As we heard read in our readings: ‘The people that walked in darkness saw a great light; light dawned on the dwellers in the land of death’s dark shadow.’ (Mt 4:19 cf. Isa 9:2)

On Tuesday of last week many of us will have sat in front of a TV screen, or tuned into a radio station, to share in the funeral service of Sir Edmund Hillary. It was one of those moments which unified us as a nation. We were unified in our grief and in our admiration for a man who lived life to the full and embodied the best of what we consider it is to be human: courage, humility, compassion, integrity, determination. 

But I want to suggest to you this morning his death brought us together in more ways than this. The impressive tribute to his life was a reminder that we too are mortal. We all will die. None of us, no matter who we are or what we’ve done, can prevent this from happening. And so what we think about death is important. It determines the way we approach life and how we treat others, or at least it should. For, too often, it seems, we live as if we’ll never die and we die as if we’ve never lived.

Let me tell you a story. Not long before Christmas, Raewyn came into my study one evening. Alexander was crying; he wanted to see his dad. So, like any good father, I went down to his room, sat on the edge of his bed, and asked him ‘what’s wrong?’ And he looked up at me, tears streaming down his cheeks, a quiver in his voice, and said ‘I’m scared of dying.’

Now, some of you may have experienced a moment like this; a moment when someone you love is confronted with their mortality. Our natural instinct on such occasions it seems is to run for cover. We want to avoid the tough questions. But I didn’t want to do this with Alexander. I wanted him to know the truth. So, I hugged him tight. ‘Alexander,’ I said. ‘I don’t know what happens when we die. I don’t want to die, either. But, as a Christian, I believe death isn’t the end. I believe when we die God continues to hold us close in the embrace of his love.’

Well, my response was sufficient for Alexander. He settled down in his bed, snuggled in close to his soft toys, and went off to sleep. But, I have to say, the conversation we shared kept me up that night. It got me thinking: what does happen when we die? And is it true, as some of you will have heard Lloyd Geering say again recently, that we have no immortal soul; or is there a part of us which lives on after death?

I find it insightful to read what others have said about death. I came across a couple of quotes the other day which give two very different answers to the question. The first is by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, an author of many books on the subject of death and dying. She writes: ‘Death is simply a shedding of the physical body like the butterfly shedding its cocoon. It’s a transition to a higher state of consciousness where you continue to perceive, to understand, to laugh, and to be able to grow.’ The other is from the 20th century Philosopher Bertrand Russell. His thoughts have influenced such people as the scientist, Richard Dawkins. He says: ‘I believe that when I die I shall rot, and nothing of my ego will survive.’

Now, you may not agree with these two writers, but I hope you’ll see how such thoughts have shaped much popular understanding.  That is, the belief our soul, the real us, is what survives death, or the belief that says we’re no more than our body, and death marks an end to our existence.

For a long time the church did teach that we have an immortal soul. This is not a biblical teaching, but emerged out of the church’s interaction with Greek thought. For example, Aristotle had taught we were a unity of body and soul; the soul was that which animated or gave life to our bodies. This idea was taken up by Thomas Aquinas in the 13th century. But influenced by Plato and the church’s teaching on the resurrection, he also argued there was a part of the soul which didn’t depend on the physical body. This he called the rational soul. It was that part of us which enabled us to think and to reason; it differentiated us from other living creatures; and it continued in a disembodied state after we died. However, Aquinas claimed the rational soul was not the real you or me. Although it survived death, the soul would not be whole until it received a new and glorified body at the resurrection of the dead.

Now, the problem with Aquinas’ teaching is that for many people today the idea we have a body and a soul is unhelpful. They say it can lead to a disregard for the body, for the soul is what really counts. And then there are also others who argue Christian belief was high-jacked by Greek Philosophy in the early centuries of the church and we need to free ourselves from it. Both these critiques are valid, but I also believe we need to think carefully about what we mean by the Christian hope in eternal life. To understand this we need to take a closer look at the Scriptures.

First of all, it may surprise some of you to learn that there’s no mention of life after death in the Old Testament. In the Psalms, and in a few other places, it does speak of Sheol, the abode of the dead, but, as Graeme Brady has said, ‘this hardly qualifies as life.’

And so it is to the New Testament we must look. Here, we do find reference to the afterlife. But what is interesting is that when the New Testament writers refer to eternal life, they aren’t so much making reference to another life, a life different to this one, but to a continuation of the life we presently share with the resurrected Jesus. We call the quality of this life eternal. In John’s Gospel, for example, Jesus says ‘In very truth, anyone who gives heed to what I say and puts his trust in him who has sent me has hold of eternal life, and does not come up for judgement, but has already passed from death to life.’(5:24) In other words, to have eternal life is to share in the life of God. And, for John, this was an experience in the now, and not something which we have to wait for when we die. It was a life that couldn’t be destroyed by death.

At the back of our Prayer Book, in a section entitled ‘A Catechism’, the question is asked: ‘What is the hope of a Christian?’ The answer given, from Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, is ‘The Christian hope is that nothing, not even death, shall separate us from the love of God which endures and prevails for ever?’ In God, life goes on.

Now, there is much more I could say about these matters. I could talk about the Resurrection of the Dead, the Life of the World to come, and the Judgement. These are all important, but I will leave them for another day. The main point I want to get across this morning is this:

As a Christian, I don’t believe this life is all there is. Death is not the end. In the mystery and love of God, life does go on. But I also believe that acknowledging our mortality, recognizing the truth we all will die, should be an incentive for us to live more fully in the present. It’s to say ‘yes’ to life, and for me this means to walk in the way of Jesus. It’s to live each day in the presence of God and in the company of others.

Remember in our Gospel, Jesus, the light who brings life to those who live in the shadow of death, walks beside a lake, and seeing some people fishing he calls them to follow; and dropping their nets, they follow. Well, the words Jesus speaks to those fishermen are the same that he speaks to us – ‘Come with me’, he says. It’s an invitation to follow, to live fully in the present, in the presence of God; it’s to be a people of courage and compassion, a people who know themselves loved by a love that has no end and which overflows from our lives to others; and it’s an invitation to a life which is eternal, for not even death can silence the love of God.

As Jesus says in John’s Gospel, and as we heard said last Tuesday at Sir Ed’s funeral: ‘I am the resurrection and the life, even in death, anyone who believes in me will live.’ So let’s take hold of this life today!

A sermon preached at St Alban’s on the 27th January 2008
(Isaiah 9:1-4; 1 Corinthians 1:10-18; Matthew 4:12-23)

Posted in Sermons |