Community Church Sermons

Year A

April 3, 2011

Lent 4

The Gospel as the Power of God

To Deliver Us From the Enemies of Life

Death

1 Corinthians 15:20-36; 55-57

Mark 5:21-43

 

Rev. Rhonda Abbott Blevins

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During the season of Lent we’ve been studying the gospel of Mark as we’ve contemplated The Gospel as the Power of God to Deliver Us from the Enemies of Life. Pastor Marty has tackled three of life’s enemies. He suggested that the gospel has the power to deliver us from aimlessness and meaninglessness by calling us and establishing our primary identity as “Christian.” He said that the gospel has the power to deliver us from sickness, and uses the church to bring help and healing to a hurting world. He offered that the gospel has the power to deliver us from the demonic by using the church to stand up against evil. And now, for the final segment in the series, the last enemy we’ll tackle is death. That’s the hardest one yet! And he assigned it to me, that chicken!

I want to dive into the topic of death by sharing with you a story from life at the Blevins’ house. It was March 17. My husband was taking my 3-year-old son to preschool, and they were talking about it being St. Patrick’s Day. Throughout the week, his preschool class had been talking about St. Patrick and coloring shamrocks and the like. Out of that study, Jake had one burning question, and he decided to use the 25 minute ride to school to ask this question of his daddy. The conversation went something like this: “Papa, is St. Patrick dead?” Yes Jake, St. Patrick died a long time ago. “Papa, why do people die?” (Not being terribly prepared for a conversation about mortality with a 3-year-old, Terry said something like . . .) Uh, well, people die sometimes when they get really, really old. “Papa, am I old?” No, Jake, you’re not old. (Terry could see where this was going.) “Papa, are you old?” No, Jake, I’m not very old. “Papa, is Mommy old?” (Watch it, now.) No, Jake, Mommy isn’t very old. “Papa, is Pastor Marty old?” Yes, Jake, Pastor Marty is very, very old. When Terry dropped Jake off at preschool, he warned the teacher about the conversation. And when he picked Jake up at the end of the day, his teacher related that Jake had the entire 3-year-old class talking about death. That’s my boy!

When it comes to death and life everlasting, we’re all kind of like a class of 3-year-olds, having way more questions than answers. It’s the greatest mystery of all.

That’s why we’re intrigued with Colton Burpo, you know, Heaven Boy? The little boy at the center of the book Heaven is for Real..[1]  It’s the true story of a four-year old boy named Colton, who during emergency surgery slips from consciousness and enters heaven. He survives and begins talking about sitting on Jesus’ lap, being able to look down and see the doctor operating and his dad praying in the waiting room. At first his family thinks it’s a preschooler’s vivid imagination, but they begin to wonder if it’s something more when he tells them that he met his miscarried sister. No one had ever told him about his miscarried sister. He says he met his great grandfather who died 30 years before Colton was born, then shared impossible-to-know details about him.

Colton’s story, right now, is number one on the New York Times bestseller list. Why? We live in a skeptical generation, and most of us are skeptics. I’m a skeptic. But maybe you’re like me, and you wonder . . . “Maybe this little boy knows something I don’t know about the great mystery.”

Every great world religion addresses this mystery, holding different ideas about what the afterlife entails. But one thing every religion has in common is a belief in the immortal nature of the human spirit. Of course our own faith has much to say about the mysteries of death and the afterlife. From our first scripture passage we read today from First Corinthians 15, we learn two important truths:

1.       Death is the enemy of life.   It is ugly. It is rotten. And it’s real. One of the worst things we can do to a grieving person is offer empty platitudes—you know, saying things like or “He’s in a better place now” or “God needed another angel in heaven.” I read once about a grieving mother, sick of hearing this ill-conceived clichés, who found comfort by the Apostle Paul’s words from our scripture lesson, naming death as the enemy it is. Tell a grieving parent that death is our friend and you’re likely to get socked in the nose! Death, by definition, is the opposite of life.

2.       The second truth from our first scripture, however, is that Christ conquers death.  “Where, O death is your victory? Where O death, is your sting?” Paul defiantly asks. He writes that the resurrection of Christ conquers death once and for all.

Now, we have the vantage point of living in the post-resurrection era, but it’s still often hard for us to believe what Paul is trying to teach us. Imagine how hard it must have been to believe in the power of Christ before his resurrection.  Yet that’s the kind of belief we find in the two desperate individuals we encounter in our gospel story from Mark 5.

It goes something like this. Jesus has just healed a demon-possessed man, and he’s the focus of a large crowd gathered around him. A man named Jairus, an important man, a ruler in the synagogue, comes to him. In this moment he doesn’t care that he’s not behaving like a synagogue leader should behave. His daughter is sick unto death. There is a healer in town. He falls at Jesus’ feet, begging Jesus to come to his house to heal his little girl. Jesus agrees, and begins walking with him. Can you imagine Jairus’ desperation? Can you sense the urgency?

The crowds continue to press in around Jesus and this important man as they walk together. Everybody wants a piece of Jesus, reaching out to touch this religious superstar. Jesus stops suddenly: “Who touched me?” Those around him wondered, “Who didn’t touch you?” He waits. Finally, a woman emerges from the crowd, falling at his feet. She bravely confesses that she had touched him. It was quite a confession, because this touch from a hemorrhaging woman automatically made Jesus unclean, just like she had been for the past twelve years. Now that Jesus is unclean, the law demands that Jesus immediately bathe, change clothes, and quarantine himself until the next day. How dare she make the teacher unclean? Not only is touching him inappropriate, it is against the law. Jesus has every right to be angry. “What is Jesus going to do?” wonders the crowd. He calls her, “daughter.” He commends her faith. He offers her “shalom.”

And during this whole encounter, next to him stands one feeling no sense of “shalom” whatsoever. Remember Jairus? Jairus, with the dying little girl at home? “How dare you take time to heal this unclean low-life woman! My little girl is dying! What?!? You’re going to have a whole conversation with her? Great. Just great.”

Jesus? Well, Jesus is cool. Probably too cool for Jairus.

Have you ever noticed that when we feel desperate, we expect everyone around us to share our anxiety and assume our sense of urgency?

The other day, my husband and I were at Kohl’s and he was trying on some pants. He came out of the dressing room, his face distraught. He said, “My wallet has been stolen.” Now, he’s not one to jump to conclusions, so I took him at his word. I booked it to the front of the store, where I found someone who looked like a manager. I ran up to her. . . “My husband’s wallet was stolen in the dressing room!” (Now, looking back on this situation, I don’t know why I was so frantic. It’s not like there’s ever any money in his wallet!) “My husband’s wallet was just stolen!” You know what she did? She stuck her index finger up at me, and told me to wait, while she deals with another customer, apparently over a return or some such nonsense. “Lady, did you just hear me? My husband’s wallet was just stolen! Call security! Call the police! Lock down the store and frisk every customer! Lady, c’mon!” Lady didn’t exactly share my desperation. She was going to get to me when she was going to get to me. And as I impatiently waited, my husband’s wallet was located. One of the employees had moved it, unknowingly, out of the dressing room. Crisis averted. No thanks to lady.

If I’m Jairus, Jesus seems way too nonchalant. And when my friends tell me it’s too late, that my daughter has died? I’m pretty sure I’d lose any hope I had in this superstar, Jesus.

Into that hopelessness Jesus says the words “Do not fear, only believe.”

Those are his first recorded words to this panicked father.  “Here’s what not to do,” Jesus said. “Fear.” Replace your fear with belief.

Belief. There’s great power in belief. All kinds of studies have been done about the placebo effect, the use of “sugar pills” or fake medicines in the treatment of various conditions. If a patient believes a pill will work and takes a placebo, sometimes there is healing. Why? The placebo effect! The power of belief!

But let’s do a little reality check. Belief is good, but sometimes it only goes so far. Placebos don’t work all the time.

I’ve never heard about a placebo curing cancer or Lou Gehrig’s disease or Alzheimer’s. And no sugar pill can bring back our loved ones who have died. And I dare say there’s not a person in this room who hasn’t lost someone dear. In fact, there are some here this morning dealing with very acute grief.

For those of us who have experienced loss, when we hear this story from scripture about Jesus raising a little girl from the dead, we may feel torn. Life has made us skeptics. We want to believe, but we feel torn. Kind of like I feel about Colton Burpo, “heaven boy” . . . torn. When I hear this story, logic tells me that the only way this story has any meaning for us today is to imagine that all we have to do is pray, and POOF! Healing will come! But life has taught me that prayer doesn’t work that way. Or does it? Maybe healing does come through prayer, but maybe it doesn’t look like we think it’s supposed to look. Maybe it comes in unexpected ways.

I read a story about a man diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease when he was still in his fifties. He and his wife prayed that he might be healed. Twenty years later, he was in last debilitating stages of the disease. He told a pastor in the midst of disease that his prayers had been answered. He said in all sincerity, “I have been healed, not of Parkinson’s disease, but I have been healed of my fear of Parkinson’s

 disease.”  [2]

Somewhere along the way, many of us lose our belief in the power of Jesus. We lose our faith when our prayers aren’t answered the way we think they should be. We quit praying all together, or our prayers take on a fluffy, non-expectant tone. Where’s the power in that?

Back to Jairus. Can’t you hear him thinking “It’s OK Jesus. My daughter has already died. There’s nothing you can do now.” How do you think Jairus felt in that moment? Sad, for sure. Disappointed, certainly. But I wonder if Jairus wasn’t downright angry with Jesus for taking his sweet time.

But have you ever noticed, Jesus never gets in a hurry? The reason Jesus is in no hurry to get to Jairus’ house is because—to Jesus, death is temporary. To us death seems so final. To us, death seems the ultimate enemy. The power of the gospel to deliver us from the enemy called death lies in our ability to believe, like Jesus did, that death is temporary. When we understand that death is merely a transition from one life into another, we have nothing to fear! So while death is ugly, and rotten, and far too real—while death is the ultimate enemy of life—we do not fear death, for death has been conquered by Jesus Christ our Lord!

Remember back to the words of the Apostle Paul: “In Christ all will be made alive!” That’s the hope of the gospel! That’s the power! I believe it! How about you? “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” Defeated. That’s where. Amen.

 

[1]Todd Burpo and Lynn Vincent, Heaven is for Real, Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2010.

[2]Michael Lindvall, Feasting on the Word: Mark 5:21-43, Pastoral Perspective, Year B, Volume 3. David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, eds. Louisville: 2009. Westminster John Knox Press.