and they will bury

what'd come for you

A sermon on St. Paul's rousing conclusion to 1 Corinthians:

One of the first lessons they teach you in journalism school is how to write an obituary. You heard that right, an obituary. And while that may be surprising, it actually makes a lot of sense. After all, a traditional obituary is, if nothing else, just straight-ahead reporting.

In those old print obituaries, only the facts that were published. The conventional obituary is limited to information such as the person’s name, age, and this is important, their cause of death. Why, I can still remember blessed Rose Kodet shouting, “The person did NOT pass away! They did not go on their reward! No, they died.” To be a good reporter, insisted Rose, you had to know how to tell the plain truth. 

I doubt that was my first lesson in truth-telling, but it was the one that stuck. And as I’ve served as a pastor, I’ve always thought we, as the church, ought to be able to be at least as honest as the newspapers. Right?

But it’s not easy. Is it? We don’t like to talk about death. And we’ve concocted all these little euphemisms to talk around this unhappy reality. 

The technical term for this is circumlocution. “Locution,” as in talk. And “circum,” as in around, like circumnavigate. We use circumlocutions to talk around unpleasantries.

And on that note, maybe you’re getting a little antsy with all this candid talk about death. Perhaps you wish I would stop tossing the word around so casually. And for all I know, you’re hoping I change the topic altogether.

…But you know what? Language is powerful. And being able to name something gives you a handle on it. 

That’s why diagnoses are so important! Identifying an illness is the first step in treating it. And that’s what happens in Eden, too! God parading all the animals before Adam to name is part of the dominion God grants humankind. In fact, description is the instrument Margot Robbie wields in that surprisingly theological film Barbie!

The truth is, honest speech is actually just good speech. And I don’t mean good as in a quality. Although, truthful speech is better than careless prattle. But I also mean good as in an effect. Honest speech is good to hear. 

Isn’t that what you learned, all you Stephen ministers? 

I’m being rhetorical here. I know perfectly well that our Stephen Ministers were trained to say the word death. And the reason they were taught to do so is because it’s caring to acknowledge a person’s reality. 

We do grieving people no favors by being so uncomfortable that we can’t even say the word death. By our circumlocutions, our euphemisms, we implicitly tell people they cannot talk about that valley of the shadow of death they’re trudging through. And that terrible silence makes the mourning that much more difficult to bear.

So, let’s be clear: if you want to know how to be there for someone, all you have to do is show up. And then, it’s merely a matter of letting your discomfort be the welcome mat to their healing. Because it is. In fact, it’ll even serve as fortification for your own faith, too! Because it is! 

Stepping into your own apprehension is the first step into that Promised Land of faith. And what’s more, walking with someone as the Holy Spirit raises them up out of the rubble of death will make an honest-to-goodness Christian out of you TWICE over! Believe me.

…Better than all that, though, is the fact that you CAN do all that! You really can! You can play fast and loose with your misgivings! And you can do so for a couple of reasons!

First, because the old you that runs at the first sign of that last enemy is already as good as dead! The old you that lives in constant fear has never really lived a single day of life in the first place. At least, not real life. But more importantly, you no longer live to that old you in you anyway!

There are two yous in you, you understand. There’s the old creature. The one that wants to live by its own wiles. And that creature will never live. It will never live because it will never dare to really do so! That old creature will always be too busy to hiding from the next possible threat to ever risk truly living.

However, by baptism, there is also another you to you, too! And that is the new creature that truly Lives in you! The new Adam or the new Eve. And this new creature is raised up from the corpse of the old you every time.

The new you in you lives not by its own designs but by faith. Faith! As such, that new creature really lives! In fact, the new you in you is so alive that it will stake its life for another a hundred times over! Why, this new you in you is so bursting with vitality that it’s not afraid to look Death square in the eye, either!

And that’s a good thing, too! Because guess what? Death is not as scary as it looks! In fact, Death is now a sorry sight! 

Death has dealt a death blow! Christ’s resurrection, you ought to know, did not concern Christ alone! Why, nothing could be further from the truth! In all truth, Christ’s resurrection had cosmic repercussions! Christ, by his resurrection, has wounded Death unto death. 

Yes, Death may still wreck havoc. But that’s nothing more than the fit of a defeated despot. Death does all the damage it can now because Death’s days have been numbered. And now, it’s only a matter of time. Moreover, in Christ, the alpha and the omega, time is short!

Christ isn’t sitting up in heaven! No, he is even now tying up Death. In fact, in these words, and your subsequent faith, Christ is doing Death dirty all over again!

So, say the word. Trample your uneasiness and the old foe, too! Isn’t that what Dumbledore taught Harry to do to defeat Voldemort? You’ll be interested to learn, by the way, that morte in Voldemort comes from the French word for death. 

But anyway, let’s do it. Shall we? Let’s exercise a little power. On the count of three, let’s all say death together. Ok?

And remember, you’re not alone here. We’re all saying this with each other. And I won’t look away, either. But best of all, the Holy Spirit will get loose and flex a little muscle among us in the process, to boot!

So, here we go. On the count of three. One, two, three. Say it: Death.

There. Now, hopefully, that word has lost a little of its power. Because in Christ, Death has lost all its power! Death is no longer deathly!

…You know what, though? And this might surprise you, but St. Paul himself reverts to a little of the talking around I mentioned earlier! This is lost in translation, but when Paul talks about death he doesn’t say the actual word. Instead, he uses a euphemism. 

It was, of all people, the Corinthians who were using the word death. When Paul quotes their position, he says, “the resurrection of the dead.” And that’s the technical term, nekron. Dead. But, when Paul speaks for himself, he  applies a metaphor, fallen asleep. 

In fact, you can kind of hear this in our translation. When our Scripture reads “resurrection of the dead,” that’s what the Corinthians were saying. And when it says “died,” that’s what Paul said. But Paul didn’t say died. No, what he literally said was, “fallen asleep.” A common Greek colloquialism. 

And that difference captures all the difference between St. Paul and the Corinthians. You might remember that the Corinthians desired, above all else, to be refined in all manner of things. The Corinthians were anxious to exhibit their wealth. And they were all too happy to demonstrate their intellect, too. 

As such, they had their misgivings when it came to the odd matter of the resurrection of the dead. The Corinthians were not interested in superstition. They wanted to look at the world with unvarnished clarity. They could handle it. Accordingly, to the Corinthians’ ears, the resurrection of the dead sounded like a bunch of hooey. 

Perhaps the Corinthians interpreted the resurrection of the dead as an analogy for the immortality of the soul. Or maybe they held to a realized eschatology. In other words, maybe the Corinthians considered themselves practitioners of a sort of “resurrection life,” as it were. We can’t be sure. 

What we can be sure of, though, is that the Corinthians were not impressed when it came to the resurrection of the dead. Paul’s insistence on the rising of physical bodies struck them as altogether crude. And the Corinthians, for their part, were urbane. They fancied themselves astute enough to conclude that when a body is buried, that’s that.

Christ, they deduced, was for the here and now. Christ could help you lead a good life. And, presumably, he could even assist in accommodating yourself to the cold hard fact of our inevitable end. But beyond that— well, there was nothing to be done beyond that.

…St. Paul, though, for his part, considered all the Corinthians’ so-called sophistication just a bunch of pious godlessness! In fact, as far as Paul can tell, it’s the Corinthians, not him, who were being naive! Furthermore, if anyone blanched in the face of Death, it was the Corinthians. 

In point of fact, Paul does use the technical term for death. And as a matter of fact, he does so just three short verses after our passage. “I die daily,” Paul says. And the word he uses is nekron, dead!

St. Paul isn’t afraid to say the word death. He’s just not about to use it in the wrong way! It’s not that the terrible word sticks in Paul’s throat. It’s that now, on account of Christ, Death is no longer all that deadly!

In Christ, “fallen asleep” is now the most accurate term to describe what happens when we biologically die! On account of Christ and his resurrection, your death now turns out to be nothing more than a little nap! And we could all use a little rest. Couldn’t we?

You might remember that Jesus himself used the very same term, too. Didn’t he? When Jesus was told that Lazarus had died, Jesus replied his friend had merely fallen asleep. And when Jairus, a leader of the synagogue, told Jesus he didn’t need to bother coming to heal his daughter since she had died while he was en route, Jesus just said that the child was not dead but sleeping.

Both of these responses occasioned confusion. And even outright derision. However, after Jesus raised both of them from the dead, no one was laughing anymore. Or, more accurately, now they were really laughing! Their mourning had turned to joy. 

Christ was right! Wasn’t he? The dead are just sleeping!

This, by the way, is why we put “R.I.P.” on tombstones. Rest in peace. Rest! In Christ, all those laid to rest in the hope of the resurrection are doing just that, merely resting! In light of the resurrection, your death is now nothing more than a rest stop on the way to Life eternal!

And in the meantime, the death that really matters is the one that comes before our hearts stop beating and the neurons in our brains cease to fire. In other words, I’m talking about the kind of death Paul dies daily. The death of the old creature. The death of that old Adam or old Eve that clutches its own sad approximation of life with a death grip that kills everything it comes into contact with, including itself.

…The Corinthians thought they were hard-boiled realists. But all they really were was a bunch of ‘fraidy cats! They ran every time Death stepped on the scene. And Paul could tell, too! After all, if they had ever dared to look in their tomb, they would have found it to be perfectly empty!

The Corinthians assumed, and we all know what happens when you assume, but anyway, the Corinthians assumed that when Death stepped on the scene, it was curtains. And in a way, it was. But not curtain closing! 

No, whenever Death steps on the scene, it’s really opening-curtain! Opening-curtain on eternity! It’s the opening curtain on the Life that really is life!

But the Corinthians never saw that! And they never saw that because they were always too afraid to look! The Corinthians averted their gaze every time Death showed up. As such, they missed the show! 

And, o, what a show it is! 

It’s a pity the Corinthians never brought themselves to really take a cold hard look at Death. But it’s not a pity in that they chickened out. It’s a pity in the truest sense of the word! 

The pity of it all is that the Corinthians never really lived! In granting Death a place of finality, the Corinthians conceded the horizon of their life. As such, they never really experienced the real thing.

…In this series, we’ve been calling it a self-continuity project. But you could just as well call it a corpse-management plan. Either way, it all boils down to a scheme to manage your death. 

Because so long as Death defines the program, your life will always be nothing more than a series of never-ending attempts to forestall that infernal skunk! And while there may be a place for that, it’s a sorry excuse for the real deal. To have no greater goal than evading the next threat is to never really experience what makes life worth living. 

Sisters and brothers, Christ has come that you might have Life! And have it abundantly! Christ hasn’t saved you just to leave you in the lurch. No, he’s saved you to really set you free! And if the Son of Man sets you free, you SHALL be free indeed!

Christ has pulled you to the far side of Death! You no longer live with Death ahead of you! No, now it is forever behind you! And the life you now live is hidden in Christ with the eternity he always carries along with him!

Your death and life, in that order, is lived by faith in the Son of God! And that means the source of your life is outside of yourself! The source of your life is where faith resides! The source of your life is in Jesus Christ himself!

You don’t live to yourself anymore! No, now your life is lived in Christ Jesus! Christ Jesus, who lives in and among and through YOU!

Christ didn’t circumnavigate Death. No, he went right through that final foe! And when Death did its worst, Christ didn’t blink, either! No, he rode that beast all the way down to the abysmal end. But there, right where Death’s furious futility was finally and fully unleashed, Christ planted his flag of victory!

Now, when you find yourself there— because we all do. Don’t we? But anyway, when you find yourself at ground zero for the chaos and destruction of Death, you will actually be standing on holy ground, that firm foundation where faith is found every time!

And the new you that will walk away from the collision, because you will, will be a truly new you! A new you that holds life loosely. A new you that loves more fiercely! A new you that dares to risk it all. And a new you that, even when the cards don’t come out in your favor, doesn’t lose faith.

…We all know Death doesn’t just cease to exist anymore. Don’t we? The mystery of it, though, is that now the site of death is precisely where Christ brings his victory to bear! Death is now where eternity springs forth! And death is now where you come to capital-L Life to all that!

Yes, Death may have outstayed its welcome. But now Death’s has lost its sting! When Christ rose from the dead, he knocked out all of Death’s teeth! Now, Death has lost its bite! And that’s right where you and I finally find our voice!

And so, let’s give that new creature in us full reign! In faith, let’s lift our voices and sing a victory song! A hymn of praise to Christ and his victory over Death!

Alleluia! Jesus Is Risen!, ELW 377