The Reverend Kirk T. Berlenbach

Easter, Year C

April 4, 2010

Back in third grade I went to school with a boy named Tim, Tim Holt to be specific. To say that Tim and I did not get along would be a bit of an understatement. We were rivals on the swim team and in school. But more than that Tim picked on me unmercifully. He teased me about my weight and about my clothes (and they were such nice polyester clothes too) and even about my love of dinosaurs. One day at recess I decided I had finally had enough so we got into a name calling match which would have soon become a fight if a teacher had not intervened. As a result we were sent to the principal’s office. When I got home I had to explain to my parents why I got into trouble. I was very upset and tried desperately to explain what had happened and all the terrible things Tim Holt had done to me and finally I blurted out, “He is my enemy!”

My enemy… it was the first time I had ever used the word in anything other than a theoretical sense. But at long last I understood what it meant. He was going to go out of their way to make my life as miserable as possible. It was frustrating and intimidating and it made me not want to go to school anymore. In effect, having an enemy kept me from getting the most out of my young life.

Most of us at one time or another has felt this way. Personally our enemy might be at school or in sports or at work. Or in a broader sense your enemy might be political or even an enemy of our country. Whatever form our enemies take, they all share one thing in common: our lives would be better off without them.

But above and beyond all of our ordinary foes, we all share a singular enemy and none of us can stand against it. Always and inevitably it beats us. That enemy is death. For as long as we live death stalks us -- mocks us – terrorizes us -- and there is nothing we can do to defeat or escape it. That makes death an enemy to be feared and fear it we most certainly do.

In our desperation to try and find a way out we look for someone, anyone, who can save us. We have tried everything, first looking to magic and now to science for an answer, but to no avail. And so we delude ourselves, trying to hold death off with age reversing elixirs and plastic surgery. Some have even gone so far as to try and cheat death by freezing their heads in the hope of a future day when science will have finally won out.

Even our religions, which are meant to offer hope and comfort in the face of death often only serve to reinforce our overwhelming fear, insisting that we must resist death with every ounce of our strength. Some faiths go so far as to forbid the refusal or withdrawal of medical treatment from terminally-ill patients, even when there is no hope of recovery- even prolonging life means only prolonging suffering. Unfortunately all our attempts to cope with death only make it more terrifying.

It is plain to see that our fear of death leads to some horrific consequences. Ranging from our vain and futile efforts to look younger to our sad insistence on keeping bodies alive even when the mind and soul are long gone, our fear of death stifles our living and distorts our dying. So what can we do? What hope do we have against death? Are we just trapped with no hope of escape?

Thanks be to G-D the answer is no! We do not have to continue live out our lives cowering in fear. But our deliverance does not come from some miraculous scientific breakthrough. Rather our freedom can be found in changing how we think about this, our greatest and most implacable enemy.

In today’s lesson from Corinthians, when Paul declares, “The last enemy to be destroyed is death.” we take for granted that he is speaking of a distant future- of the way things will be after Christ returns and brings about a new heaven and a new earth. Indeed, death’s hold over us seems so absolute that we simply assume that the only way for it to lose its power is for the world to end. But in fact Paul is not talking about some pie-in-the-sky future… he is describing the present… a present that began at Easter.

By submitting himself to death and then rising again Jesus has accomplished what no scientific breakthrough or act of human will could ever hope to achieve. Death has been defeated. Its power over us has been undone. Indeed, thanks to Jesus’ resurrection, death can no longer come between us and G-D and that has rendered it impotent. Although our bodies will still die, our passing is now only a change, not an end. St. Paul sums it all up most eloquently in the same chapter of Corinthians when he says, “O death where is your victory? O death where is your sting?” (15:55). In short, death no longer has the final say over our lives and that changes everything.

Of course understanding such a remarkable shift in thinking is one thing... really believing it is another. The sad truth is that most of us, even the most faithful, are still afraid to die and it is that fear that continues to give death power over us. It is our fear that drives us to such unhealthy extremes and keeps us from living our lives as fully as G-D intends. For in our efforts to avoid the pain of loss and the eventuality of dying we actually bind ourselves to the very pain which we are trying to escape. My grandmother’s life was a sad testimony to just how true this can be. When she was nineteen her life death tore her life apart. Within a year she lost first her father to a misdiagnosed appendicitis and then her brother to a drunk driver. Her life was never the same and although she was very loving and generous, her fear of losing anyone else to death made her extremely anxious and very controlling. Always her fear was there, making it impossible for her to relax or let go… always preventing her from getting more joy out of life.

You might know someone like her, someone whose life have been forever overshadowed by death. Or perhaps your understanding of just how crippling the fear of death can be is firsthand. Maybe you’ve had a medical scare or other close call and so you know exactly how it feels to have that fear grip your heart and take over your life. Or perhaps death has taken someone from you, someone you weren’t ready to let go and so you are still mired in grief, still feeling the void left by their absence. Whatever the case, death has kept you from living the way you want to.

But it doesn’t have to be like that. The power of our greatest enemy has been overthrown and that leaves you free to envision your life without that fear. Whatever limitations death has put upon you, you don’t have to accept them anymore. I cannot help but imagine what my grandmother’s life would have been like had she not been so bound up by fear. What about you? How much more joy could you find if you weren’t constantly afraid of loss? What new purpose could you now embrace if you weren’t driven instead to try and protect what you have left? How much more good could you accomplish if you were no longer afraid to risk your safety or even your life for the causes you most truly believe in?

In the end it boils down to this; only by letting go of our fear of death can we ever truly get the most out of life. Jesus has done for us what we could never do for ourselves… by letting go of his own life he released us from the power of death and given us back our lives free and unburdened by fear. And if we dare to do more than just think it… if we have the courage to do more than simply hope that its true… if we are bold enough to actually embrace this gift with the totality of our being… then we are free to live and love more fully than we ever could before. And when our time comes to leave this life we may meet our end not with fear but with confidence, secure in the sure and certain hope that death no longer has the final word. AMEN