Life, Death, and Everything After
Saftey is in the
forefront of many of our minds this week. Safety from people who want to do us
harm, the availability of a safe place to work, The ability to safely walk out
our door; on a local, national, and international level it seems lately as if
we are less safe than ever. A friend of mine
sent out a tweet a few days ago that that said, “could everthing just
stop being horrible for one day this week?” The crowds in todays gospel feel
similarly. Under the heel of Roman Occupation, with resentment and revolution
boiling up in every dark alley in Jerusalem, with bandits and robers on the
highways and byways, the crowds turn to Jesus and say If you are the messiah
tell us. Let us know that you are going to make us safe. Do you have guns,
tanks, drones? Whats your battleplan for Peace? How are you going to replace
the violence of Pax Romana? The crowds want Jesus, if he is the messiah, how he
is going to make them safe.
I was at the airport last week, and was reminded that if
you have been to the airport any time in the last decade, everything that you
have to go through is, "for your safety." You might say that Saftey
is the watchword of airports. In fact, I think that it is one to the obsessions
of our culture. from our the safety of our online documents to the safety of
our children, it is the goal of our
culture to to avoid pain and struggle, and we define that as safe, and for the
average American that saftey means peace. The absence of the threat of pain,
real or imagined, seems to provide a peace that we crave. We dont know how to
react when this bubble of pseudo-saftey is burst and pain and suffering as they
are so want to do, intrude. That is impart what makes the events in Boston so
difficult, because they are only on example, one that reminds us of all of the
aninverseries of other painful things that happended this week —the shootings
at Columbine, the Oklahoma City Bombings, the raid on the Branch Davidian
compound, and on and on. Not only was the bombing and the bloo and the death
painful in its own right but it shatters the false saftey that we have set up
for ourselves.
In response to the questions of the crowd, Jesus offers
an answers the deper need, the crowds desire for true peace, but not the
question that they have asked. Jesus does not promise new military spending,
bringing the Romans to justice, not even new social programs. Jesus promises
the peace of God. Jesus promises that suffering is not the end, that war and
violence, sin and death do not have the last word. Jesus promises that once in
the hands of the Good Shepherd, nothing can budge us from the loving care of
God.
Notice that Jesus does not say anything about pain. The
effort to equate peace with safety, and therefore, a lack of pain is of our own
definition and construction.The 23rd psalm does not promise that God will save
us from anthing that is dangerous or painful, rather it garuntees that we will
at some point have to walk through the valley of the shadow of death —but it
also promises that we need not fear because our Good Shepherd stands along side
us and that we will pass through to something else. God’s peace is not
painless, or effortless, much less safe. It certainly wasn’t safe for Jesus.
Four weeks ago, we walked again along the passion way. We repeated the story,
walked along that pathway again this year to remember that pain and suffering,
sin and death, are a part of our life —whether its the in-your-face pain of
bombs at a Marathon, or the smaller grind it out every day sufferings,
livinging with cancer, or watching a loved one fade away piece by piece as
Alheimers takes hold. But more importantly we remember that God is also there,
and when the pain and the suffering and death have done their worst God is
still there, to wipe away our tears, to wash us clean and to bring us, at
length into his kingdom.
During the summer that I spent as a VA hospital chaplain,
I had the opportunity to stand at many bedsides as people prepared to die. One
of the first was a veteran of the the second world war. He had seen action in
the pacific theater, including some of the most painful and bloody battles of
the war. He had taken shrapnel in his leg that remained there until his death.
“I beat cancer twice,” he would tell me, “but not the third time. Not a bad
average I guess. Maybe the Dodgers will take me.” The day he died, I came it to
sit with him. He hadnt been lucid for a few days, but he I sat down, he opened
his eyes and smiled at me. You know what the great thing about dieing is, he
asked, no I replied quietly I don’t, after
the pain ends,he said all that Love is
still there. And thats when you know it’s not going anywhere.”
It is interesting that today’s Gospel is the first in
this easter season that is taken from Jeusus Pre - ressurection ministry. Much
like the disciples, we are harkening back to his teaching amidst the joy of the
ressurection, marveling at what Jesus taught and the depth of meaning it has
taken on. In the light of this candle, we are able to see that beyond the
passion, beyond the crucifixion lies the ressurection, a promise that God will
bring us into his Kingdom where sorrow and pain are no more, neither sighing
but life everlasting. In the light of this candle maybe we chance a little walk
into the valley to tell the others walking through the story of our Good
Shepherd. It wont be safe, but we may find peace.
