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.
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
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 Corinth
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
"Little children, love one another."
At last, wearied that he always spoke the same words, they
asked: "Master, why do you always say this?"
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.
[ii] https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/nov/18/cryogenics-does-it-offer-humanity-a-chance-to-return-from-the-dead
[iv]
Guardian ibid.
[v] John
Donne ‘Sonnet X’ in Holy Sonnets or Divine Meditations
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