March 17, 2024, The Vocabulary of Jesus: Death, John 12:20-26 – Mtr. Kathryn Boswell

saintphilipsnorwood ♦ March 17, 2024 ♦ Leave a comment

To listen to the sermon, click the link above. The text is below.

One of the best known Bible verses about death is 1 Corinthians, chapter 15, verse 55:

“O death, where is your victory?

O death, where is your sting?”

I think most of us could give Paul an answer to these rhetorical questions of his. “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” It’s right here (in my heart). Where is the sharp power of death to pierce me; where is its venom? Where has death put its foot on my neck in triumph? Well, it’s right here (in my heart). We’ve all known the piercing pain of grief. And we all know that grief lasts a long time – not months…years…a lifetime.

My intention this Lenten season has been to shine a light on a few words – household words, as it were, words we use often, if not daily – and to see them in a new way, to see how they are transformed by the lens of Jesus’s life and teaching. We’ve looked at Temptation, at the Cross, at Holiness, at Forgiveness. Our very last word, then, today, is death.

This world in which we live and breathe and learn gives us a schizophrenic view of death. On the one hand, the world would have us view death as a beautiful and natural part of life. In the Lion King, Elton John sings about the Circle of Life: “it moves us all / Through despair and hope / Through faith and love / ‘Til we find our place / On the path unwinding / In the circle / The circle of life” It’s lovely. And it’s sort of comforting.

And there is some truth in it: certainly, we see beauty in the cycle of the seasons. If you’re a gardener, there’s real satisfaction in the way we can compost what is useless, take things that are dead, and turn them into something that nurtures life. There is something altogether excellent about giving life to another human being by being an organ donor.

On the other hand, the world is also in the business of trying to sell us everything it can conceivably invent to avoid death at all costs. Here’s where the schizophrenia kicks in. Death may be a beautiful and natural part of life, but the world would like to sell you products of every kind, from cosmetics to medicine to positive thinking, to maintain your youth, or failing that, to disguise your age – to hang onto your life, tooth and nail. The world wants to offer you ways to keep the gray out of your hair and the wrinkles off your face; to banish that cellulite, ladies, and keep you functional, gentlemen. The world has products for you, to take care of all the aches and pains of growing older, to keep you active and attractive. And when you can’t maintain the illusion of youth any longer, the world doesn’t have much use for you anymore. The world would just as soon keep us old people out of sight and out of mind, because the world really doesn’t want to be reminded that we are all dust, and to dust we are all certainly returning, sooner or later.

By the grace of God, there is goodness and there is beauty in the life cycles of this world. But, the plain truth according to Scripture, is that death was not part of God’s plan for his Creation. Whether we read the first three chapters of Genesis as literal story or myth or poetry, the unavoidable message of the story of the Creation and Fall is that death was a tragic disruption in God’s original design for the Creation he spoke into being, the Creation he pronounced as “Good.” That’s why, going back to Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, Paul calls death our enemy. Christ will deliver the whole kingdom to God the Father, Paul writes, having been victorious over every other rule and authority and power. And, he writes, the final enemy to be vanquished will be death itself.

Sometimes death comes quietly at the end of a long, productive life. Sometimes death brings an end to terrible suffering and we can see God’s grace and mercy in the timing. But there are other times, all too common, when a little child dies, or when a young mother is taken from a family that needs her desperately, or when death comes unexpectedly to the people we love, when people are die in the violence and suffering of war or abuse or cancer or poverty – then the mask falls off; then we see death for what it is, and we know in our hearts that death is our enemy, and not our friend.

We read today how even Jesus, “In the days of his flesh, offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to the one who was able to save him from death.” On the Cross, we see plainly the real malice and ugliness and cruelty that Jesus Christ faced, when he did battle with death itself.

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So then, what does Jesus have to say about death? Because he is our lens. As he always does, he turns the world’s claims right on their heads. If you cling to the one precious life you have, he says, if you hang on to it with all your might, like all those eternally youthful men and women in the TV ads – then you will lose it. Because you can get yourself any amount of botox or herbal supplements or diet and exercise regimens, but you’re never going to outrun death. Fact.

But, if you take no thought for your own life, if you make no provisions to keep it safe and secure, well, then, Jesus says, you’ll keep it forever. We know exactly what Jesus means when he talks about hating one’s life in this world, because he lived that out for us. He chose a life of poverty; he was homeless; he gave himself up, day after day, for the needs of the sick and the poor and the demon possessed. He gave of himself so freely and with such abandon that his own family thought he’d lost his sanity. In the end, he gave himself, willingly, into the hands of the very people who were out for his blood. “He stretched out his arms of love on the hard wood of the Cross,” we pray that every morning. That’s what Jesus means by not holding on to this life.

And he gave us a parable. “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies,” he said, “it will never be anything more than a single grain of wheat. But if it dies; if we plant it in the ground, and the rain falls on it, and the seed swells and breaks open – then it takes root, and it grows, and it produces seed heads, so that where there was only one seed now there are a hundred seeds, or more.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer famously said, “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.” It’s not a great ad campaign by the world’s standards. Jesus offers sacrifice instead of prosperity. He offers humiliation rather than honor and respect. He offers suffering, rather than comfort and security. There are a lot of churches who like to play those things down, who like to keep things positive and bouncy and happy – but the truth is, when Jesus invites us to walk in his footsteps he’s talking about death.

But here’s the secret: death doesn’t have the last word any more. When the grain of wheat falls to the earth and dies, it’s no longer a single grain of wheat. When the Son of God emptied himself of all his God-ness and took on our human flesh, he became the first of many children of the Father. When the Christ offered himself up to death – the brutal death of the Cross – death itself worked backward, and there was there was glorious life on Easter morning. Now, death has been swallowed up by life. Now, death itself is doomed.

Meanwhile, if we’re honest, we can still feel the sting of our old enemy, every day, in this world that is so embattled by death. But just as surely as Christ walked out of the tomb, we proclaim that there is life, abundant and unending, for us and for all those we have lost and see no more – for all those dear ones for whom our hearts are aching. The way Jesus calls us to follow isn’t an easy one. We walk now through the valley of the shadow of death. But he has walked this way before us, through death and beyond, to show us that the way of the Cross is the way that leads to life. As we pray in the prayer of St. Francis: In giving to others, we receive abundantly from the Father; in pardoning others, our own sins and faults are pardoned; and in dying to ourselves, putting our brother’s and sister’s need above our own, we are born, day by day, to eternal life.

I invite you to open your prayer book to page 220, and pray along with me the Collect for Monday in Holy Week:

Almighty God, whose dear Son went not up to joy but
first he suffered pain, and entered not into glory before he
was crucified: Mercifully grant that we, walking in the way
of the cross, may find it none other that the way of life and
peace; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives
and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever
and ever. Amen. +