Call Me Ishmael

For in death there is no remembrance of you; in Sheol who will give you praise? -- Psalms 6:5

This is one of those verses that I read and sort of footnote as I go along.  That was an Old Testament, limited understanding that viewed our status when we die as becoming something like “shades”, similar, perhaps, to the belief of the Greeks.  Death has lost its sting in the New Testament revelation of Christ’s resurrection.  The grave or sheol is no longer victorious.  Christ conquered death, hell, and the grave for us so that we need no longer live in fear.  

Of course, all that is true; suppose, though, we turn the verse around a little.  Where there is no remembrance of God is death.  Where there is no praise of God is Sheol.  The living dead walk among us, for … we were dead in our trespasses … (Ephesians 2:5).  Jesus told those Sadducees who challenged Him about the resurrection:  Now he is not God of the dead, but of the living, for all live to him (Luke 20:38). 

The other verse I read this morning that struck me was Genesis 16:13-14 where God speaks with Hagar and shows her a well to save herself and her son.  Ishmael means “God hears”.  Hagar calls the well she found “beer-lahai-roi” which means “the well of the living one who sees me”.  The living God sees me; He hears me.  So long as I remember Him and keep in mind that He sees and hears me, I will live.  To live is to live to Him.

I often live in a mindset of death.  If I think of God at all, I may think of Him only in His transcendence.  I may think of Him as someone I have to call into the situation, as the ultimate non-local 911 Operator who gets a call and punches up some help for me.  No, He is the living One who sees me.  Though it is incomprehensible to me, He is as immanent as He is transcendent.  All I have to do is remember Him, for He always remembers me.

Threading the Needle

For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. -- Philippians 1:21

The words Paul uses are related to money and profit.  It you have sufficient capital you can live on the interest.  The greatest riches imaginable are ours in Christ.  Here is capital to provide a more than sufficient living, an abundant living.  

It also works if we turn it around and recognize that while we live in this world, it is we who belong to Christ as His servants over whom He rules but also for whom He obligates Himself to provide and for whom He cares.

The second part of the Apostle’s thought is perhaps even more compelling.  The carnally minded have invested everything in this world and this life.  Death, to the worldling, may be seen as an implacable enemy to be held off and frustrated as long as possible.  It means the loss of all that is familiar, comfortable, and hopeful. 

As Christians the truth is that we not only lose nothing when our time here ends, we gain because we are no longer receiving merely our stipend or our living but our full inheritance of and in Christ.  You can think about someone who has set up a trust for his heirs.  Their access is limited until they are of a specified age, perhaps 18 or 25, after which they have full access.  They gain by passing that milestone.   

On the one hand the carnal mind considers the trials, pains, losses, and sufferings of life against the darkness of death and recoils.  After all, as the Preacher said, a living dog is better than a dead lion (Ecclesiastes 9:4), and to cling to the known, however desperate and grim, is better than the black leap into oblivion.  On the other hand, life without hope can become an unbearable burden and the prospect of any kind of surcease is embraced.  Thus the natural man must sail carefully between Scylla and Charybdis. 

The contrast is that, instead of a choice between the lesser of two evils, the Christian is “caught” between goods:  the joys of life in Christ on earth with all of its hope and adventure, and the perfection of glory, the fulfillment of all hope when we see the Lord face to face.  Passing through the door of death, at the Lord’s call, we leave all temptation, sorrow, grief and pain behind us.  We have duties and callings and purpose while we are here.  When those are done, like the faithful workman at day’s end, we receive our reward and our rest. 

Planting the Corn

Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. – John 12:24

Twice yesterday from very different sources this metaphor came up.  I decided I should probably consider it.  

A seed typically has the actual germ surrounded by something that protects, feeds, and sustains it.  The germ is transformed into the new plant, while the seed coat provides the initial nourishment that allows the sprout to break through into the light.  In the process, the body of the seed is consumed.  Without the dying and decay of the seed body, there will be no new life, no growth, no bloom, no fruit, no harvest. 

There are wealthy individuals today funding research they hope will extend their lives and perhaps even grant them immortality.  I find this sort of desperation poignantly amusing.  Observe an elderly person in good health, especially one in good spiritual health, and you will catch a glimpse of immortality.  Like a bean from which the germ has sprouted, the body of such a person is diminishing, but something about that one is stretching up toward the light of heaven.

A sower went out to sow …  the kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter wheat on the ground …

God planted a garden. 

Imagine that a grain of barley became self-aware.  What would that seed think of being buried, of having clods thrown upon his head, of the darkness in which he lay, of the rains violating him and breaking open his body?  Would not our little barley seed (shall we call him John?) think himself sorely tried and troubled?  Would he not possibly suffer great fear and anguish entombed in his dark dungeon?  Would he not rejoice when he saw, at last, his destiny?

John Barleycorn (must die).

Falling Asleep

But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, 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 fallen asleep. -- 1 Thessalonians 4:13-14

I've talked about this before, but I've had several people I know pass on recently.  A couple of my older cousins died in the last two week.  A lot of us still have burials and even when we do cremations, a lot of times we have a viewing of our loved one looking as though they are asleep.  Our image of death takes on the association of unconsciousness.  The Bible uses this figure of speech.  Jesus spoke of death as sleep.  It was common in Greek thought as well.

Does it mean, though, that a person knows nothing and is in oblivion until the Resurrection?  Jesus raised several people from the dead, most notably Lazarus (John 11), but there are few reports on the subject prior to what we call today "near death experiences".  There is now a whole body of literature containing reports of those who were pronounced dead but were resuscitated.  More recent studies in this area seem to confirm that people were aware of what was happening around them and had perspectives and information gleamed from being momentarily separated from their dying physical bodies.  Although I believe without question that the spirit of an individual lives on when the person departs the physical body, I remain skeptical about the nature of NDEs, for the most part. 

If I go back to the Bible, however, I see a story Jesus told about a rich man and a beggar named Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31).  These men were dead but were aware of their conditions, the one in torment and the other in ease and comfort.  The rich man in hell is certainly aware of Lazarus and his much better situation.  He is also concerned that his still-living brothers do not suffer the same fate as he.

Another passage, 1 Peter 3:19, speaks of Jesus preaching to "the spirits in prison".  There has long been debate and doubt as to what Peter was describing.  Did he mean that, between His death and resurrection, Jesus proclaimed Himself and His gospel to those had failed to heed the warnings of Noah?  Augustine suggests that Christ was present in the preaching of Noah, but in any case, those "spirits in prison" appear to be consciously aware of their state.

What I know for certain is that Jesus is alive right now.  I know that we do not pass into oblivion when we die, that physical death is not the end but a transition.  I know that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord (2 Corinthians 5:6-8) -- and not just present, but "at home" with the Lord, abiding with Him forever.

So, if I'm home with my wife and one of the kids calls and talks to her, when she gets off the phone, she will often tell me in detail what was said.  Why would we think it would be any different for those who are right now at home with the Lord, if we pray, speaking to Him?  I find it comforting to know that the friends and family members who have passed beyond the horizon of my earthly, physical vision may, at the very least, hear news of me through Christ.

As far as I am concerned, that is the least controversial and debatable view.  I know there are those who believe in "soul sleep" and a great white throne judgment when all will be awakened, raised, and separated.  I think it is a mixing of concepts about what constitutes resurrection, but I would not want to fall out with anyone over it.  I think "soul sleep" is confusing what happens to the body that "sleeps" in death with what happens to the spirit and the conscious soul.   I would add that even in sleep, we dream. 

No, those who have "fallen asleep" are more alive and awake than ever.  Perhaps there are those who were not quite ready for the full presence of Christ at death and who must undergo a sifting in what some call purgatory.  I do not know about that, but I would not be surprised that it is true.  Those who reject Christ and reject truth must pass into hell for they would find neither peace nor place in heaven. 

But there are many right now experiencing the fullness of eternal life, joy, love, peace, and understanding.  The pains and fears of their past material existence are forgotten or transformed.  Perhaps they are overwhelmed with the richness and beauty and glory of it all, yet I do not think the mother forgets the child or the father the son.  The man does not forget his wife.  I doubt seriously a good man forgets his hounds or his horse, and I know the dog will not forget his master. 

God's Garden

As for man, his days are like grass;

he flourishes like a flower of the field;

for the wind passes over it, and it is gone,

and its place knows it no more. --Psalm 103:15-16

I have heard many times that we are born to live forever somewhere.  This is usually in the context of a message about salvation.  We will live forever in heaven with the Lord, or, if we reject Him, be confined forever to hell.  It’s true that life does not end with the death of our physical bodies, but it is equally true and certain that we will die, that “…this mortal body must put on immortality” (1 Corinthians 15:53).

Paul may well have had this passage from Psalm 103 and similar ones in mind as he wrote the words of what we think of as the fifteenth chapter of his letter.  A person’s life on this material plane is very much like a flower that grows to blossom and fade.  Some seem to be convinced that is all there is.  Others believe that the resemblance to the flower’s cycle is more metaphorical, that the husk of our bodies contain the seed of something greater than what we see now. 

If you think about it, not all seeds are viable.  As one who saves seeds from various plants like beans, melons, and squash, I find that some seeds don’t germinate at all.  Others produce less than ideal fruit.  One of the problems is often cross-pollination.  Gardeners sometimes do not realize that watermelon, cucumbers and cantaloupe are capable of crossing with one another, or that having different varieties of squash growing together will likely result in less than ideal crops the following season.  Being set out with adequate separation prevents the loss of viability through undesirable crosses.  Perhaps there is a lesson for us. 

What grows from a seed very much depends upon what went into it.  The husk that encases it matters only in that is properly protects the life inside and does not overly hamper its sprouting.  Even though an acorn looks vastly different from a bean, the real difference is not in the outward appearance but the inner living matter.  In us, that is the spirit and the Living Word: 

The grass withers, the flower fades when the breath of the LORD blows on it; surely the people are grass.  The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever (Isaiah 40:7-8).

It’s not that this life is not important.  I have struggled with that.  What does my life here matter?  If that spiritual seed is going to be healthy, acceptable, and valid, the life I live here has to absorb the power of the Light.  I have to live upon and incorporate the Truth as a plant draws in the elements of vegetative life from the soil, sun, and air, that when the husk of my physical body is sown, the seed will prove to be pure, genuine, and true.

       

The Cross and the Single Christian

For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. -- 1 Corinthians 1:18

The truth has a tendency to interfere with our fun, so we think.  The cross, in particular, seems to be a challenge for us to accept.  One of the things that adds to our struggle is the disdain in which so many around us hold the reality of Christ crucified.  Man wants to be able to figure out his own way of living, control his own destiny, and find his own way of salvation.  The cross empties human ambition and achievements of their glory. 

When we receive the gospel and the light that it gives, we begin to see the transience of so much that enraptured us in the past.   What we thought vital when in darkness is seen through and understood as no longer having significance.  As worldly wise we perhaps valued the acclaim of the crowd and the cachet of our positions and possessions.  Seen from the perspective of the cross and eternity, the crowd is made up of fickle fools and all that we have is dissolving in rust and ruin. 

It does seem like foolishness when we look at how God wants to save the world through blood and death and suffering.  The intellectual stumbles upon this and calls it accursed by his rejection of it.  How can one save his life by losing it?  How can we be unburdened by bearing the cross?  How can we be righteous by laying aside our own righteousness? 

Here is God becoming weak, taking on flesh and submitting Himself to an ignominious death, crucified as a slave and criminal.  Yet in this death is life, and through this apparent weakness is the ultimate revelation of God in all His might and power and wisdom and glory.

Mankind was enslaved and held captive by death.  I’m sure I do not have a full understanding of what that means, but I can see that life appeared to be defeated by death.  This dark terminus marked all our efforts, all our ideas, all of our intellect and understanding as futile for the individual. 

Apart from Christ, death makes a mockery of you and I as persons.  We are meaningless.  The only thing that matters in a Christ-less world is our genetic material and our contributions to the perpetuation of the species.  And even that, if we look far enough, is vanity, as the Preacher would say. 

The Cross shows us the death, so to speak, of death.  To God it is the individual who matters most of all.  Nations, tribes, peoples, races, ethnic groups, the human race itself – these are the transitory.  

Jesus lives.

You will live forever.  I will live forever.  This truth puts the lie to the idea of “the greater good”, of a merely Darwinian and natural survival of our species.  Christianity is anti-statist, anti-collectivist. 

As Christians we practice love and kindness and goodness and forgiveness, not to the tribe or the nation or the race, but to the neighbor, to my sister and my brother.  God doesn’t save Rome.  He saves a Roman, and another, and another  … because nations pass away but the soul of a man never dies.