty, they might have thought twice about following Him!
As Isaiah and Paul say, the coming one would swallow up death, take it in upon Himself. The coming one was not the one to be another David with a special slingshot to out trick and outwit the giant problem they had, Goliath. This Jesus would carry a cross, and then face death, not like a solider with a weapon, but let death engulf Him.
Resurrection would begin with suffering and carrying a cross. Easter was the exact opposite of the sign that says, life will be easier now. Easter means that when threatened by death for the faith, we can face it, as He did, not go around it. The easy answers, those answers that protect us at least a little, are out. It means we are to face death for the faith, because it cannot eternally destroy us.
Easter actually makes it harder to find excuses when problems seem daunting.
Easter makes it harder to be satisfied with the nice easy answers and opportunistic compromises.
Easter makes it harder to hope for a less stressful solution to our faith problems. When we look at our Lord's injunction to forgive our enemies, to turn the other cheek, we cannot after Easter say that is impractical. How can we say, "that is too hard," to the one who swallowed up death?
Easter in a cemetery lets us know full well the seriousness of the faith. As Jesus took no excuse, neither can we. Good Friday is still closely linked to Easter, and reminds us there is no Easter without a Good Friday faith struggle.
Immediately after Good Friday, resigned to His master's death, Peter went back to fishing. There fishing, our Lord let Peter know without a doubt, *after Easter there was no going back to life as usual. Now, not even death can frighten us away from even our darkest faith journeys.
Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?
Amen