Resurrection-Daniel 12:1-3
3rd Last Sunday, 11-9-03
We all have things we don’t like very much. We all have “pet peeves”. I suspect many of us might share some common disdains; heavy traffic caused by rubber-neckers, the nerve jarring sound chalk sometimes makes, a pebble in our shoe. These are things that get under our skin, things that really get to us. And I’m sure if we had time to take a poll there are plenty of other examples and many other “pet-peeves” that we all share.
While there are plenty of “pet-peeves” that we all share, there are certainly others which are personal, private, maybe even peculiar. I met a guy in Kyrgyzstan who absolutely hates the crunching, compacting sound that fresh snow makes when you step on it with your shoe. He said it sends shivers up his spine, it completely freaks him out, and he would do ANYTHING to avoid stepping on it. While that may sound weird to you, it is very real for him and he is serious. Grecia now lives in Kansas City with his American wife, and you can bet this winter he will be up to his old tricks, avoiding the snow that falls a few hours south of here. Like my friend, we all have these little idiosyncrasies, our own pet peeves and we have learned to live our lives avoiding them, staying away from whatever “gets under our skin”.
But not everything can be avoided, and there are things in our lives that go beyond “pet-peeves”. Is there something in your life that is more than just an idiosyncrasy? Something that evokes an emotion that is exponentially more intense than simple disdain. Is there something that you “can’t stand” so much that you avoid at all costs, even the thought of it? Something that you fear confronting? Maybe even a real phobia?
I have one of these things in my life. There are precious few days when I am not worried or anxious about it. Not a week goes by when the fear of this subject doesn’t torture my thoughts and try to undermine my sense of security.
I am talking about death. I have an intense fear, a phobia, of the people around me dying. Not so much a fear of my own death, but an ongoing anxiety about the people I care about passing away. This isn’t due to a naïve ignorance of death or a misguided perception of what death is. I know what death is, I know all too well what it looks like. I have seen it take a younger sibling, a stepfather, and a nephew-all unexpectedly, all without warning. And I am terrified that it could happen again. At any time, to any one I love. That’s a fact of life. And that fact of life haunts me.
Today, Sunday November the 9th, is the 3rd last Sunday in the church year. The church year is coming to a close. All the lessons point to death, dying, and the end of the world. As the year winds down, the lessons are picked to remind us that we too are winding down. As the church year fades away, we are also fading away, coming closer and closer to death. Lucky me, I get to preach about it. Today’s text from Daniel 12 is the basis for this sermon. As you heard a few moments ago, it talks about the Last Day.
Verse 2 says, “Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt.”
Did you hear that? We will all be resurrected, raised up again. These bodies will rise from the grave. All people who have ever lived and died will have a resurrection of their bodies. Believers will be granted eternal life, and unbelievers will be sent to everlasting death. This is not a foreign concept to us. We confess this every Sunday in the Creed. We say it. But do we believe it? Is this a dead, meaningless doctrine for us? The question I would like to ask this morning is…what does this mean for you and me?
When I think about bodies laid into the dust, I think about funerals. How can you not? I do not like funerals. Not a good trait for an aspiring pastor to have. I cannot look into an open casket without the icy fingers of fear clutching my heart and the numbing pain of the past resurfacing in my mind. I have told everyone in my family that I want my casket shut so that no one will feel those feelings. I don’t want my loved ones having a lasting image of me as an embalmed, dressed up, makeup-caked corpse. I do not want that imprinted in their minds. I want to spare people from that, much in the same way that I wish I could have been spared from it when my family members died.
Then again, I understand the necessity some people have for an open casket, especially in regards to closure. There is nothing wrong with having one, in many cases it helps people in the grieving process. It helps them come to grips with the fact that their loved one really has passed away.
The reaction I have to open caskets is just another manifestation of the fear I have of death. This is something that I try as hard as I can to avoid, a fear that gets all the way under my skin, it is something I truly cannot stand.
Can you relate? I would guess that most of you have attended a funeral. Did you have similar thoughts, similar feelings? Maybe not to the degree of intensity that I deal with, but were they there? Are you like me? Do you worry about those around you dying? Or are you more terrified about your own death? When you stop running from the subject, stop avoiding the thoughts that inevitably come, how does it affect you? Does it get under your skin? Can you stand thoughts of death for very long?
I am blessed to have 2 wonderful supervising pastors that are helping me learn how to take this problem to the cross and find reassurance in Jesus’ death and resurrection. I am blessed to have an understanding and compassionate wife who is always there to listen and support me when the weight of this issue bears down on me. Most importantly I have enduring comfort from the Word, which reassures me that death is not the end. It is a necessary event, and it is caused by sin, but it is not the end. My body in the dust is not the final answer.
I hope you have understanding, compassionate people in your life who are there to help you overcome the fears and worries that burden you. I know that the same pastors that are here for me are here for you too, to offer the same comfort, to point you to the same place. I hope you all have a copy of the same living Word of God that brings much-needed reassurance.
But in spite of these gifts and the comfort given to us, we still worry. We are still afraid of death. It has been said it is natural to fear death, that’s true. Natural man, apart from faith in Christ has every reason to fear death. But the New Man, the forgiven Christian, has nothing to worry about. But we still do, all the time. This ungodly anxiety, and the desire to do away with it, causes people (even solid, faithful Christians-sometimes even pastors) to stumble into the trap of offering false hopes and giving untrue impressions of death and what happens afterward.
Have you ever heard someone say that death is a good thing, that it is the end of all suffering? That’s a lie, a well-intentioned lie. Death is not good, it is not the end of suffering, it is what all suffering leads up to, it is the culmination of suffering and the final result of sin.
Death is not pretty, it is never a welcome relief, no-not death itself, it’s always an unwelcome and forceful separation of body and soul.
Death is not a benevolent friend, it is the goal Satan had in mind when he first deceived mankind in the garden. Death is all about separation. Not only to separate our souls from our bodies, but also to separate us from our loved ones, and even to separate us from God--because if we do not know Him before we die--the separation is complete and eternal, and the suffering has only begun.
Death is not good. Life is what’s good. Life was God’s plan from the beginning. He created Adam and Eve, body and soul, to live under Him and with Him. He gave the breath of Life to Adam in Eden and He still grants the joys of life today. He creates us all unique, body and soul. There are no sets of fingerprints that are identical, no one has the exact same coloration in their eyes, no one else on this planet has the wonderful gifts that God has given to you individually. Your body was made especially for you by God. God is at work not only in our souls, but also in these bodies. Our bodies are an indispensable part of who we are.
Because of what happened in the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve broke the One Commandment, our bodies have been subjected to a terminal disease. This sickness is passed down generation to generation and you cannot avoid catching it. It is always fatal. No one has ever survived this plague. It’s called sin.
Our God was not content to just stand by and watch this pestilence destroy His beloved children. He cared about us. He cared about our infected, dying bodies enough to do the unthinkable to save us. The Creator became one of the created-the One True God took on our flesh and blood. This is what we call the incarnation, carne means flesh in Latin, incarnation means that He came in the flesh. To permanently redeem our flesh, He clothed Himself in flesh. To pay the price for us-He became one of us.
But making an appearance wasn’t enough. He was immune to the disease of sin. Yet, He took our infection upon Himself by going to an instrument of execution called a cross. Then He suffered sin’s fatal consequence. Jesus did not sin, there was no reason for Him to die. The sin that killed Jesus’ flesh, the evil that violently tore his soul away from His body, the iniquity that separated Him from His Father and made Him cry, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me???”, that belonged to you and me. That was sin was ours, that death was ours, and He took it.
Some people get repulsed when they see a crucifix. Not a cross, a crucifix. That’s a cross, a crucifix has Jesus’ dead body hanging limply from the cross timbers. People get disgusted, offended, it gets under their skin. They want his body removed, they want to remember the cross as a symbol of victory.
Brothers and Sisters, it is not a symbol of victory-it is a symbol of defeat. The only thing that won on Good Friday was sin. The only one who rejoiced was Satan.
Death is all about separation, Jesus soul was separated from the body He inhabited to save us.
Death is never a friend, the friend we had in Jesus was abducted, murdered, and left for dead.
Death is not the end of suffering it is the culmination of it, Jesus death was the end result our sin, and He suffered it for us.
This story is not good news. Jesus’ death is not the good news, remember death is never good. What is good is Life!! That is why He came, to give us Life. And 3 days later we see the Main Event in Jesus’ life, and it happened after He died! His dead body that hung tattered on a cross is now alive again! No more separation, no more suffering! Jesus’ death was swallowed up whole by LIFE! That’s the GOOD NEWS!! And that is what changed everything for you and me.
You have heard that when we die we go to be with Jesus. That’s true. Is being with Jesus in heaven paradise? Of course it is.
Is that all we hope for, NO!
When we die it is not as if we go to be with Christ and that’s as good as it gets.
Our souls don’t just float up to heaven and play a harp on a fluffy cloud for all eternity. To end the story there is to miss out on the Main Event of our lives! And it is going to happen AFTER we die!!!
We were created body and soul, and Jesus came to redeem body and soul. He took on a body to save our bodies! Our body is an INDISPENSIBLE part of who we are. When we die we are not yet completely restored. When our souls go to be with Christ in heaven and our bodies are still buried down here we still have separation. The separation of body and soul still needs to be fixed.
I asked earlier, “What does this mean for you and me?” It means this…On the Last Day we will get our bodies back, and they will be perfect. The curse of Adam will be undone! The decay that began with that first bite of the forbidden fruit, the decomposition that has continued until this day will be erased.
For all of us who can clearly see the effects of sin in our bodies, this is great news! The reason behind our sicknesses, behind our cancer, our failing eyes, our faltering minds, our immobile limbs, the source of all our aches and pains-both mental and physical will be wiped out. The sickness of sin and all of its morbid and devastating consequences will be 100% eradicated from those who died in faith.
That is the promise of our God. That is where our hope rests. That is where the Word points us, to the dead and now alive body of Jesus. What happened to Him on Easter Morning will happen to you on the Last Day.
How can you find peace in the midst of death and decay? How can an aspiring pastor find solace? Will the Old Adam still stir the fear of death within you and me, you bet. The next time I look into an open casket at a funeral, am I going to think of those who have gone before me and feel the same pain and loss, yes I will. Is that the end of the story? No way! Next time I go to a funeral and see the finished product of sin staring back at me through closed eyelids, I will cling to the finished product of grace I see staring back at me through an open tomb. What sin shuts, Christ will open again. That faith, that promise, is what keeps me going. I pray it keeps you going, all the way through this life and into the next. AMEN.
