heaven descends

like a bright chandelier

 

 

Sermon on malaria and Revelation 13:31-35.

April 25 was World Malaria Day. A day dedicated to raising awareness and resources to help end this completely preventable disease. To participate in this day we will be doing a few special things.

First, after this sermon we will take a special offering.

Second, we are going to watch a video on the ELCA's most recent campaign to address Malaria. It is also worth noting the work they are beginning is in Uganda, Africa, where our own Amy Petersen is working in a school for children suffering from HIV/AIDS. For a reflection from Amy about the impact of malaria she has witnessed, I invite you to turn your malaria bulletin insert over and read what she has to say.

 

*Now let's watch the video.*

Bishop Bvumbe's optimism is great.

 

Now, there is one last and third thing we are going to do to recognize World Malaria Day.

As the video noted, Malaria is contracted when a person is infected with a parasite from a mosquito bite. And as the video pointed out, children are particularly vulnerable to this disease, as are the elderly and the poor.

 

To help us grasp just how deadly malaria, this treatable and preventable disease is,

we're going to strike a note every sixty seconds.

We are doing this because every sixty seconds a child dies in Africa.

Will you begin us, Hal (Trinity Lutheran's musician)?

Now I don't know about you, but when I think about the impact that Malaria has in the world, two things happen to me.

The first is that I think how terribly wrong it is that people would still die from a disease that is preventable and treatable.

The other thing that happens, though, is that when I hear that a child, a child, dies every sixty seconds; I think that the problem is just too big.

In fact, it is estimated that nearly half of the world's population is at risk of contracting malaria. Half!

When you realize that this is a problem for half of the population, it is easy to think there is just nothing we can do, that the problem is just too big.

Or when we think about the scope of this problem, perhaps the cynical side of our nature comes out, perhaps we think calloused things such as, these diseases must just be how God controls the population...

What a terrible thing!

When we think a problem is too big, rather than putting our own God-given abilities to work solving the problem, we put all those deaths on God. We blame God, the creator, the author of life!

It is then, when we find ourselves going down these dark roads, trying to let ourselves off the hook by blaming God, that the writer of Revelation is especially helpful.

Let us listen to how the writer of revelation describes just how God controls the population.

"God will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more."

*Death. Will. Be. No. More*

This is how God controls the population, by overcoming death, by giving life to all.

That, that is good news.

That, that is refusing to blame God.

That, that is trusting, dear sisters and brothers.

Imagine it, that writer of Revelations, stranded on that island, an island the author has been exiled to.

There, there in that forsaken place, the author has a vision.

The author sees God, the author is allowed to glimpse into the heavenly court.

This person who has found themselves exiled, this person who has every reason to give up hope, has a vision.

And more miraculous still, the author dares to write that vision.

And most miraculously, the author dares to do something even more than write that vision down.

The author trusts these words.

"Write this," declares God, "for these words are trustworthy and true."

This believer, this person who is exiled, hears these words and trusts.

Let's just imagine it.

Imagine you're exiled. Exiled because of you follow the risen Lord.

And there, stranded on that island, you have a vision.

A vision where God declares that God will triumph, that God will make all things new, give water to all who thirst.

Given the circumstances it would not be easy to write those words down, and harder yet would it be to trust, to believe the voice of God while living in exile.

It would be much easier to hear those words as a cruel joke, or to toss that vision aside as some sort of stress-induced dream.

But the author does something incredible, the author trusts God's voice. Despite all the evidence to the contrary, the writer decided that the words worth trusting are the words of God.

This, this is an example of faith, sisters and brothers.

Admittedly, It would not be an easy task for any, the life of faith rarely is.

But that incredible, challenging work of trusting, trusting even when it seems there is no reason to trust, is frankly the tension every follower of the risen Lord finds themselves in anyway...

The thing is, as Christians we live in between the tension of the already and the not yet.

Already our Lord and savior has broken the bonds of death, but not yet has the work been completed.

Or as the author of Revelations writes, already is the home of God among mortals, among you and me, and among the people of Africa; but not yet have the things of old passed away.

Already and not yet.

We live as if someone has whispered an incredible secret into our ears, an incredible, by the way, secret that hasn't completely come true yet.

So those of us who've heard the whisper must make a decision: do we trust the one who declares these things to us, changing our entire world; or do we let the bleak environment of our exile have the last word?

 

Yes, the life of faith is a life in tension, it is a life amidst paradox.

But it is not a journey we make alone, and in fact God has given us many examples to learn from. The life between the tensions, is a life similar to that author of Revelation.

What the author's example leaves us with is one that even as we are exiled to the not yet, we dare to proclaim the already, we dare to trust that the not yet will pass away and the life without death, without tears and mourning and pain will pass away.

That is what we're called to do, sisters and brothers.

We're called to look into big problems, such as all those killed by malaria, and declare - declare in word AND deed, that death will not have the last word.

God does.

Yes, it is a hard thing to do.

It is hard to trust, but trust we try.

Trust, we try.

That is, after-all, why we gather here again and again, week in and week out.

The trusting is hard, so again we come; come to hear that the home of God is among mortals,

come to hear that death will be no more,

come to hear that death doesn't have the last word,

but rather that God, the author of life, has the last word.

Yes sisters and brothers, we've heard the tone struck many times, too many times.

And yes sisters and brothers, the problem seems to be too big.

But, NO!

No, we do not give up hope.

No we do not let death have the last word.

When we find ourselves exiled to a place where death all too often seems to reign,

God comes to dwell with us.

When we find ourselves tempted to think that the problem is too big,

God declares that death will be no more.

When we find ourselves beginning to doubt these words,

God proclaims,

write these words, for they are trustworthy and true.

Today we gather with so many others to declare that it is a tragedy that a disease that is preventable and curable still takes too many, takes any lives.

Today we gather to declare that, although we've made much progress, the journey ahead is still long.

 

Today we gather to declare that we will not give up hope, that we will continue to journey with our members such as Amy, and our sisters and brothers in Africa, because the God who wipes away our tears, will vanquish death.

Today we gather to stand in the tension that so many faithful have stood in before us.

We do this because these words and trustworthy and true.

Amen