Dear Christian friends:

During these Sundays of Pentecost we wear the green stole and have the green paraments on the altar to signify our new life in Christ. And the lessons of the Pentecost season are usually lessons that exhort us to live the Christian life. It is, therefore, somewhat strange that the Gospel lesson for this Sunday which is our text tells of a death and a funeral. How is death related to life? A persons attitude toward death is likely to color his attitude toward all of life. It has been said that one cannot really live until he has learned how to die. It is therefore important that we consider on the basis of our text the proper view of death. And as we do this we shall see


We shall see that:

Those who die in Christ do not really die, and those who live in Christ really live.

Those who die with faith in Jesus Christ do not really die since He had died the one and only death that truly pays for mankind's sin.

The Bible uses the word "death" in three ways: physical death which the young man in our text had experienced, spiritual death, with which all people are born, and eternal death, which those who die without faith experience, and which Jesus Himself experienced as He hung upon the Cross and cried out, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken Me?"

Eternal death is total, complete separation from God and His goodness. In this life also the unbelievers experience God's presence and goodness. The Bible says, "He makes His sun to shine upon the evil and the good; He sendeth rain upon the just and upon the unjust." But in the life hereafter unbelievers are totally forsaken of God and will be forever.

Jesus experienced physical death, but before He died physically He suffered eternal death. His heavenly Father totally forsook Him as the worst of sinners, for indeed He was since He had agreed to bear the sin of all, also your sin and mine, the sin of the world.

By enduring eternal death for us Jesus has removed the sting of physical death for those who believe in Him. The Bible triumphantly proclaims: "Death is swallowed up in victory!" And St. Paul responded to this by mocking death and the grave, saying, "O death, where is they sting? O grave, where thy victory? The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God which gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. (1 Corinthians 15:55-57)

To die a death that has no sting is not really dying at all. It is a falling asleep in Jesus. For the Christian physical death is not the wages of sin as some think or teach and preach. Such a morbid teaching ignores the glorious fact that the wages of sin have all been paid by Jesus Christ.

Therefore, when the New Testament writers speak about the death of a Christian they always use the word “sleep" for death as did Jesus. When Lazarus, the brother of Mary Martha of Bethany, had died Jesus said to His disciples,”Our friend, Lazarus, sleeps, but I go to awaken him." (John 11:11) And St. Paul referred to the Thessalonian Christians who had died as "them which are asleep," saying, "I would not have you be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not even as others which have no hope." (1 Thessalonians 4:13)

Those who go to sleep at night do so with faith and hope that they shall arise, renewed and refreshed, to a new day. So we Christians die with the sure hope that Jesus, our dear Savior, will call to us and awaken us on that great and glorious day when He comes again.

Therefore, we Christians can really live now here on earth although we are in the midst of death, and are dying physically. We now have spiritual, eternal life.

Those who live in Christ through faith in His substitutional suffering and death really live.

Can you imagine the thoughts of this young man in our text after he had been raised from death to life by Jesus? If he hadn't been a believer before, he certainly became one after this traumatic experience of Jesus' great power and compassion. And he would, therefore, have the right values and goals for the balance of his life here on earth.

We, like this young man, have passed from death to life through our faith in Jesus Christ. Therefore, we, also, have the right values and goals for the balance of our life here on earth. For us Christians this life on earth is not all there is. We look for a city eternal in the heavens, whose builder and maker is God. We consider ourselves pilgrims, and have so named some of our churches to remind us of this important truth.

Therefore, we do not love this present world and the things in it, even our very lives. We can risk our lives in the service of our dear lord, for we have eternal life. We can forgive our brother or enemy who has sinned against us, for we remember that we, too, are sinners and have been forgiven by a kind and merciful God. Our lives are not poisoned by bitterness, hatred and the seeking of revenge. We can give generously for the poor and for the proclamation of the Gospel, and have great joy in that giving, for we know and have experienced the tremendous generosity of our dear Father in heaven. We Christians who are alive to God have joy, peace, hope and comfort which those who are dead to God cannot know.

Unfortunately, Christians don't always live this new life in Christ as well as they should or could. We still have our sinful nature, the devil and the unbelieving people to tempt us and lead us astray.

Too often we mirror the values and ways of the unbelieving world. We plan and build and do as if this life on earth were all there is. We Christian pilgrims probably ought to be living in tents, but most of us are living in some very substantial housing. This poem sums it up quite well.

"The angels from their throne on high
Look down on us with wondering eye,
For where we are but passing guests
We build such strong and solid nests,
But where we hope to live for aye
We scarce take heed one stone to lay."

In love our Lord Jesus admonishes us: "Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." (Matthew 6:19-21)

I think that we need to ask ourselves this morning where our treasure is. Is it in heaven via our many good works of sharing, forgiving and giving? Or is it stored up here on earth in housing we don't really need, motor homes and boats that we seldom use or use too much, stocks, bonds C.D.'s that we trust rather than God and do nothing for the Kingdom of God?

Although we may not be living too well the abundant life which our Lord came to give us, He in HIS great love and mercy keeps coming to us with the Word of Life, as He is coming to us in this very hour, challenging our dry bones to arise from spiritual death and really live. He says through His messengers as St. Paul said to the Ephesians, "Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead: and Christ shall give you life. (Ephesians 5:14)

Amen.