Thursday 3 May 2018

Richard's Sermon on "Overcoming Death" for Easter 5 2018


Easter 5 2018: Benefice Communion: 29 April 2018
Acts 8.26-end: 1 John 4.7-end: John 15.1-8

Almighty God,
who through your only-begotten Son Jesus Christ
have overcome death and opened to us the gate of everlasting life:
 That is what Joy has just prayed and you all responded ‘Amen’ so you must have agreed with it.

Overcoming death is one of the holy grails of human existence.

In the final book of the Harry Potter series we are introduced to The Deathly Hallows, three legendary artefacts granted to three brothers by Death himself that would make a wizard who held all three impervious to any threat. The final of these is an Invisibility Cloak which the youngest brother used to cheat the vain search of death until he was an old and content man.
Sadly there is no such thing as an invisibility cloak.

But you don’t have to go to such extreme lengths. Just look around you in church. We are surrounded, are we not, by the dead – those whose names live long after them. Stroll through the churchyard and read familiar or long forgotten names. Since time immemorial people have sought the means to ensure their memory lives on after their death. One of the earliest cave paintings is that of a human hand, perhaps the author just saying ‘I was here’.

But these days the attempts to overcome death have become much more sophisticated and scientifically based. Perhaps you heard or saw in the news yesterday that a team of scientists at Yale University have been able to switch on the brains again of decapitated pigs. “They have been able to get the circulation going through the brain and so keep the cells in the brain alive and capable of normal functioning for up to thirty six hours. The team themselves were the first to recognise what the huge ethical implications. But Prof Sestan, the team leader is among the first to raise potential ethical concerns. These include whether such brains have any consciousness and if so deserve special protection, or whether their technique could or should be used by individuals to extend their lifespans - by transplanting their brains when their bodies wear out.”[i]
So option number 1 if you want to overcome death – wait for Professor Sestan and his team to perfect their research. Then simply transplant your brain.

Another way might be via cryonics. Thousands of people across the world have chosen to have their bodies frozen straight after death in the hope that medical advances will be such in years to time for them to be reanimated. Recent advances have made it possible to freeze and reanimate embryos and even the brain of a rabbit by a process called vitrification, whereby the blood is replaced with a mixture of antifreeze-like chemicals and an organ preservation solution. But any real hope is a long way off folks. A recent Guardian article about the issue asked the question ‘Should I get my body preserved and came up with the wry answer ‘From a purely scientific perspective, your money is probably better spent while you are still alive.’[ii]
Option number 2 – Freeze your body and wait and hope.
A final way is to create a digital avatar that will survive you beyond death. There is a firm called Eternime[iii] which offers you the possibility (at a price) of taking all your social media interaction, memories of friends, recorded memories etc and creating a digital version of you that can live on for ever. In fact some scientists think we will soon be able to go even further – “there is a growing appreciation that our personality, skills and memories are to some extent defined by the connections between neurons. This has led some to speculate that rather than bringing the actual body back to life, the brain’s contents could be “downloaded” on to a computer, allowing the person to live as a robot in the future.”[iv]
Option 3 then – make yourself a digital avatar so people can relate to and with you after your death.
I don’t know about you but I think I’ll pass on all three options. All of them seem to flow not from essentially from a desire to conquer death but out of a deep seated fear of death and as long as we are afraid of death we can never overcome it. Thank the Lord that for those of us who are followers of Jesus there are more hope filled if not necessarily easier alternatives.
So option 4 – trust in the resurrection. For me this is what is the alpha and the omega of my Christian faith and what colours everything about me. Hope of resurrection gives meaning and purpose to all that I do. I hope that I will be raised. I have hope of a new heaven and new earth. I have hope of God’s kingdom in which there is no mourning or sadness.
And is that just wishful thinking, another in long line of ways for people to think they are cheating death, when really they are just cheating themselves?
Well, the reason I will say ‘I believe in the resurrection of the body’ in few minutes time without crossing my fingers is because of Jesus’ own resurrection. The empty tomb, the resurrection appearances are all evidence that God and Jesus are more powerful than death. Christ is the ‘first fruits’, the trailblazer and there is the same promise to all who ‘abide in him’.
As St Paul writes to the church at Corinth, reflecting on how Christ’s resurrection is the cornerstone for their own hopes ‘O death where is your sting? O death where is your victory?’

Hope in resurrection leads to hope in life. If life does not end in a hole in the ground, then surely this gives meaning purpose to who we are and what we do now. Because I have hope for the future, because death is overcome in the future, then this gives meaning and purpose to the life that I have now.
Option 5 for overcoming death is to ensure that your life is so full of …well, life.
Jesus promises to those who are his followers life in all its fullness. There tag line for many years has been ‘We believe in life before death.’ So do I, and as long as we do, as long as we aim to put ourselves in contact with the one who is himself life in all its fullness then death itself will always be overcome for death is just a name for all that kills life.

And finally Option 6 is the simplest of the lot – Love. That may seem corny or hackneyed. But, as Song of Solomon beautifully reminds us ‘Love is as strong as death, passion as fierce as the grave. Love given and love received – family love, love within church family, love for partner is surest fire way of ensuring that death has no hold on you.
The passage we heard earlier from the first letter of John is quite dense isn’t it. It feels like there is a lot packed in there. But that’s mainly because of the number of times that love or one of its derivatives is mentioned -  29 times in fact. That’s once in every just twelve words. That’s an awful lot of love. Do you think he is trying to tell us something.
In his commentary on Galatians 6:10, Jerome tells a famous story of "blessed John the evangelist" in extreme old age at Ephesus. He used to be carried into the congregation in the arms of his disciples and was unable to say anything except,
"Little children, love one another."
At last, wearied that he always spoke the same words, they asked: "Master, why do you always say this?"
"Because," he replied, "it is the Lord's command, and if this only is done, it is enough."3  

And he is right. It is enough.
If hearts are full of love then there is nothing to fear.
John’s train of thought runs thus -  the reason that we can have boldness on the day of judgement is because of the love that comes from God and is shown by Jesus and copied by how we are towards each other.
In other words, if our hearts are full of love then death itself is overcome and there is nothing to fear.

Options 1,2,3
Or Options 4,5,6
Which do you choose – the way of fear or the way of love? The way that is essentially selfish or one which adds value to others?

I’ll leave the last word to one who is much better with words than I am, the poet John Donne. This is his sonnet ‘Death be no 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. [v]








[i] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-43928318 ‘Ethics debate as pigs brain kept alive without a body.

[iv] Guardian ibid.

[v] John Donne ‘Sonnet X’ in Holy Sonnets or Divine Meditations

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