23rd Sunday after Pentecost 4.11.12 Death
Death is not meant to be part of our world but it has encroached upon us. See how much of our attention is taken up with news of someone dying, attending funerals, visiting cemeteries, daily news of death in various forms.
Death is very much part of the way we live, and has a huge effect on us. We can joke about it; philosophise about it; but we all wish there were no such thing. It is not meant to be there; it is alien to our nature.
It is alien to God’s nature too. It is not His preferred way of doing business!
But because of sin our link with the perfect source of life, God Himself, has been ruptured.
Death became necessary, partly as a punishment, and partly as a mechanism for correcting things, bringing us back to life.
It serves a purpose but it is limited in its power. The miracles of Our Lord prove His mastery over death and foreshadow its ultimate disappearance.
The two miracles in today’s Gospel remind us of Our Lord’s perfect humanity, imparting life to all who come in contact with Him.
If sin is the cause of death we could also say death is the cause of sin. The first sin leads to death and other disorder. In that position we are tempted to further confusion and despair and more sin follows... more death... more sin. Until we can break the chain of cause and effect.
We cannot avoid physical death which is already set in place, but we can take the sting out of death by removing the sin. The sting of death is sin.
If we remove the sin the physical death is no more than falling asleep. She is asleep (the daughter of Jairus). And Our Lord says the same about Lazarus.
Most people do not come back to life as quickly as those two, but the dead will be reawakened.
It is fair to say that we give death too much importance and too much power.
Too much importance in that we (as a society) use it as a measure of everything, eg how many people were killed in such and such an accident or disaster. It is important certainly when people die, but it is not the only thing at stake. Our faith tells us that the state of a person’s soul is far more important than the life or death of the body.
Too much power in that we are afraid of death. We think that avoiding death is all that matters. We grieve too much over it; and we let it cause us to lose hope. Death is like a black hole which swallows us up; takes away the future. How many people think it is the end, literally the end of existence.
Whereas we can be so much in union with Our Lord that we hardly notice the movement from this phase of life to the next. Our true homeland is in heaven (epistle).
The most crucial thing is to stop sinning which is death-dealing to ourselves.
We discover life as we do this. The less sin we commit the more alive we become.
We take all reasonable steps to stay alive. Be careful crossing the road. Watch what you eat etc.
But, far more, we give attention to the way we live; to whether or not we are in union with the will of God.
That is real life, not just biological life. The life of grace, the platform from which we can step into heaven without too much of an upheaval.
And death has lost its sting.
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