Sunday, November 24, 2019

The Supper Lesson Two


The Supper

Josiah Tilton

West Side church of Christ

November 24, 2019

 


Lesson Two

  Moms Dads and Death





The people of Israel were a storied people. They depended on their stories for faith, encouragement, strength, and the will to go on. The many years spent in Egyptian exile were tolerable only because their fathers, mothers and grandparents rehearsed for them the great stories of Jehovah’s promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. They heard that their father, Joseph, had been the second most powerful man in Egypt at one time and that God had put him in that position. They heard and believed the wonderful stories of Adam and Eve, Noah, and the flood. The promises had been spoken to them over and over again, as the stories of the ancients were told and retold. They not only heard, but they memorized the stories so they could tell them to their children and their children’s children. In the stories was their hope.
How the stories were expressed or even embellished we are not told. As we read the scriptures we see only snippets. The accounts are not as complete as we would like. There are many details that are left to our “individual” imaginations. As you read the story of the Noah flood you may picture the ark as being built with a dark, rich looking wood, while I see it as a bleached yellow. If you read much about the wood and the word describing it, you will understand that there is no consensus and no one is certain what kind of wood the ark was made of. Gopher wood is…what? No one today really knows. So, your imaginative picture of it is just as good as that of anyone else.  You may picture the animals gently entering the ark in a quiet two by two processional, while someone else sees it a bit more chaotic, with quacks, roars and trumpeting so loud that orders had to be shouted and large prods used to direct the animals. City dwellers will see things differently and might not think of the problems associated with feeding and cleaning up after the animals, while the farmers among us will most certainly think of the great efforts that would have to be expended in order to see to it that the animals were well cared for. Our imaginations are not condemned by God, but rather are given by God and they are extremely useful in our study of the Bible and our hope for the future. Through the stories and our imaginations, we put ourselves there sometimes as observers, at other times as participants. We enjoy the stories, which are rich and full, seeing truth and real life through them, and within them we get a clearer picture of God, and certainly of our weak, little selves…
So, as we look at the Israelites in their Egyptian slave condition, we visualize them through our mind’s eye and, often, even place ourselves in the midst of the story. We see the taskmasters whipping one who is old and infirm and unable to keep up. They beat him because he is not working as hard as they would like. Perhaps we see them beat him into unconsciousness and we long to jump in and stop the evil one. We imagine ourselves as being empowered by God to overcome the taskmaster and put him in his place; perhaps beating him to within an inch of his life. We picture justice and salvation.
With this in mind, imagine having been in slavery for over four-hundred years. Things would have gotten so bad that the Pharaoh was even telling the mothers and fathers, the midwives, and his soldiers that if a boy child was born he must be put to death. If you put yourself in the picture, you watch as day after day your friends and neighbors have their babies taken from them and murdered; some of them right before their very eyes. You see mothers trying to overcome the vicious taskmasters as they tear her baby from her arm. She reaches, cries, screams, and finally falls to the ground pushed into the dirt by her agony. For weeks, perhaps months after, you watch as mothers refuse to smile because of the pain of having seen their baby boy dashed against a tree or rock by taskmasters who cared nothing for the people they ruled over.
In the more mundane moments, you taste the meager food offered to you and the rest of the Israelites by the cruel Egyptians and your stomach turns. Day after miserable day you look heavenward for relief, but no relief comes and hearts continue to be crushed as babies are killed, old men are beaten and stomachs are only half filled with tasteless and nutritionless food. Your muscles ache because of the difficulty of the work poured on you every day; no weekends off; no vacations; no sick days! You glance heavenward again, but those glances become less and less as the expected deliverer fails to show. You go to your home, dog tired every night and your grandfather starts to tell the stories. Eventually you might stop listening, just turn your back, and go to bed.
“Promises?”  You might think. “What good are unfulfilled promises?”
These kinds of thoughts are some that we all seem to struggle with from time to time. We find ourselves faced with a great trial and our first thought is to fall on our knees and ask the Father for help. What we want is for the trial to be taken away. The pain may be overwhelming, or the grief, or the loneliness. We seek relief asking, praying, begging, and even making deals: “Father, if you grant me this I’ll do…”
Day after day the struggles continue and somehow you manage to get through them, but you end up bone-weary and drained. It may just be that you fall into bed at night, not really to sleep, because what comes is fitful at best, but just to escape for a little while. You try to keep thoughts of the day out of your mind, but they creep in and fill your head so that even the respite of sleep is taken away. You rise early the next morning just as tired as when you went to bed and dread what the day before you holds.
We have a couple at church who have gone through just such a thing. They were a normal couple. Their two boys were growing, giving them good times, filling their house with laughter and pleasure. They were blessed with those holiday joys at Christmas time when the boys would wake early, begin tearing into the presents, whooping with laughter at the toys and pouting when some article of clothing happened to get into the mix. There were other special times too. The last day of school; trick or treating; company, family, and friends at Thanksgiving. They enjoyed the birthdays, the candles lit and blown out – sometimes more than once, just for the fun of it.
They were looking forward to their oldest son’s graduation from high school. Of course, it was mixed with a touch of melancholy; their baby growing up, becoming a man, and leaving home for college; these were all in their thoughts. Still they were happy that he was reaching the milestone of High School graduation.
As that day drew near, there was a change in their son. Slight, at first, then more pronounced. They were concerned. Wondering; perhaps dreading. The doctor ordered tests and then more tests. The joy of graduation ebbed and the fear began to seep in.
Leukemia! What!? NO! Please!! Dear God no! Please no!
Treatment started and the young man, just graduated began to face the great battle. Nothing was easy then not for anyone in the family. Mom and dad were trying to be there for their sick child and still be there for the one who was well. They watched their oldest as the treatments took their toll. He lost weight, was bone weary and weakened horribly. He was hospitalized. Tubes, needles, drips and medicines were now normal fare.
Mom and dad prayed and asked us to pray too. We did. Hundreds, if not thousands of prayers went up to the Father. The bulletins sent out to all members and former members carried their name and asked for us to plead with the Father for relief and healing. News spread to the other churches and many of them who knew the family and many who didn’t, prayed.
“Oh God, who freed the Israelites and left the bodies of the Egyptian soldiers in the Red Sea; Oh God of all mercy, who offered your one and only Son to be the sacrifice for us; Oh God who raised the dead and took away the sicknesses and gave sight to the blind; Oh God of love and mercy, hear us.”
Daily prayers and multiple prayers daily were offered.
News came. REMISSION! Clouds moved away, the sun came out, joy filled the hearts, hugs were given and praise offered to the God who answered prayer. Soon their son was back home with them, and when they brought him to the assembly of the church we saw smiles that had long been missing. There was rejoicing, great rejoicing as fear was replaced by hope and health… But it didn’t last.
The remission left as quickly as it came and the disease gripped him once again. During the next several months there were two or three remissions, but always, in spite of the bent knees, the promises and the prayers, the dreaded enemy returned.
The day came when the doctors told the family they couldn’t do anything more for their son. There would be no cure and hope was no longer an option. They knew what the Doctor said was true, yet wanting, wishing, begging:
“Please. Isn’t there something out there? Some new medicine? Something that you haven’t thought of?
I cannot look into the hearts of the mom and dad, but I can think that there were times when they wondered where God was. They believed He had the power. They had heard and read all the stories. Perhaps they were spending a lot of time in the Psalms in those very dark days:
Answer me when I call, O God of my righteousness!
    You have given me relief when I was in distress.
    Be gracious to me and hear my prayer!   4:1 ESV
Or
My soul is cast down within me;
    
therefore I remember you
from the land of Jordan and of Hermon,
    
from Mount Mizar.
Deep calls to deep
    
at the roar of your waterfalls;
all your breakers and your waves
    
have gone over me.
By day the Lord commands his steadfast love,
    
and at night his song is with me,
    
a prayer to the God of my life.
I say to God, my rock:
    
“Why have you forgotten me?
Why do I go mourning
    
because of the oppression of the enemy?”
As with a deadly wound in my bones,
    
my adversaries taunt me,
while they say to me all the day long,
    
“Where is your God?”  
42:6-10 ESV

As I sat in the funeral and watched them, I could see their eyes red from crying, down-looking, even a bit hollow. You could tell that they were seeing, but not comprehending. They went through the motions, but their hearts were being buried with the coffin and they were left empty.
I can just imagine the faith issues they struggled with as they wondered where God was, why had He failed to answer? And yet, the next Sunday morning came and there they were. They walked in slowly, moving toward their usual spot. They attempted to smile as folks stopped them and offered condolences. They would nod and their eyes would fill with tears and they would move ahead, eager to be seated so they didn’t have to speak to anyone else.
We watched them as the worship hour began; the heartbroken family who had battled so long and prayed so hard and ended up with one child dead… that family...opened their songbooks and sang praises to God.
I don’t know if their faith was ebbing, but I do know I was made stronger by seeing them. Their faith through the trials must have made them stronger for they came out the far end with a greater determination to follow their God. I imagined them speaking much as David did when he knew his first child with Bathsheba was dead:
“While the child was still alive, I fasted and wept, for I said, ‘Who knows whether the Lord will be gracious to me, that the child may live?’ But now he is dead. Why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he will not return to me.”
And as I imagined this I was made stronger. Their trials, their pain, their heartache reached into the lives of many around them and made others stronger. How strange, how sad, and yet how wonderful; their pain and I am made stronger! And there are others in odd circumstances that also cause us to wonder at the purpose and question the whys of this strange world and the God we worship.
There is strength among us, but there is also pain all around. The following is about another couple from our church and what they know about pain and loss.
Imagine. You are a bit older in life, even have grown children. You visit the doctor and he tells you you’re going to have a child. At first you want to cry in disbelief! What?! Not at this age. No, no. Grandkids O.K., but not a baby of our own. You’re even a bit embarrassed to share the news with brethren. Still, after a little while you come around and the excitement begins. This won’t be a bad thing. As we age we can give him or her more. We have most of our bills paid off and we have a little cash in the bank. The child will keep us young and we can see life brand new again through his or her eyes. With each passing month, the feeling of the baby moving in the womb, you and your husband laying hands on your belly feeling the baby move his arms or feet – touching life, new life, life from your own bodies. Is there a more exciting thing in this world? As your hands feel the movement you shiver with the sheer delight of it.
Joy increases and finally the day comes. You hold the baby in your arms and rejoice at the great gift given by the God of all grace. You and your husband give thanks, smile so much your face hurts and you can hardly wait to show him off at church. You are almost giddy! All is right with the world and those early couple of days of negative thinking, when you first found out about the pregnancy are totally forgotten as you look forward to raising this brand-new gift.
The doctor comes in and tells you there is a small problem. Nothing big. Just a little injection and it should take care of everything. A shadow of doubt crosses your face, but his assurances ease your mind. Permission given you wait to hold your baby once again.
Waiting. Waiting still. It’s just a little procedure after all, what is it that is taking so long?
Wait. Wait. Wait. Finally, the doctor comes in; face dark; head bent; eyes not meeting yours.
It was one of those 1 in 10,000 or 1 in 100,000 or 1 in 1,000,000 it doesn’t matter the number! Your child was the 1 and all the others lived.
“Dear God in heaven!” You scream! “No. Noooo!”
Just one week after the nine months you’ve said hello and good-bye.  No weaning; no terrible twos; no first day of school; no trips to Silver Dollar City; no graduation; no; no; no! All the plans and dreams and hopes…all gone. Crushed, you wonder why. Was there some purpose in this craziness?
Devastation, anger, doubt and a host of other feelings and thoughts bombard your heart and mind and you cry out over and over, “Where is God? Where is God? Where is God?”
This is the story of another of our members. A couple who were a little embarrassed when first they told us of the pregnancy and then laughed and shared expectations as the baby began to show. Finally, they, devastated and broken hearted, strengthened our faith when they showed up at church and, along with the couple spoken of earlier, picked up their songbooks and sang praises to God.
This death business is too much for us. It’s too powerful. We cannot stop it or overcome it. So where is the hope? If we were God…what? I wonder?

So the Supper


As we meet together on the first day of the week, to break bread, we come face to face with the ones who are suffering such things and we meet them knowing that our own day will come. We don’t really know what to say. We are so afraid we will say something wrong or stupid and end up hurting them more, so often we say nothing more than hello.
We need to realize, however, that we are together in a purpose-filled assembly. Our hearts ought to be thinking along the same lines. We are thinking about death – its power – its destructiveness. We recognize that we are one loaf one body (1 Corinthians 10:16-17). And as we take the bread, thinking about nails driven through hands and feet, thorns formed into a crown and pressed viciously onto His head, a whipped and bloody back, and the humiliation of Him hanging on the cross, NAKED…as we think of Jesus dying for us, as individuals and collectively for us all, we are made stronger, or we should be.
As weird as it sounds, we praise God for the death of His Son. His brutal beating, the thorns, the nails, the ridicule, and the spear are all things we are thankful for. We think of His stripes and our healing. How can death, any death give strength, encouragement and healing? And yet…the remembrance of His death, burial and resurrection gives us hope for another week. And the deaths of these two children and the faith of their parents also fill us with hope and encouragement.
We look at the suffering savior, His beaten back, the spit on His face, the humiliation of His nakedness, the blood pouring from His wounds and realize that He made it and He came out of the tomb, having crushed death, our terrible foe, into submission (Hebrews 2:14-18). Now we have nothing to fear from death because it is only our servant. It now does our bidding and that is to carry us and our loved ones into the presence of the God of all glory.
We remember this, but we remember more. We think of the very fact that He came, by His own choice, He came to be one of us. He came in our image. He was born of a woman and lived among us. What a wonderful God this is. He demonstrates to us that He is one of us and then He takes on the suffering of humanity, sharing in it, bearing up under it, bleeding and hurting and overcoming it!
Thinking of these things is part of the purpose of the Supper; to give hope and faith. We look into each other’s eyes knowing that there is pain, hurt, heartache and suffering there and we see God is working. We hear the story repeated and we find strength. We pray the prayers and know that God hears. We look over and see the mother and father of the young man who is already in the arms of Jesus, we see the other parents who never got to know their baby and we say, “Yes. Lord. I see and I believe. They are examples of the great strength of your Son Jesus and we praise you for them as they praise you for Him!”
In passing the bread and the wine we realize again and again that we are not alone in this chaotic world, but we are with the one who is restoring all things. We remember His words in the Revelation, “Behold, I am making all things new.” The stories of these two families and of our Savior Jesus remind us repeatedly of hope and blessings to come. We think of their son and their baby and we shout out to the world, “We know they are not gone forever, for Jesus lives and death is on his way out!” And when those moments come where things are so powerfully set against us and we begin to wonder “where is God”, we join others at the table who have asked the same question and we are made stronger. We find ourselves able to stand because they have stood before us.
The supper is eaten, the prayers are prayed and the power and unity found in His death and theirs, and His burial and resurrection strengthens us for the coming week.
Dinner is served and we are made the better for it.

Thursday, November 14, 2019

The Supper: Lesson One


The Supper
Josiah Tilton
West Side church of Christ
November 17, 2019



Lesson One

For the next few weeks we are going to look at the Supper. I believe the Supper is a glorious thing, and we take it far too casually. Our thoughts are far too temperate, too calm. Many of our Supper talks are far too surface, too shallow. There’s so much more in the Supper we don’t speak of, perhaps have not really considered. I’m not pointing fingers. I’m just as guilty of these as any. On far too many Sunday mornings I take the Supper perfunctorily. I eat a tiny bit of cracker, sip a little juice and don’t really think “What am I doing.” In those moments when I waken from my routine, I feel shame. I tell myself the Supper is much too important to take so lightly. So, I hope this class will be helpful for all of us as we look at the Supper.

Simple Questions:


Who are we?
What are we doing here?
What is our purpose?
Why do things happen the way they happen?
These are all questions we, all mankind, want answered. Those of us in Christ Jesus feel we have some answers to these, but even the answers we have bring forth more questions. We are born into a world filled with evil. As David said of himself, Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.”, we can say the same of ourselves. We are brought forth in a world that is so tilted toward that which is ungodly, that finding righteousness in it proves to be a difficult thing.
So, we are born, and we find God and our Lord, Jesus the Christ. We grow, we work, we marry, we have children of our own, we struggle, we age, we weaken, and we die. Where are the answers to all of those questions I first asked?
I believe the answers are simple and easily answered. At the same time, I believe they are so complex that we will still be answering them deep into eternity. For instance… Believing John 1:14, “and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory. The glory of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” KJV
We beheld His glory. When? When He dwelt among us. When we believe this, that the Word became flesh, then we are saying, whether we recognize it or not, that we believe in a very sacred ontology. We believe that being, just being, is sacred! God became flesh and blood. Several times in Romans five Paul tells us about the MAN, Jesus the Christ. I believe, the more we look into the fact of the incarnation, the more we recognize that God lived in this flesh, the greater will be our appreciation of Baptism, the Church and the Supper.
As we consider such thoughts, what does this do to our minds? Our hopes? Our vision of life itself?
Do we just sing, “Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream”? Look around us. Try and picture what we were like, what we looked like, how we felt and acted twenty-five years ago. We look back and say, “That was our life”. And yes, that is true. More than that, however, is the fact that that is also our death.
We almost always look at death as if it was a moment in time, when in reality death is a process. It begins at birth and leads us to that moment when we draw our last breath. But every moment of our life was death coming upon us. Ever since we ate the forbidden fruit, we have stared death in the face and he has always been around us, pushing, pulling, often dragging us to that final moment when, to most who have ever lived on this planet, death wins!
To reach a deeper understanding of the Supper, I believe, we need to first look at this most serious of issues…Death!
How dreadfully dismal is this introduction to something I think is divinely beautiful? But we must see some of the purposes behind the great supper, which we are going to be studying. And death is one of the great purposes. In fact, I read recently, and I thought it to be true, “Without death, what does it even mean to be alive?”
We don’t like to look at death, do we? When our folks get old, we send them off to a retirement village or a nursing home. When they are terminally sick, they end up spending their last days behind the gray walls of a hospital, plugged into an array of machines and drips that make them comfortable until they slip off to that next world. We weep for a few moments, have a nice funeral and then go on living, trying not to even think about death, until the next one comes along.
To gain a deeper understanding of the Supper, we need to look into this matter of death. It’s important because, included in this great Supper is this terrible enemy of ours, Death! And to look at the Supper without examining, at least just a little, this enemy is to miss out on some of the important issues we are going to be looking at.
Though she’s not one of my favorite poets, Emily Dickinson did write some very interesting things. One of her most famous poems (Because I Could not Stop for Death) begins like this:
Because I could not stop for Death –
He kindly stopped for me –
The Carriage held but just Ourselves –
And Immortality.
So, think, if you would, take a few moments to think about death. Death. Most hate it. Many fear it. At the same time, some welcome it, even bringing it on themselves.
Depending on which source you use, suicide is either the second or third leading cause of death among teens and young adults. How could such young people find life so miserable that they would want to end it?
When I was in high school, there was a student there that many others picked on. (I honestly do not remember ever picking on him myself, but I didn’t try to stop others from doing it, so I was as guilty as they were.) After several months of torment, his mother came home from work, called for him, but received no answer. She looked for him in his room. He wasn’t there. She called again. No answer. Finally, she went down to their basement. She found him hanging from the ceiling. A rope tied around his neck and his body blue in death. He welcomed death because it would offer him the relief he could not find among his peers at school. For him, death wasn’t the enemy, life was. He didn’t fear death, he welcomed it.
Another kid in our high school was very popular. He was one of the cool kids. He was well liked and invited to all the parties. But, like many of us, he wanted to be cooler still. So, one day, he decided to put some spring jacks in his car to make it stand up a little higher, look a little cooler, seem a little faster. So, he jacked the car up, got under it and began putting the spring jacks in. Without warning, the bumper jack slipped. The car fell, and there was no one around to help him, except death. And death was more than willing to offer him his arm. Half the school went to his funeral…only a handful went to the other boy’s!
The contrast of these two seems to serve as a lesson to many of just how meaningless, senseless, life is.
“Meaningless! Meaningless!”
    says the Teacher.
“Utterly meaningless!
Ecclesiastes 1:2

Have you ever felt this way? Ever thought, “Meaningless. Meaningless.”? Have you never been in honest despair? Unable to understand? Unable to find a meaning in something you are going through? Wondering why? Why?
There is that man we know as Job. He loved God. Taught his children about God, to love God, and he sacrificed for those children…just in case. We read:
His sons used to hold feasts in their homes on their birthdays, and they would invite their three sisters to eat and drink with them. When a period of feasting had run its course, Job would make arrangements for them to be purified. Early in the morning he would sacrifice a burnt offering for each of them, thinking, “Perhaps my children have sinned and cursed God in their hearts.” This was Job’s regular custom. ESV
And then what? Satan joins the angels as they come before God and God begins talking to him.
“Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil.”
From that moment to a very long time after, Job sat in sackcloth and ashes and thought, “This make no sense. Where is the meaning in this?” His suffering. His unfriendly friends. Even his wife! Meaningless. Nothing had real meaning any longer. Yes. He still believed in God, but… But where was there any real meaning in what he was going through. He didn’t, couldn’t understand it at all.
So, as we look at our own lives, we need to recognize that we are not the only ones who have wondered where the meaning was. We look at the greatest of enemies, Death and tremble because we are unable to do anything about him, and not able to understand the meaning of him.
So, what do we do with our inability to understand? What do we do when death reaches out its gnarly fingers, grabs us or a loved on by the neck and drags us out of this world and into the next?
To be sure, I don’t have all the answers to the questions that confront us. But some things I do know: Even if I can’t fully explain what it means that, even though Death is still right here with us, still making us tremble, Jesus has inaugurated a world that is beyond the realm of death. Remember in our class on the Revelation, Jesus said to us, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Revelation 21:5
Listen to N T Wright:
“YOUNG HERO WINS HEARTS.” Had there been newspapers in Jerusalem in the year we now call AD 33, this was the headline you would not have seen. When Jesus of Nazareth died the horrible death of crucifixion at the hands of the Roman army, nobody thought him a hero. Nobody was saying, as they hurriedly laid his body in a tomb, that his death had been a splendid victory, a heroic martyrdom. His movement, which had in any case been something of a ragtag group of followers, was over. Nothing had changed. Another young leader had been brutally liquidated. This was the sort of thing that Rome did best. Caesar was on his throne. Death, as usual, had the last word. Except that in this case it didn’t.

As Jesus’s followers looked back on that day in the light of what happened soon afterward, they came up with the shocking, scandalous, nonsensical claim that his death had launched a revolution. That something had happened that afternoon that had changed the world. That by six o’clock on that dark Friday evening the world was a different place.”

Brian Zahnd, in his book Water to Wine, says “Seen in the light of the Easter dawn, the cross is revealed to be the lost Tree of Life. In the middle of a world dominated by death, the Tree of Life is rediscovered in the form of a Roman cross.”



There, in the middle of the night, in what should have been the most religious, godly city in the world, a handful of armed men arrested Jesus. They took Him before the tribunal, screamed “Crucify him! CRUCIFY HIM!!” Then, after a severe beating, led Him away to Golgotha. A hammer drove nails through His hands and feet, the cross was raised, and the end dropped sharply into a carved-out hole meant to keep it upright. Blood poured from His head, His back, His hands and feet. People laughed, shouting caustic statements, and watched gleefully as He bowed His head and died.
And the small group of people who had been with Him, who had heard the stories and the promises, bowed their head, wiped the tears from their eyes, and walked away thinking “Meaningless, meaningless.” Everything they had hoped was just so much smoke and mirrors.

Death. He is an ugly coward, but try as we might to fight him off, we will always fail. We cannot stop him. Look at our own assembly of brothers and sisters. I have been here for more than twenty-five years. I have watched, perhaps, dozens of folks from here die. And, though we have great hospitals, wonderful medicines, learned doctors and nurses, death still seems to win. We die. We even read, “It is appointed unto man once to die and after that the judgment.” Hebrews 9:27 So, death seems to have the upper hand and there is so much about him that we don’t understand.
That’s it, isn’t it? That’s how we feel sometimes. All of this, and much more, is exactly why we meet for supper. Over the next few weeks we will look at the Supper in ways we might not have considered before.

There are three glorious things spoken of in the scriptures, Baptism, the church and the Supper that hold such great meaning that we could spend months, years really, looking at, studying, meditating on and learning from. For a few weeks we will look at the Supper and see if there isn’t more, much more we can learn from it. And maybe we can get to the point where John Donne’s sonnet holds truth for us:

Holy Sonnets: Death, be not proud


Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;
For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.
Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well
And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.

I want us to think about the following passages taken from Hebrews 2:5-18
For it was not to angels that God subjected the world to come, of which we are speaking. It has been testified somewhere,
“What is man, that you are mindful of him,
    or the son of man, that you care for him?
You made him for a little while lower than the angels;
    you have crowned him with glory and honor,[
a]
    putting everything in subjection under his feet.”
Now in putting everything in subjection to him, he left nothing outside his control. At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him. But we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.
10 For it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering. 11 For he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one source.[b] That is why he is not ashamed to call them brothers,[c] 12 saying,
“I will tell of your name to my brothers;
    in the midst of the congregation I will sing your praise.”
13 And again,
“I will put my trust in him.”
And again,
“Behold, I and the children God has given me.”
14 Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, 15 and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery. 16 For surely it is not angels that he helps, but he helps the offspring of Abraham. 17 Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. 18 For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.

Next week, a little more about death. It will be much more personal, closer to home. And I hope as we look at things, we will see that death deserves a seat at the table.

It is my prayer that you will be here for that.


[1] Wright, N. T.. The Day the Revolution Began: Reconsidering the Meaning of Jesus's Crucifixion (p. 3). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition. 

[2] Zahnd, Brian. Water to Wine: Some of My Story (p. 25) Spello Press, 2016