Death and Our Lives

            Death is a hard thing for us to encounter.  It is difficult to listen to television night after night to hear about all of the shootings and the way that human beings take life from each other.  Those who kill don’t seem to have any appreciation for human life.  When I hear Dylan Roof talk about how he killed the people in the Charleston church it almost sounds like bragging.  He did it out of a sense that his white supremacist values were reason enough.  It hurt to listen to him try to offer this as a reason.  Death is a difficult thing because we all have relationships with each other.  We have developed affection and caring with the people whom we know.  Losing them takes value out of our lives.

            I remember when my parents and Rosie’s parents died.  We lost a great deal when that happened.  My dad was only 67 and my mother lived until she was almost 89.  Rosie’s dad was in his sixties and her mother was only in her fifties.  We mourned those losses and we still remember them.  This all comes to mind because we had two funerals in the last two weeks. Rosie’s uncle David died and we lost John Fetterman, a great priest of the church who was the interim at Christ Church, North Hills in 1981 before I became their rector.  We mourned these dear people also.

            I’m certainly not telling you anything new.  You have all had your own experiences with death and you know well the hurt that it creates.  One of the great things about this faith of ours is that it speaks to this problem with eloquence.  Jesus came to help us to understand that our God intends for us to have eternal life.  He proved this with his own death and resurrection which we will celebrate in a few weeks with the glorious Easter season.  In the process of his ministry in this world he provided a number of hints that this was what he intended to do.  The lessons that we heard today offer a window into that thinking and Jesus’ work to show eternity to all of us.

            The Old Testament lesson is that great passage from Ezekiel about the valley of the dry bones.  God sent the prophet to that place to speak to all of the dried bones lying there.  As he was instructed, Ezekiel called on those bones to rise.  He watched while they came together, took on sinew and flesh and then began to breathe.  God told him that these raised bones were the whole of the house of Israel who were being given back their land and their hope.  This was a beautiful moment for those seemingly lost people. 

            In the Gospel, we hear of the remarkable story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead.  This is an incredible story.  Jesus tells his disciples that his friend Lazarus is sick and that he must go to him.  He, surprisingly, waits a couple of days before he goes to him.  When he gets to Bethany, Lazarus’ home, Jesus hears that his friend has died.  Martha, Lazarus sister comes to him as he walks and says to him: Lord, if you had been here, our brother would not have died!  I don’t think that I can say those words with the pain and grief that Martha expressed.  After Mary came and said the same thing to him, Jesus asked them: Where have you laid him?  Jesus went to that place and wept.  This was not just some mechanical thing for Jesus, the raising of Lazarus.  Jesus had deep feelings about his friend and he wanted him to be alive.  Some of the Jews who were near the grave said, see how much he loved him; but others said could not this man who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?

            Jesus then went to the tomb, which had been sealed with a large stone and asked the people to take the stone away.  Martha warned him that it had been four days since the burial and that there would be a stench.  Jesus called for Lazarus to come out of the tomb.  Lazarus came from the tomb with his body wrapped in bandages.  He was unbound and walked away.

            What strikes me about these two stories is how they impact our lives.  Death is not to be taken lightly.  When Jesus wept at Lazarus’ grave, he told us that our grief is real.  And Lazarus’ raising tells us that God has eternity in mind for all of us.  May we be blessed in this life that we live and comforted when we experience the death of those whom we love.  Help us to know the beauty of life everlasting and be blessed always.