Acts 2:14a, 22-32
http://bible.oremus.org/browser.cgi?passage=acts+2%3A14a%2C+22-32
Psalm 16
http://bible.oremus.org/browser.cgi?passage=psalm+16
1 Peter 1:3-9
http://bible.oremus.org/browser.cgi?passage=1+peter+3%3A1-9
John 20:19-31
http://bible.oremus.org/browser.cgi?passage=john+20%3A19-31
Well, it’s still Easter day in our Gospel reading, and even though Mary has run to the disciples and told them that she has seen the risen Lord, they are, nevertheless, huddled behind locked doors for fear of their lives. Their leader has been killed, they don’t seem to believe in his resurrection, and even if they did, they don’t seem all that eager to be put to death as his followers. Which is a natural reaction. None of us want to die, particularly in as brutal a fashion as being crucified. We can sympathize with those poor, death-fearing disciples.
We, after all, spend a lot of our time avoiding and hiding from death. We don’t usually do it behind locked doors; more often we hide from death behind our vitamin pills and mineral supplements and low-fat diets and moderate exercise. We avoid being reminded that our lives will end by not talking about sickness in any personal way. Those of us who aren’t medical professionals try to visit the hospital as little as possible and when we do, we want to get it over with as quickly as we can. And when the death of a loved one seems inevitable, many of us go into denial. It’s natural; we’re expected to go into denial as a way of dealing with the shock, but we’re not supposed to stay there, which is, unfortunately, what some people do. I’ve seen people who have, up until the last moment, insisted that their family member dying on the hospital bed is going to get up and walk around tomorrow, by the grace of God. And they cling to this belief because they cannot accept death - either of the person they love or their own.
Of course, there is no more current example of this than the Terri Schiavo case. Now, Terri died on Thursday morning, but she was the centre of a seven-year battle between her husband and her parents over whether or not she should be allowed to die. After fifteen years in a vegetative state, her husband wanted to withdraw her feeding tube and let her die and her parents didn’t. It was described by people as a fight over the right-to-die, and also as the right-to-live. Theologically interpreted, though, it was a fight over the Easter resurrection. And here’s the tough thing that I have to say about Terri’s parents, about Rev. Jesse Jackson, about U.S. President George Bush, and about all the Christians who rallied to prevent her from dying : they showed a shocking lack of trust in God’s promise of new life. Now I know that’s harsh, and I’m fully aware that Terri’s parents, at least, lost somebody whom they loved dearly, and I know that there are people within this congregation who have had to struggle with the issue of whether or not to let a family member die. It is a terribly painful, grief-filled time that nobody should take lightly. Nevertheless, what I said remains true: that Christians who seek to indefinitely and artificially prolong the lives of others who are otherwise going to die are not living out their Easter faith.
You see, our Easter faith is all about Christ who, as our Creed says, was crucified, died, and was buried. In our Acts reading, Peter reminds his listeners that Jesus, indeed, was crucified and killed. But our faith doesn’t stop there. The heart of our faith is that this Jesus of Nazareth who died, and was dead for three days, was also raised by God to new life. "God raised him up," continues Peter, "having freed him from death, because it was impossible for him to be held in its power." And in the first letter attributed to him, Peter says, that by God’s great mercy, Jesus Christ was resurrected from the dead. Our Easter faith, which the disciples later came to share, is that Christ who died was raised and given new life.
And the new life of Christ means new life for us as well. Because in raising Jesus from being dead, God has broken the power of death. Once upon a time, death had a permanent hold on us. Once you died, that was it, nothing after that. But God has broken that power and, while it is true that we still die, has promised that death does not mean the end of us. There is, God promises, something for us after death. Peter talks about it as an "inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you." Paul, in his first letter to the Thessalonians, says to them, "We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about those who have died, so that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have died." Paul tells us that when somebody dies, we’re not supposed to cry as if that’s it for them, as if this life is all they had. And we are not supposed to behave as if we will never see them again. Not only is death not the end of us, but in what happens after death, we are reunited with those who have died before us. Certainly, having someone we love die brings a most painful separation that nothing can completely erase, and we do cry and grieve, but we also have God’s promise that that separation is not forever, because death is not forever. "Christ has been raised from the dead," says Paul in 1 Corinthians, "the first fruits of those who have died. For since death came through a human being, the resurrection of the dead has also come through a human being; for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ."
That is the whole of our Easter faith - that Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, died and then was raised to new life, and because of that, we will, too. And what that means is that we do not have to struggle so hard to prolong a sort of half-life. We do not need to avoid death at all costs. To do so is to doubt God’s power and to make an idol out of life. To withdraw support from somebody in a state like Terri’s is not, as the Vatican says, a "violation of the sacred nature of life." Instead, it is the fullest possible confession that God will indeed care for us after death and bring us new life. "So we do not lose heart," Paul again, "Even though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day. For this slight momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all measure. . . For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. . . So we are always confident; even though we know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord - for we walk by faith, not by sight. Yes, we do have confidence, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord." Because God promises us new life, because we confess that God will indeed raise us, just as God has raised Christ, we can be in the presence of death without fear. We can allow those we love to die with dignity, we can stop our frantic, anxiety-driven efforts to prolong life at all costs. We can even be so bold as to thank God when people like Terri Schiavo and other terminally ill people and even the pope do die, because then they are fully with God and that much closer to God’s promise of new life.
The disciples were wrong to hide away behind locked doors. I’m sorry to say it, but Terri’s parents were wrong to want to keep their daughter on life-support indefinitely. But even within their wrongness, Christ still comes to meet them to offer them new life. The disciples’ fear didn’t stop Christ from appearing to them, proclaiming his new life to them and breathing his comforting Spirit into them. No matter what we have done in the past, no matter what fear over death we have had or will have, we can still rely on the words of today’s psalmist, "My heart, therefore, is glad, and my spirit rejoices; my body also shall rest in hope. For you will not abandon me to the grave, nor let your holy one see the pit. You will show me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy, and in your right hand are pleasures forevermore." Fearful or not, hiding from death or facing it head-on, we have the promise that God will take care of us and give us new life. We may die, but it is not the end of us. It wasn’t the end of Jesus Christ, and it’s not the end of us. So, we say with Paul, and Isaiah whom he quotes, and the Corinthians to whom he wrote, and all the Christians around the world who celebrate their Easter faith, "Death has been swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?. . . Thanks be to God, who gives us victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." Amen.
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