Fires wake us up in the all too early hours of the morning. They come in the form of actual flames, the dreaded phone call of one we loved is now lost, the nightmare that won't give way to rest, or simply the absolute complete silence where our thoughts echo of an eternity of separation from love. It is the fire we fear. It is being alone. It is being apart. Division.
Watching a loved one die brings tears to even the eyes of the most callused of hearts. Watching a loved one die when we do not have a faith of our own is pure torture. I suppose it is easier to think that everything ends when our lives come to an end. I suppose it is easier to think this instead of believing that anything or anyone apart from our own decisions has a say if we go to heaven or hell. I suppose...
I suppose that if this is one's worldview than death has to be even more scary than hell. I say this because with our days numbered, with every single one of us having to face death, than every day becomes extremely important. If everything ends when we die than our lives are all we will ever know. There is no supreme happiness or separation. There is no extreme journey into a universe where our spark will forever create a butterfly effect of emotion and causality. There is no...nothing. There is simply blackness. No...nothing.
I am begging though. I am begging for life. I am begging for peace. I am begging for forgiveness. I am begging for something.
I am begging for anything...for everything...I am begging that life does not simply end. I am begging that there is not nothing.
And I cannot imagine the pain one has to feel when one is lost at the most inopportune time. I cannot imagine how hot the tears must feel when they fire down ones cheeks. I cannot imagine what its like to believe that there is simply nothing. That our feelings will no longer feel. That our senses will no longer sense. That our spirit will not longer fly. I can only imagine...
And, yet, I wonder if there isn't a more harmful reality. I wonder that if you do believe in heaven and hell - in eternal bliss or eternal torture - that your fear for the loved one who dies isn't more so. This faith claims that there is something that happens at death, but this faith claims that one's choices really matter. And if our choices really, truly matter than our choices are EXTREMELY important. But what if our choices get it wrong?
That is to say, who is to say who - or what - decides whether we receive heaven or hell? Do our choices really decide an eternity of life and death? Are our choices really that EXTREMELY important. Or does something more sovereign, something more knowing, something else decide our fate.
You see, I do not believe that for one second that we are left to our own devices. I do not believe that there is nothing when we die. And I do not believe that one's choices decide eternal serenity or complete and total depravity. No, I believe that there is something else that decides who we are even before we are born. I do not believe that this something else is malevolent, evil, or deceiving in anyway. And I do not believe that this something else's is passive without any care for humanity. No, rather, I believe that this something else is one. This One calls us to be one. This One calls us to carry each other's burdens because it was the One who became one of us and carry our Burden. Carried our Sin. Because without the One there is no one. There is not one who is righteous. Because if we are left up to our own choices than there is not a one of us that can compare to the One.
And yet, this One calls us all to be one. This One tells us that when two or more are gathered, than this One is there. This One will cry with us. This One will laugh with us. Laugh, cry, fear, be bold, love...and never hate. This One calls us into community because on our own, when we are simply one, our love, fear, hate, boldness, laughter, and bawling will overwhelm us. Emotional beings never were rational. But the One, our One, is an emotional being that is completely rational because it is against the One's nature to be anything else.
And what if this One is the One that has, and is, and is to come. And what if this One has a name. And what if that name is Jesus Christ, son of God the creator and father who both sent the the counselor - the Paraclete - to be the One's presence in the Word become flesh's absence. And what if this Triune God is both truth and grace. Both just and loving. And what if this God first moves because we on our own are unable.
We, who are stuck in our own ways, sick with our own transgressions, and stricken with out guilt. But what if Christ freed us. What if Christ carried our transgressions. And what if Christ takes upon our guilt. And then once and for all, what if Christ died in our place so that death would no longer have any hold on us? Oh death, where is thy sting? Death's sting has stung but will never sting again.
But what about those who are left behind? If Christ died for the dead, than what is there for the living. There is the Holy Spirit who carries us when we do not even want to be carried. There is Jesus Christ who constantly is present in our midst calling us to a life of holiness that takes us from who we were to become something that is called child. A child that was first lost, but now is home. Children who had all gone astray, but now are called blessed. Justified. Forgiven. Loved. Redeemed.
And in the midst of hope, there is one another that live into the One. There is each other that we can physically lean on. It is each other that call us out of the darkness so that we can lean on others in the light. But this light shines into the darkness, reaching in to pull us out of our own guilt and shame. Hand in hand, we move forward. Tear by tear, we march. Fear by fear we claim boldly to the promise. And in community, the One creates community. In God's people being gathered, the truth of the Gospel is made known in and through love. Calling us to love again. Calling us to breath again for the first time.
So take a deep breath. Each of us do not sit alone. Our choices are our own, but there is a God who wants us only to make one choice for the One who defeated death. And day by day, where there is death, there is life because Christ died so that even though we who are mortal will die, we will not be left to our own devices. Instead, the Angels will call us home. Home, where our sins are forgiven and forgotten. Home, where we commune together in the halls of glory. Home, where we are saved, not by our wills, but by the God of all creation's will. This God's will, through Jesus Christ, calls us unto eternity. And there is no condemnation in Christ. Only forgiveness. Only love. Only the eternal joy of dancing with every loved one from every generation in a place that is pure.
So today we claim that death is not the end. We claim that choices are a response to God's will that calls us into the light. In the light there is peace - shalom. There is love - agape. In Christ, there is only and always hope.
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