Death
I declare to you, brothers and sisters, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed – in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.”
“Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?”
1 Corinthians 15:50-55 (NRSV)
STORY
After a racy youth, John Donne eloped with his employer’s niece, who cut her off without a penny. The Donnes descended into poverty from which John only emerged after becoming Dean of St. Paul’s. Meanwhile his wife, Anne, died in childbirth, casting a shadow over his remaining years. He became obsessed with death, writing essays such as Death’s Duel and poems such as Hymn to the Father in which he expresses his fear that he will perish eternally when he has spun his last thread. One of his most famous poems begins “Death be not proud.” Dying, he wrote yet another famous poem about death on March 23, 1630, titled A Hymn to God in My Sickness::
Since I am coming to that holy room, Where, with Thy Choir of Saints, for evermore
I shall be made Thy music, as I come
I tune my instrument here at the door,
And, what I must do then, think here before….
We think that Paradise and Calvary,
Christ’s cross, and Adam’s tree, stood in one place;
Look, Lord, and find both Adams met in me;
As the first Adam’s sweat surrounds my face,
May the last Adam’s blood my soul embrace.
So, in His purple wrapt, receive my Lord!
By these His thorns, give me His other Crown
And, as to other souls I preach’d Thy word,
Be this my text, my sermon to mine own,
“That He may raise; therefore the Lord throws down.”
DEVOTION
In our reading this morning the Apostle Paul addresses the issue of death. I think what is most important in what he wrote is that Paul acknowledges our fear of death. The fear of death is the last stranglehold that Satan has on us. To escape that fear the demonic offers us many false promises to escape such a fate, allowing us to continue to cling to our earthly existence; though, as Christians, we know there is only one promise that we can rely upon to give us assurance in death and that is the resurrection of Jesus. If we live in Christ, we have no fear of death. Death has no “sing” over us for living in Christ “Death has been swallowed up in victory.” Previously in this letter Paul assures us that in God’s created world there is a transformation from life to death to a resurrected life anew. Pual turned to the natural world to illustrate such a process. From agriculture he borrowed the example of seeds whose bodies differ from the grain they produce. From this analogy Paul affirmed that the transformation in death to a new heavenly life “the perishable inherits the imperishable, and we will be changed.” Paul is uncertain how this will occur for it is a “mystery.”
Celine Dion was married to her husband, Rene Agnelli, for 21 years when he died on January 14, 2016. They met when she was a 12-year-old singer and he became her manager. They later married and he continued to manage her career. Despite their 25-year age difference, it was a very loving and committed relationship. Together they had three children. Rene was first diagnosed with throat cancer in 1999, and it was successfully treated. But then in 2014 it returned, and this time it was terminal. As the disease progressed Rene was unable to speak, so he began to write his wife notes. In the last days of his life Rene wrote, “The end is near, I feel it.” Celine shot back, “How can you say that?” Years later, reflecting on that moment Celine realized, “Now I know it’s possible for someone dying to feel when it comes.”