"Dying Well"

Dear Friends in Christ,

   When I announced my sermon title for today you may have thought it to be a bit strange.  “Dying Well” – what exactly does that mean?  Well, I’m going to begin by sharing with you some things that people said on their death bed and we’ll try to answer the question whether that person died well. 

·         “All my possessions for a moment of time.”  Elizabeth I, Queen of England, d. 1603

·         “Damn it . . . Don't you dare ask God to help me.”  To her housekeeper, who had begun to pray aloud.  Joan Crawford, actress, d. May 10, 1977

·         “I should never have switched from Scotch to Martinis.”  Humphrey Bogart, actor, d. January 14, 1957

·         “I've had a hell of a lot of fun and I've enjoyed every minute of it.”  Errol Flynn, actor, d. October 14, 1959

·         “This is the last of earth! I am content.”  John Quincy Adams, US President, d. February 21, 1848

·         “I see earth receding.  Heaven is opening.  God is calling!”  Dwight L. Moody, great preacher.

·         “I go with the gladness of a boy bounding away from school.  I feel so strong in Christ.”  Adoniram Judson, great American missionary to Burma.

·         “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.”  Jesus Christ, Savior of the world.

   To die well – I believe that is a desire and a goal that we all share, though it’s probably something that we don’t spend a lot of time talking about or even thinking about.  Part of that I would attribute to the culture we find ourselves living in, a culture that tries its best to keep death at arm’s length.  Now granted, it’s not always been that way.  There was a time in the not too distant past when in order to leave a church building, you had to walk or drive by a cemetery.  In most modern churches today, that is no longer the case.  In fact, I don’t know of a single church in Salem that has its own cemetery, though if you go farther north to St. Peter, St. Paul, and Augsburg, you will find these older German Lutheran congregations who still do have their own cemetery.  Many of you older folks here today can recall the time when if someone passed on, the body would be brought home and the wake would be held right there in the home.  But there’s no way that you’ll see that happening today.  Rather, now the deceased is quickly whisked away by the funeral director if they happen to die at home and the next time we see them is at the visitation held at the funeral home.  I know there are many reasons for that and to be honest with you, I don’t think I’d feel very comfortable having the corpse of a loved one taking up space in my living room until the day of the funeral, but years ago nobody thought anything of it.  So it’s just a reminder to us of how times have changed and how in this day and age we prefer to keep our distance from death.

   And that’s really the first point that I want to talk about today, namely, that death disturbs us.  Please understand that this is not a new phenomenon.  In reality, it’s always been this way.  Aristotle once said, “Death is the thing to be feared the most because it appears to be the end of everything.”  Twentieth century philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre asserted, “Death removes all the meaning from life.”  Robert Ingersoll, who was one of America’s most outspoken agnostics, spoke at his brother’s funeral where he said: “Life is a narrow veil between the cold and barren peaks of two eternities and we strive in vain to look beyond the heights.”  This pessimism about death was voiced perhaps even more vividly by French philosopher François Rabelais whose last words were: “I am going to the great perhaps.”  

   I could go on and on this morning with plenty of other depressing quotes like these, but my point is obvious.  Death disturbs us.  If death is nothing more than the end of everything or cold and barren peaks between 2 eternities or at best the great perhaps, who could die well?  But what if the philosophers missed it?  What if Aristotle was wrong?  What is Sartre and the others spoke folly?  What if death is different than they thought and it’s less a curse and more a passageway, less a crisis and more a promotion?  What if the cemetery is not the domain of the Grim Reaper but truly the dominion of the Soul Keeper who himself has demonstrated his own power over the grave?

   That’s really what this time of the year is all about, isn’t it?  That’s what we continue to celebrate today, a celebration that began last Sunday with our annual observance of our Lord’s resurrection.  So while we would say that death disturbs us, we would also note in our 2^nd point today that Christ disarms death.  He takes the sting out of it.  Much like a father did for his little boy when they were driving through the country one warm summer day with the windows of the car rolled down.  All of a sudden a bee flew into the car and the boy began to scream hysterically because the previous summer he had been stung by the same kind of bee and that sting had caused an allergic reaction for which he had to be hospitalized.  So it was understandable why he panicked.  But when that bee landed on the dashboard, the father reached out for it, grabbed it in his hand, and held it tight until he felt the bee sting him, thus rendering it harmless for his son. 

   That’s what Jesus did for us, my friends, at the cross and the empty tomb.  Like Paul puts it in I Cor. 15:55-57: “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.  But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

   There’s an old rabbinic legend I came across while working on this sermon in which angels come before God with questions about the coming Messiah.  And they ask, “What kind of Messiah will he be?  And how will we know he is the Chosen One?  How will we recognize him?”  To which God replies: “The Messiah is the one who will stand as straight.”  Well, never does Jesus stand so straight as he does in the face of death.  Just think of some of the death-defying statements Jesus made.  One of my favorites was when he found himself standing outside the tomb of his good friend Lazarus who had been dead for 4 days.  When he spoke to Martha and tried to comfort her in the midst of her loss, he boldly declared: “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die.”  That’s a pretty strong statement, isn’t it?  Christ could stare at death without so much as a blink of his eye.  He walked into the cemetery with a swagger.  He felt no fear in the face of death.  And he wants you and me to feel the same, to have that same confidence, that same fearlessness.  But is that even possible?  Is that even realistic?  I think it’s important that we answer that question, my friends, because I’m not sure that until we learn to die well will we really learn to live well.  Let me repeat that.  I’m not sure that until we learn to die well, until we learn to face death confidently and fearlessly, will we ever be able to live well, no longer hindered or hampered by the shadow of death that hangs over every single human being. 

   It’s kind of like flying in an airplane.  Have you ever been on a plane trip where there was a lot of turbulence and you had just a few doubts about whether you were going to experience a safe landing?  If so, then you probably didn’t enjoy that flight, at least not nearly as much as you do when things go smoothly and you’re confident of a safe landing.  Well, when you’re not confident that your life on this earth is going to end with a safe landing, it’s hard to enjoy it, isn’t it?  But if you know that there is a safe landing awaiting you, then it’s much easier to face the trials and troubles, the turbulence and turmoil that we all have to deal with sooner or later. 

   I believe that’s why Jesus spoke those comforting words in our text for today where he says: “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.”  That’s just Jesus’ way of assuring us that if we know and believe and trust in him as our heaven-sent Savior from sin, then we are guaranteed a safe landing.  And I love how Jesus passes that assurance on to us.  He is actually employing wedding vocabulary here, which is very appropriate since on numerous occasions the New Testament refers to the church, which would be all believers, as the bride of Christ, and Jesus of course is the bridegroom.  But this is what the groom would say to the bride when he would receive permission from her father to marry her.  He’d tell his future bride, “I’m going to go back now to my father’s house and I’m going to prepare a place for you there.”  And that is exactly what he would do.  He would return to his father’s house and literally build a room onto that house that would serve as their bridal chamber and as their first home.  Then at some time in the future, usually about a year later, he would go to the home of his bride and personally escort her to her new home.  And that is exactly what Jesus says he will do for us whenever we pass through the door of death.  He will be there waiting for us to take us to that special home that he, our heavenly bridegroom, has prepared for us.  So listen to this, my friends, and let it sink in to your brain: When you close your eyes for the final time here, you will open them to see Christ for the first time there.  The ancient believers had a term for this.  They called it “the beatific vision.”  That word beatific means blessed – the blessed vision.  It’s what every sincere believer in Christ hungers for, to see the Savior face to face for the very first time and dwell in the presence of this One who is altogether lovely and loving, the fairest of ten thousand, the King of kings and Lord of lords.

   But dare we believe this?  Dare we stake our eternities upon this?  How do we know this isn’t sweet superstition?  How do we know this isn’t some pie-in-the-sky belief dreamed up by early believers to help them cope with their fear of death?  Here’s how we know: If the tomb of Jesus is empty, then the promise of Jesus is not.  (repeat)  Our hope hinges on a vacated tomb outside the city of Jerusalem.  If Jesus rose from the dead, then we have every reason to believe that we will do the same and that this great enemy will have no power over us.  The Apostle Paul expresses this so well in I Cor. 15:23 where he says: “But there is an order to this resurrection: Christ was raised first; then when Christ comes back, all his people will be raised.”  And as Jesus himself stated it so clearly the night before he was put to death, he said, “Because I live, you shall live also.”  And just so we would know beyond the shadow of a doubt that Jesus did come back to life after he died, the New Testament contains no less than 15 post-resurrection appearances of Christ.  Now if there had only been one or two and if they had happened to just a few individuals, we might be able to chalk them up to hysteria or hallucinations.  But listen to what Paul says in I Cor. 15:5-7: “He was seen by Peter and then by the twelve apostles.  After that, he was seen by more than five hundred of his followers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died.  Then he was seen by James and later by all the apostles.”  In other words, Paul was telling the Corinthians that if they had any doubts whatsoever about Christ’s resurrection, there were plenty of eyewitnesses they could consult who had actually seen and talked with the risen Lord.  And he doesn’t even name them all.  What about the women?  What about Mary Magdalene?  What about the Emmaus disciples? 

            Amen.