SWALLOWED UP IN LIFE

The dash between the dates of your birth and your death should be filled with life. This is a sermon from a few years ago.

SWALLOWED UP IN LIFE

II CORINTHIANS 4:16–5:5 JUNE 10, 2018

I. THE STING OF THE CURSE

A. Mr. Johnson from Wisconsin had to make a business trip to Miami. His wife would join him there a few days later for vacation. When he got to Miami he sent an Email to his wife. But he got the address wrong and it went to a Mrs. Johnson from Houston. She had just gotten back from the funeral of her husband, a preacher who had died three days ago. When she looked at the Email she fainted. It read, “Arrived safely. It sure is hot here. I look forward to your arrival on Friday,”

B. Human beings live under a curse. We know about our own mortality. We are aware of the fact that we are all going to die. And all of the people we love are going to die. It’s not a matter of if, but a matter of when. It is the ultimate statistic. Death is one out of every one. I remember a poster on the wall of a philosophy major’s room. There was a picture of the earth and the caption read, “No one gets out of here alive.” A man fell asleep in church. The brimstone preacher yelled, “Anybody who wants to go to hell, stand up!” The man awoke just in time to hear stand up. So he did. He looked around at the silent shocked congregation. Then he said to the pastor, “Well Reverend, I don’t know what we are voting on, but it looks like you and me are the only ones in favor.”

C. It’s hard to laugh about death. There is within us a deep seated fear of death. There is a country song that said, “Heaven is my home but I ain’t particular homesick.” Even faith does not eliminate our fear of it. Nor does it take away the pain we feel when someone we love dies. But I think maybe we laugh at it to take away its power over us. Paul wrote that death has lost its sting. Do you ever want to argue with Paul? Standing beside the grave side of a loved one. You just want to say, HERE is the sting of death, Paul. It’s right here in my heart.

D. The world and life are transient. And while the sting of death is very real for those who mourn, people of faith have a wonderful antidote to the curse. There is a great lyric in a Christmas carol that I never appreciated before. It is in the carol Joy to the World. In the third verse we sing, “He comes to make his blessings flow far as the curse is found, far as the curse is found.” That is what Paul was writing about. He was not denying the reality of our mortality or the pain of grief. He is saying that in Christ it’s not the end of the story.

II. SWALLOWED UP BY LIFE

A. The blessing is that we are not swallowed up in death. We are swallowed up in life; swallowed up BY life. We no longer need to obsess about our mortality. Paul lets us know that our death is just the beginning of a new life. It’s joy to the world indeed. The world’s worst enemy and biggest fear is overcome in resurrection faith. Jay Christian Becker wrote that “the triumph of God is Paul in a nutshell.”

B. Other places in his writing Paul says things like, “I don’t know if I prefer to rise and be with Christ or to stay here with you.” In Philippians he writes “to live is Christ. To die is gain.” He seems indifferent about death. So it follows that he would say, “Even though we are wasting away we do not lose heart.” As you start to get a little older it becomes easier to understand that. First there are the aches and pains and bodily changes. Then age starts to put limitations on what we can and cannot do. But we do not lose heart. We don’t have to obsess with looking younger than we are. We know that if this earthly tent is destroyed, we have a house made by God that is eternal. And the house is so much better than the tent.

C. When we were first married, we would plan surprise trips for each other. Prudy planned a trip to Boston and the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. And we were not going to stay in a hotel. We were going to camp. She had purchased a tent. But she did not know that you had to wet it down to seal the seams. So the first night in the tent it rained. And as I lay in my sleeping bag I began to feel the drip, drip drip. I have been in love with camping ever since. Comedian Jim Gaffigan said, “When did people lose interest in camping? I think was was when the house was invented.”

III. STARTING NOW

A. A better translation of “swallowed up in life” is swallowed up BY life. The life that God gives us to live now and after our bodies are dead is what consumes us. The word in Greek is Katapothen. It means to be completely absorbed by something. This is how God has taken away the curse. We are totally caught up by life. We have no interest in obsessing over death. God has won the blessing for us. The triumph of God has made life worth living.

B. And here is the kicker. Paul is not talking only about life after death. He is talking about the here and now. This life matters. Various heresies over the years have forgotten that. The lives of every human being matter dearly to God. Christian faith is not just pie in the sky by and by. It is about this life; right now right here in these leaking tents we call bodies.

C. When I first selected this lectionary text for the sermon today, I did not know that we would be honoring the 25th anniversary of Butterfly Hill. I asked myself, Is this an appropriate passage? And the answer is YES. What better way to celebrate being swallowed up by life than to rejoice in this ministry that has for so long nurtured children for a life of faith?

D. Paul says that we are being renewed day by day. The renewal of life in Christ starts here and now. I worked as a night chaplain at A.G.H. during my first years in ministry. The worst of the rounds was in the oncology wing. There was so much sadness and hopelessness there. I made a habit of visiting the Labor and Delivery Nursery unit right after the oncology unit. I needed a reminder of the power of life. We are not saved just so we go to heaven. Resurrection starts right now. Heaven is our eschatological home for God’s people. But we begin our renewal in this life. When I was a kid there was a candy called “now and then.” It was two pieces of candy, one for now and one for later; though I usually ate them both now. Our curse free walk with God is both then and now. As I get older, I am more taken by the words of the great Louis Armstrong. “I hear babies cry. I watch them grow. They’ll learn much more than I’ll ever know. And I think to myself, what a wonderful world.” And what a wonderful God.

IV. BOLD PROCLAIMERS

A. This is the main reason that I never shrink from conducting a funeral service. It may seem to some that it is awfully bold of me to proclaim resurrection faith in the face of loss. But it is the fact that we are swallowed up by life that does make me a bold proclaimer. For us, what is unseen is just as real as what we can see. John Stendall wrote that” the truths we tell are not yet facts. But they are true all the same.”

B. I think you have that same faith in the truths of God. So you are called to be bold proclaimers as well. It has always made me a little uncomfortable when I make an entrance from somewhere back there in preacher land. I think for a while I will just be in the congregation and come to the pulpit from among you because I am one of you. You should not have to stand when I come in our when the elders come in. We are just part of the body of Christ, just like you are. We are all called to be bold proclaimers.

C. We don’t have to fret about heaven. If you believe that God was triumphant in Jesus Christ, then your ticket is already stamped. In the mean- time we are called to live life to the fullest. Take the trip. Buy the shoes. Order dessert. Cry and laugh and work and play. This life is a gift from God.

D. One the best bold proclaimers I have met was a man named Bob Porter. He was in the latter stages of terminal cancer. When I visited him he was upbeat and joyful. When I asked him what he wanted me to pray for he pointed up and said, “A transfer.” He said, “Earlier I had prayed for healing. And what God did was heal me from the fear of death. Then I prayed that God would heal me to live with joy right now and not to wait until later. I got that prayer answered too.” There is that unwillingness to lose heart. We have been freed from fear. Swallowed up by life we do not need to be afraid to die. And we must not be afraid to live.