Rev. Eugene N. Nelson, Jr.
The Community Church of Sebastopol
November 1, 2009 All Saints Day
Revelation 21:1-6
“Old Marley was dead, to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it. And Scrooge’s name was good for anything he chose to put his hand to. Old Marley was as dead as a doornail… There is no doubt that Marley was dead. This must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can come from the story I am to relate.” And so begins Charles Dickens’ classic, A Christmas Carol, with a rather stark reality check concerning human mortality. “Old Marley was dead…and a Merry Christmas to you!” But I wonder if perhaps the same thing might not be said of all of us: We shall all die. If this is not distinctly understood, then nothing wonderful can come from this story.
All Saints Sunday – the church’s great day of remembrance. On this day we remember the saints – the famous ones but even more importantly the ones perhaps known only to us, those saints who have touched and challenged and enriched and changed our lives. We remember their witness, their faith, their dedication. Yes, All Saints Sunday is the great memorial day of the church.
But there is no denying that, even as we remember and give thanks for them, this day also reminds us that the time will come when we will be one of them, when we will be the ones remembered – hopefully thankfully and fondly. Says Barbara Brown Taylor, “As fervently as we pray for healing and long life, as glad as we are on the occasions when those prayers are granted, we must all finally die. It is the darkest mystery each of us must face.” The great theologian, Reinhold Niebuhr, once said that we are like a sailor who climbs the mast of his ship and looks out on a limitless vista. The view is grand and inspiring. But then, from the mast, we look down and see the sea beneath. Just below us there is finitude. This, says Niebuhr, helps to explain who we are. As human beings we are wise. We know that, no matter how high we climb, or how far our vision, we shall die, We are conscious, not only of our possibilities, but also of our dying. And yet, it is also true, in the words of novelist, John Fowles, “Death is really like a certain kind of lecturer. You don’t really hear what is being said until you’re in the front row.” Yes, we know, somewhere deep in our consciousness, that we are going to die, but we’ll also do everything in our power to stay away from the front row as long as we can.
So on this All Saints Day, what might be said about this unavoidable fact of our human existence? I am reminded of an advertisement seen in an airline magazine a few years ago. It said: “All lives are finite. In fact, the average life lasts only 683,280 hours, or 2.4 billion seconds. The new Timisis Personal Life Clock reminds you to live life to the fullest by displaying the time and the actual hours, minutes and seconds remaining in your statistical lifetime. It is the most profound number you will ever see.
“By monitoring every precious minute, it arouses you to the joy of living. The display also flashes 150 motivational messages to inspire you to take command and act. Simply plug into wall outlet, then enter your name, age and gender. Made in USA – 90 day warranty – 11 ¾ inches long. On your desk, this subtle anti-procrastination tool will help you maximize the quality of all your hours.” I’m wondering about that warranty. Kind of a bummer if your life clock breaks down after 90 days and can’t be fixed.
I guess that’s one thing that can be said about death. It is the ultimate reason to get out there and stop procrastinating. Because in fact, there will not always be a next month, next week, or even a tomorrow. For each of us, there will be a day on the calendar that we enter and never leave. So get busy people. What are you waiting for? Get out there and do something! Perhaps this is what St. Benedict meant when he advised, “Keep death daily before your eyes.”
Death as a reminder to live, and to appreciate the preciousness of every moment of life. That might be one message on this All Saints Day. The oft-repeated line from the film, The Shawshank Redemption, comes to mind – “Get busy living or get busy dying.” What are we waiting for? Yes, a helpful message. And yet, our text from Revelation suggests that there is something more, something more profound, more hopeful to be said concerning the reality of our mortality. “And the one who was seated on the throne said, ‘See, I am making all things new…I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end…”
The God who stands at the beginning of all things stands at the end as well. And therein lies our hope. At the end, not deterioration and obliteration, but God. Once when asked about what happens after we die, C.S. Lewis said that he was confident, on the basis of his experience of God in this life, that the same God who had so sought him and hounded him and found him in life would do the same in death. Again, at the end, God.
I want to put something out there – see what you think. It seems to me that when most people talk about death and life after death, they use phrases such as, ‘the immortality of the soul.” The body turns to dust, we say, but deep within us there is that divine spark, an immortal, imperishable soul that goes on, beyond the ravages of physical death. I hear this language a lot when people speak of what lies beyond death. But such language is Plato. It is not the Gospel. Our Christian hope is not in the expectation of some eternal spark that just goes on and on. Our hope is not that, after death, as one west county guru has suggested, “It’s like energy being released into the atmosphere. When we die, our essence, our spirit just goes on and on.” Is that all that’s left? Energy into the atmosphere? For me, that really isn’t very comforting.
The Gospels, the Apostle Paul, the Biblical witness never suggest that there is something about us, something within our human nature, that is eternal. When we die, we die. We return to the dust from which we came. Thus Paul speaks of death as the final enemy. In the words of the poet, “When Time takes you out for a spin in his car, you’ll be hard-pressed to keep him from going too far.” When we die to die.
But, that same Biblical witness goes on affirm that even in death all is not lost, we are not lost. Because of some immortal spark? No! Because God intervenes. Somehow the same God who raised Jesus from the dead reaches in, defeats the enemy death, and takes us along as well. In the words of one colleague, “This is the basis of our hope. We are confident that the God who has gone to such extraordinary lengths to be close to us in life, shall not cease those efforts in death. Therefore we do not grieve as those who have no hope. We believe that the same God who reached out to us and sought us in all the days of our lives shall not cease to pursue us, reach out to us, seek us even in death. Our hope is not in some vague and wishful immortality of the soul or other assumption that we have within ourselves immortality – that our essence goes on and on. No, we dare to speak of new creation. Our hope is that the love of God is stronger than the devastation of death, that ultimately nothing shall separate us from the love of God in Jesus Christ.” Because I live, you shall live also,” says Jesus in the Gospel of John. “I am making all things new, and death shall be no more,” says God in the great vision of Revelation. Our hope is in the great indomitable God who defeats death and in love, brings us to him. And so, on this All Saint’s Day, we dare to affirm our hope. Even as we face our mortality, we hope. And our hope is not unfounded, it is not wishful thinking. Our hope is based upon what we know of the God who we meet in Jesus Christ, the same Christ who ventured forth from the realm of death into life, and who promises to take us along with him.
Michael Jinkins is the dean of Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary. He has written a book: Called to Be Human: Letters to My Children on Living a Christian Life. In that book, he talks about death with these words: “You once asked me, ‘What happens when we die?’ I think I would have to say now, ‘We let go.’ At its heart, faith is a matter of learning to let go, to entrust ourselves to God. When we die, we really do let go…Like a tiny infant unable even to hold onto her mother’s finger, unable to grasp and pull ourselves up, we let go when death is here, and in letting go we are tacitly entrusting all we are to God for whatever may come. I look for a new creation.” Truly, in a season of thanksgiving, this is a hope to be thankful for.
It all depends on whom we believe and if we believe. It all depends on whether, when it is our turn, we can, in the words of Barbara Brown Taylor, “step into the air without a net,” can let go of our illusions of control, let go of our fears, and step out into whatever God-given, death-defying mystery comes next.