June 14 -- Third Sunday after Pentecost

It’s hard to believe, because I still feel like I just got out of seminary, but it’s been almost 10 years that I’ve been a pastor.  I’ll celebrate my 9th year of ordained ministry this July, and 7 of those years have been here at SVLC!  

And already, I’ve been with more people than I can count, at the bedside during the season of death, people from the church and from outside of the church.  During those final days, as they speak their final words and draw their last few breaths of air on this earth.

Despite the painfulness and sorrow of those situations, it’s always such a privilege to be present in those moments.  There can certainly be a peacefulness at the time of death, although, not always.  Sometimes death comes way too soon.  

(Some good church research tells us that one of the greatest stressors on an entire congregation -- burying a child.  Not just family and pastor and those closest -- but for the whole congregation feels that pain so deeply.  Because that’s where death comes way too soon, and everyone feels completely powerless to stop it.)

Death isn’t always peaceful and idyllic.  And some really fight death -- perhaps the one dying, perhaps those who love the one dying.  Many are terrified of it, even to talk about it.  

I’m thinking today about death because Paul talks about death a lot in his writing.  And Paul had many close calls with death; he certainly knew suffering.  Paul wasn’t the guy to try to outdo with your stories of suffering.  Paul knew pain and loss in his life -- just one example, Chapter 11: “Five times I have received from the Jews forty lashings minus one.  Three times I was beaten with rods.  Once I received a stoning.  Three times I was shipwrecked; for a night and a day I was adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from bandits, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers and sisters; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, hungry and thirsty, often without food, cold and naked.  And besides other things, I am under daily pressure because of my anxiety for all the churches.”  He doesn’t even talk about loss in his life.  

But it adds a little meat to the bone when Paul writes these passages about death, when he writes, “For the love of Christ urges us on.”  And, “Because Christ died for all, we don’t have to live for ourselves anymore.” And, “Whether we live or whether we die, we belong to the Lord.”  

And, “If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see everything has become new.”  

As we think about death today -- and I want you to, if you don’t already -- not to be morbid, but as a way of getting at thinking about the things in life that are most important.  If you were to die tomorrow, what’s most important?  Paul “went there” all the time.  As we think about death today, remember Paul’s words -- that in Christ we are a new creation, even now.  “A new creation” is probably the last thing we look like as we’re dying.  Maybe it’s the last thing we look like even right now: “Nothing new here!”  Right?  

But, sisters and brother in Christ, we walk by faith, not by sight.  “We have confidence,” Paul says.  Confidence in the renewal that God has for us.  And that starts even now, even today.  

In our confession and forgiveness at the beginning, we gathered around those words, it’s not just something for the end of our earthly life:  “If anyone is in Christ there is a new creation:  everything old has passed away; everything has become new!  In Christ, + you are a new creation: your sins are taken away and you are made new.”  We have confidence -- faith -- that this is true.  

You are a new creation.  Not just after you die.  But right now.  So start living life as if it’s not your life in the first place.  We belong to the Lord!  We are in Christ.  

So if it’s living more healthy, exercising more, eating better -- remember it’s not your life/body in the first place, we belong to Christ -- it’s Christ’s body that you’re slowly destroying with your bad habits, so don’t do it for yourself!  We walk by faith and not by sight -- do it in response to a God who loved you and created you for love.  A God who still needs you here to share that love with so many who haven’t experienced it.  

Everything old has passed away.  Behold, today, everything has become new.  

If it’s forgiving someone that you can’t seem to forgive -- it’s not your life in the first place, we belong to the Lord -- so forgive not because you’re capable of it, not because it’s not your forgiveness: it’s God’s poured out through you.  That’s a different kind of forgiveness.  That’s not saying, “It’s OK that you hurt me.”  It’s saying, “Even though you hurt me, I trust that God forgives you, and therefore (because I belong to Christ), I can release my anger, and my resentment, and my bitterness , and my sorrow about what you did to me.  For in Christ, I am a new creation.” 

Everything old has passed away, see?  Today, everything has become new.

And if it’s literal death that’s looming, either for you or for a love one, [slowly] remember that it’s not your life in the first place: we belong to Christ.  Yours is the body of Christ, and even if your earthly body is slowly or quickly or suddenly dying, that’s not the end of the story!  [slowly] For we have died with Christ, and therefore we shall be raised with Christ.

[Let’s cling to that together, let’s sing the songs...]

Once in a while, I’m with someone in that season of death, who is not frightened at all to die.  Sometimes we even pray for death to come.  Because they know this truth: that they are a new creation in Christ.  It is powerful thing.  All their life’s accomplishments -- all their diplomas and promotions, their house, their cars, their things, all those things that define us and worry us so many of our days -- in those final moments don’t matter at all.  (I brought communion to someone who was dying once, and they took it so eagerly, and said to me afterwards, “Oh, that’s better than any medicine.”)  

Don’t be afraid to think about death these summer days, and what’s most important.  Paul takes us there.  And guides us into life in the meantime: most of us are not actually dying right this second, so in the meantime, here’s what we can do, now that everything old has passed away, even now.  Now that everything has become new, even now.  Now what?  Paul guides us -- having encountered this resurrection power of being joined to Christ in death and therefore new life...

[Ready?  Here’s where Paul guides us.  This changes the world...]

Be kind to one another, in the meantime.  Be tenderhearted to one another, in the meantime, forgiving one another.  We have new life, now.  New hope, new peace, new joy, even now, because of Christ.  Paul proclaims it.  Let’s proclaim it with him, though our lives, through our deaths, for all the world.  AMEN.