Death Be Not Proud

My first real encounter with death occurred at Eastertime in 1964. My 6 year old friend, Robby, was diagnosed with encephalitis. On Good Friday we learned that he had died. The memorial service was scheduled for the afternoon of Easter Sunday.

Easter Sunday? Isn’t that a strange day for a memorial service? Not really. I might’ve thought so at the time if I thought about it at all except that mainly I was so sad about losing my friend that I wasn’t thinking about much of anything. Like Mary standing at Jesus’ tomb on Easter morning, I was weeping; not thinking but weeping. But looking back on it all now, I can see that for a Christian, Easter is a very appropriate time for a memorial service or a funeral. Because, you see, the Christian view of death is not that it’s a dead end, but rather that it’s the gateway to a new beginning. Yes, death is in some sense an ending; but it’s also, and especially, a new beginning.

It’s not at all clear how well the women understood this. I’m speaking, of course, about the women who went to Jesus’ tomb early that Sunday morning. Matthew tells us that, “After the Sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb” (Matthew 28:1). I’ve never been sure who the “other Mary” is. Mark and Luke speak of “Mary, the mother of James” (see Mark 16:1 and Luke 24:10); James being one of Jesus’ disciples. So presumably this is the woman to whom Matthew is referring. Obviously, she didn’t rate too high in Matthew’s estimation. How would you like to go through history being known simply as “the other Mary?” In any event, some of the women who were followers of Jesus went to the tomb early Sunday morning. Mark and Luke tell us that their purpose was to anoint Jesus’ body with spices. This was an early form of embalming; of preserving the body. So maybe these women were among those Jews who believed that someday in the future God will raise up the bodies of the righteous ones who have died, and they will live again. Perhaps they were preserving the body as best they could for that great gettin’ up morning. Maybe they had some kind of belief in life beyond the grave. Or maybe they were just following the custom of the day and they had lost sight of the meaning of that custom.

As I said, it’s not clear what the women understood about death. Mostly, I think, they understood that Jesus was gone. Tragically removed from their midst when it seemed like he was just reaching the height of his power and influence. A week earlier things had been going so well! And now this… Their leader and mentor and friend was gone. Their hope was gone. So maybe they were just going through the motions, without thought of what it might mean to anoint the body with spices; to protect the body from decay.

In fact, by Jesus’ time there was a strong tradition within Judaism that physical death was not a dead end. Many of Jesus’ contemporaries, and perhaps Jesus himself, believed that for the faithful, death was something like falling asleep. They believed that there would come a glorious morning when these faithful ones would rise again; when they would live again.

It was a belief born of political oppression and spiritual desperation. For centuries the Jews had been pawns in a game of geopolitical chess: controlled by first one superpower, and then another. And occasionally they would get sick and tired of it, and rebel. Like the demonstrators in Tibet, they rebelled. Like the farmers in Upper Canada in 1837, they rebelled. The trouble with rebelling, however, is that it might get you killed. Each time the Jews rebelled against the Greeks or the Romans who whoever was oppressing them, a whole lot of Jews got killed. This created a spiritual crises, because if you’re God’s chosen people, and your oppressors aren’t, then you should be winning the battles. The good guys are supposed to win, right? That’s what we tend to think and that’s what the Jews thought in the centuries leading up to Jesus birth. But the good guys weren’t winning. In fact, the good guys were dropping flies. Every time they took up arms against a foreign occupier, they were slaughtered. So the Jews came up with an interesting theory: “We’re losing now,” they said, “but eventually we’re going to win. We’re getting killed now,” they said, “but someday God is going to raise up all of these dead bodies, and breath new life into them.” Maybe they thought that all of the resurrected martyrs would form a great army and the Romans would never know what hit them. In any event, in the long run the faithful martyrs would be alive and the occupiers would be dead. In the words of a great 12 year old theologian, the notion of the resurrection was kind of like say, “In your face, Romans!” The good guys would win and God’s justice would be vindicated.

So within Judaism, the notion of life after death, the notion of the resurrection of the dead, emerged first as a way of coming to grips with the illogic of injustice. Death be not proud, because in the long run, life and justice will win the battle.

Maybe, on some level, the women carried all of that faith and hope with them as they made their way to the tomb. But they weren’t expecting the resurrection any time soon. Their pain was too great for that. They didn’t see any signs pointing to that. That’s why they brought all those spices with them. 100 pounds of spices, John says (John 19:39). This body needed to be preserved for a long time!

Well, guess what? The Resurrection came early that year! Amidst earthquake and lightening and angel voice, the Resurrection came early! The way that Matthew tells the story, God put on a special effects display that George Lucas would die for! And then, the unthinkable happened: they saw Jesus. Not right away. They had to leave the light show behind and make their way into the events of the new day before they saw him. But they did see him! On the road, heading back into the city to tell the disciples, they saw him. Making ready to spread the good news, they saw him. Death be not proud, because right there, on the edge of Jerusalem, they saw him. They saw Jesus.

What can we make of this? 2,000 years later, sitting in our comfortable pews on what was once the edge of another city, what can we make of this? First of all, I think we have to come to grips with the fact that we’re dealing here with a resurrected body. Not a ghost, not a vision, not a disembodied spirit; we’re dealing with a body. This is significant because it affirms that the embodied existence that we know in this life is not to be despised. Usually when we think of life after death, we think in terms of our bodies being left behind and our spirits winging their way to heaven. But the Bible suggests otherwise. Paul suggests that the resurrection of Jesus is the first act of that great drama in which all of the dead will be raised. “Christ has been raised from the dead,” he says, “the first fruits of those who have died” (1 Corinthians 15:20). As Christ has been raised, Paul says, so all will be raised. That suggest that the way in which Christ has been raised may be a model for your resurrection, and my resurrection, and all of the resurrections to follow. And Christ was raised not as a disembodied spirit, but in the form of a resurrected body. We’re not dealing here with an immortal soul going to heaven, we’re dealing here with a resurrected body that has somehow appeared in time and space. The immortality of the soul, where the body is discarded and the soul goes to heaven, that’s a Greek idea. It comes not from the realm of biblical faith but from the realm of Greek myth and philosophy. Some of the Greeks hated the world. They thought that our bodies and all of Creation was somehow evil, and the sooner we got rid of them the better. Death can have our bodies, death can have our planet, because I’ve got an immortal soul and when the time is right I’m out of here! And to the extent that we still believe this today, Death has a huge smirk on his face. “These silly humans hate their bodies; these silly humans hate their planet, and they’ve turned it all over to me and I’m having fun destroying everything!” If we didn’t have this idea in the backs of our minds that there’s something wrong with our bodies and something wrong with Creation, then maybe we’d be more inclined the follow the biblical norm of being good stewards of God’s Creation, of being stewards of all that God has created, rather than acting as god-like immortal souls who have the right to abuse Creation and destroy it because it is somehow evil and it’s all going to be discarded anyway.

But Death be not proud. Because our bodies and our planet and all that God has created don’t belong to you, they belong to God. Death be not proud, because even though we’ve allowed you to kill so much of what God has created, we believe in a God who can raise up that which has been destroyed; a God who can transform death into new life. So you can wipe that smirk off your face, Death. You’re not going to be blowing the tops off of mountains in West Virginia much longer. You’re not going to be slowly cooking the planet to death much longer. You’re not going to be killing God’s children and maiming their bodies in wars much longer. Even now the God of Life is raising up the consciousness of the multitudes, and the justice of God and God’s love for Creation will be vindicated. God does not abandon Creation; no, God raises up Creation and preserves Creation and transforms Creation.

Easter has to do, first of all, with a resurrected body. But let me put that another way: Easter has to do also with a resurrected body; not just any body, not just a resuscitated body, but a resurrected body, a spiritual body, a transformed body. Paul says that when we awake from death we will be changed. We will have traded in our physical bodies for spiritual bodies. Our perishable flesh will have been transformed into imperishable bodies that will no longer be vulnerable to illness or old age or death.

Now this relationship between our physical bodies and our spiritual bodies is kind of an obscure concept that even Paul doesn’t completely understand. He suggests that your physical body is something like a seed which is planted in the ground and dies, and your spiritual body is something like the plant that grows out of that seed. It’s a very different kind of body, but it’s still a body (see 1 Corinthians 15:35-44). Another analogy would be the transformation of a caterpillar into a butterfly; or, my favourite, the transformation of a waterbug into a dragonfly. Two different kinds of bodies, but post-metamorphosis we’re still dealing with a body. And this metamorphosis is good news. You see, if Jesus’ resurrection was just the resuscitation of his wounded, broken body, he’d eventually die again. Where’s the good news in that? If the only resurrection that you or I could hope for was the resuscitation of our frail, physical bodies, susceptible to disease and perhaps already half-destroyed by illness or age, where’s the good news in that? Death could still be proud.

But Death be not proud, and death-threatening illness be not proud. You can decimate my body as much as you want, but by God’s grace there’s a spiritual body waiting for me – there’s a spiritual body waiting for all of the faithful – at the end of time. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. This perishable nature must put on the imperishable; and this mortal nature must put on immortality. God will do this; which is why death, despite all of its arrogance, has lost its sting (see 1 Corinthians 15:51-58).

Easter has to do, first of all, with a resurrected body. And it has to do, secondly, with a resurrected body. And it has to do, finally, with seeing death transformed into new life right before our eyes. Unlike in Mark’s gospel, Matthew’s Marys actually see Jesus. They’re walking back into the city, trying to make sense out of the morning’s events, and they see him, right there on the road. They see new life, they see his transformed body, they see transformation, right before their eyes. Maybe no one else on that road saw Jesus. But both Marys did. Maybe everyone else walked right past him. But they saw him. And they rejoiced!

There are lots of things that we don’t notice. We look right at them, but we don’t notice them. We walk right past them, but we don’t see them. Last Thursday I took my car into Ben’s garage over here at Sheppard and Agincourt, and after dropping it off I decided to walk home. Cora was shocked when I told her that I’d walked but I said, “Hey, if I’m going to hike 150 miles in April, 1.5 miles had better be a piece of cake!” So I’m walking along Sheppard, and I’m seeing all sorts of things that I drive past almost every day that I never notice. Old houses and little stores and used car lots and my goodness it’s amazing what can be happening right in front of you, and you don’t notice it.

There’s new life happening right before your eyes. There’s resurrection happening right here at Knox. Have you noticed it? We keep agonizing over the fact that we’re an aging congregation, yet there are some new families in our midst. Have you noticed? There are people who are being introduced or reintroduced to the Christian faith in this place: on Tuesday nights through Alpha and on Saturday afternoons in the Christian Centre. Have you noticed? We’re offering hospitality and hope every Friday night to people who might otherwise be on the streets on those cold winter nights. Have you noticed? We’re about to add to our staff team a man who has a passion for life and a passion for music that radiates out from him and embraces you and which seems to say, “Hey, I’m having fun; come join me. Have you noticed? Once you’ve met Ross, you can’t help but notice.

There’s new life happening right before our eyes, there’s transformation happening in our midst, because Jesus is in our midst. The Risen Christ is in our midst. Sometimes we worry about the future of this church, sometimes we worry that it might be slowly dying, and every time we focus on the fear of aging and the possibility of dying, Death smiles. But Death be not proud. You couldn’t keep Jesus in the tomb in Jerusalem, and you’re not going to keep him in the tomb in Agincourt. Death be not proud. You couldn’t keep the eyes of Jesus’ followers blind that first Easter, and you can’t keep our eyes from seeing. Death be not proud. Because this body of Christ ain’t dying! It is being transformed and it will be transformed. Let those who have the eyes to see, see it! Death be not proud, for:

Christ is risen!

He is risen indeed!!

Amen!!!


Text: Matthew 28:1

Preached by Bruce D. Ervin

Easter Sunday

23 March 2008