This
sermon is reprinted from the "The Big Why: Sermons on Death
and Dying," avaialble in the Premiere
Preaching Packages.
A Toast To Death
By the Resurrection Power of God, a new world is coming
"I am the Resurrection
and the Life" (John
11:25).
There is a wonderful story about
a man who bought a used suit of clothes at the Good Will Industry
store. In one of the pockets he found a fifteen-year-old ticket
for a shoe repair job. The cobbler was still doing business at
the old neighborhood location. So, as a lark, the man decided
to try to redeem the shoes. When he presented the ticket, the
proprietor looked at it for a moment and then disappeared into
the back room. A few moments later he reappeared, saying very
calmly, "They'll be ready next Tuesday." That sounds
like many of us who have been working in this workshop we call
"Church." Some of us have been on the job for more
than fifteen years and the shoes still aren't ready. How much
time do we need to get right with God and to repair our broken
relationships? Time is running out for all of us. Death is always
coming closer for all of us. Time has been given to us here in
this life, to discover, to respond, to open up, to become free,
to live, to love and to hope-and it's ticking away for all of
us. The days are passing.
In the Broadway musical, "A
Little Night Music," the grandmother proposes a toast: "To
life," she says. Everyone at the dinner party enthusiastically
joins in her toast to life. Then she spoils the party. She proposes
a second toast, saying, "And to the only other reality,
death!" The others cannot join her in this toast. They are
embarrassed. A pall of gloom falls over the party and you feel
it for the rest of the evening. The guests are unable to face
that "other reality." But the grandmother is right.
Unless we can face honestly that "other reality," we
cannot experience the fullness of life. Unless we can face honestly
the fact of death, we cannot know what in the world is going
on in this Church week after week. Unless we can face honestly
the fact of death, we cannot understand the spirit of the New
Testament People and the New Testament Message.
I would like for us to go back
a couple of thousand years. Jesus is among us. He is opening
up to us a new way of life. When we are in His presence we feel
that we are in the presence of God. We have left our homes, our
families, our work, to follow Him. We have been eyewitnesses
to miraculous signs of the power of God working through Him.
We are looking forward to the initiation of the Kingdom of God
that He is talking about. And then we begin to hear Him warn
us of an impending death-but we aren't listening really. Consequently,
we are shocked to the point of despair when death does come to
the Lord on the first Good Friday. We are shocked to the depths
of our souls because we weren't listening when He was placing
the reality of death into perspective for us. Not until the first
Easter Sunday are we able to rejoice in the words Jesus had spoken
to Martha when they stood beside her brother's tomb. Lazarus
had been dead for four days when Jesus arrived. "Lord,"
Martha said, "if you had been here my brother would not
have died" (Jn.l1:21). Jesus answered, "Your brother
will rise again . . . I am the Resurrection and the life."
Not until the first Easter Sunday do these words come alive for
us as we realize that the Lord God Almighty was present in the
death of Jesus Christ in a way that conquered death itself. Think
about that! Death, our greatest enemy, is overcome, once and
for all. The sign of this Resurrection Power which Jesus gave
when He raised up Lazarus is a reality in every one of our lives.
The story is told of a clergyman
who woke up one morning, looked out the window and saw a dead
donkey in his front yard. He hadn't the slightest idea how it
got there, but he knew he had to get rid of it. He called the
Sanitation Department. He called the Health Department. He called
several other agencies, but no one in the bureaucracy seemed
able to help him. In desperation, he called the mayor and asked
what could be done. The mayor must have been having a bad day.
"Why bother me with your problem," he answered. "You're
a clergyman. It's your job to bury the dead." Whereupon
the clergyman lost his cool and snapped back, "Well, I just
thought I'd better notify the next of kin." If you have
a dead donkey on the front yard of your life this morning and
you don't know what to do with it, the Resurrection Power of
God is present to you at that point of need.
The process of moving from death
to Resurrection is going on in our lives at this very moment.
Because ours is a Resurrection Faith, we know there is a new
world coming: coming in joy; coming in peace; coming in love;
coming in brotherhood. God's Resurrection Power is acting to
build a new world within us and around us, both. I'm talking
about this crazy, confused, mixed up, polluted, over-populated,
war-torn world. This world. He loves it. God loves it. It's terribly
hard to believe this some days. Just watching the Ten-o'clock-News
any night of the week is enough to make one ask, "Is there
any hope at all?" You look around at what's happening in
the world and you think of that great line in "Green Pastures"
when Gabriel says, "Everything that's fastened down is coming
loose." That's the way it seems to be these days. Everything!
Everything that's fastened down is coming loose. It's that kind
of world.
If you can believe the Gallup
Polls there's no use to turn to religion for help. Each year
they go around the U.S. asking this same question: "Do you
feel that religion is losing its influence in American life?"
And each year the percentage of "Yes" answers goes
up. As many as seventy-five percent of the people have said "Yes,
religion is losing its influence in American life." Three
out of four people! This is the kind of world we live in and
you're not taking the Gospel of Jesus Christ seriously until
you really believe that it is in this world that God is creating.
A new world is coming. God is doing this, and nothing we can
do will ultimately defeat God's purposes. This is our Resurrection
hope. This is the certainty of our Resurrection Faith in Jesus
Christ: "I am the Resurrection and the life; whoever believes
in Me, though he should die, will live" (Jn.l1:26). But
there's even more to it than that.
We can talk, talk, talk forever
about the Resurrection Power of God working in the world and
still miss the point if we fail to realize that to accept Jesus
as the Resurrection and the Life is to accept simultaneously
His call to action. This does not mean that you are called to
solve the world's problems all by yourself. But it does mean
that there is something God is depending on you to do. There
are limits to your resources, your strength, your money, your
power, but there is always something you can do through the Resurrection
Power of God that lies deep within you.
A little girl named Mary was
stricken with polio. At age six she walked to school for the
first time. When she came home after school that first day, she
went to her grandmother and said, "Granny, what's a cripple?"
Her grandmother thought for a moment and said, "Why, a cripple
is someone who can't take care of herself and doesn't want to."
Mary thought for a moment, and then said, "Well then, I'm
not a cripple because I can take care of myself and I want to.
But today in school Johnny called me a cripple." Her grandmother
asked, "What did you say to Johnny?" Mary replied,
"I didn't say anything. I just hit him with my crutch."
Now there are times when all you can do is strike out at evil
with your crutch. And if that's all you can do and if that's
the only resource you've got, then you do it, because that's
what God is expecting you to do.
It would be a great day for this
community if some of us here would make a serious decision to
do something about our life situation and about our world situation,
if some of us would make a serious decision to reveal the Resurrection
Power of God to everyone we know. Through the life you live,
in the works you perform, let it be known that there is a new
world coming. Let it be known that we all count for something
in God's eyes. Let it be known that because God loves each of
us, we are worthy of each other's love. Let it be known to others,
as Jesus has let it be known to us, that "though we should
die, we will come to life."
This sermon is reprinted from
the "The Big Why: Sermons on Death and Dying" avaialble
in the Premiere Preaching Packages.
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