Roger’s Question

 

The Fourth Sunday of Easter                                                                       April 25, 2010

Text: John 10:22-30                                                                          The Rev. Dr. Ross M. Wright                                                                                  

Some years ago, I participated in a Bible study that was considering what the New Testament has to say about resurrection: about Christ’s resurrection body; about the promise that we too will one day have resurrection bodies; about the resurrection of the dead on the last day – in short, about the topics we have been considering in this series of sermons on the resurrection.  One of the members of the group, Roger, was in his late 20s and, as it turns out, had recently lost his father.   Roger was pretty quiet, but at the end of one of the discussions, he said: “I believe in the bodily resurrection of Jesus.  I believe in the general resurrection of the dead at the end of time.  But what I want know is: Where is my father?  Where is he now?”

 

This sermon is an attempt to answer Roger’s question.  Where are the “faithful departed,” between now and the coming day of the resurrection? Are they conscious?  Do they sleep?  Are they in Purgatory?  Are they already with God?  How can we have contact with them? 

                                                            

There are three possible answers to Roger’s question.  The first is purgatory.  According to traditional Roman Catholic doctrine of purgatory, when we die we must be cleansed or purged from the sins and  contamination that we have accumulated during the course of a lifetime.[1]   Picture a farmer, who has been mucking around in the dirt and manure all day and is invited to have an audience with the king (the illustration is apt, since the doctrine was developed during the medieval period).   As he is, he is not fit to be in the king’s presence.  Purgatory is a place where our filth is removed and we are re-clothed as our sins are purged, burned away.

 

According to this doctrine, those who die in the Lord need two things before they can enter eternal rest: more cleaning and more punishment.  “They must complete what the Council of Lyons called ‘full satisfaction for their sins’.”[2]  And they are helped to get through this embracing of pain by the prayers of the living, leading to the practice of masses and prayers for those in purgatory. 

 

Now, it needs be said that the doctrine of purgatory is undergoing something of a renovation by modern Roman Catholic theologians.  For example, Pope Benedict has described purgatory not a place where you spend extended time but as the actual fire of God’s judgment when we meet him on the last day.[3]  This gives the doctrine a far more biblical foundation. 

 

Still, I have to tell you straight out that I do not believe in purgatory.  Why not? 

Because it suggests that Christ’ work through the cross and resurrection is not enough.  Something more must  be done by us to complete this work.[4]  But the New Testament Gospel is the message of pardon and remission of sins through the finished work of Jesus Christ.  This is what Christ meant when he said in his last minutes on the cross, “It is finished.”  This is what St. Paul means when he says in the Epistle to the Romans:  

 

Who condemns us?  . . . .  Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?  shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?  No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loves us.  For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers. nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.[5]

 

And if this is true, then how can anyone say that we must suffer punishment for our sins in some kind of post-mortem purgatory?  The doctrine of purgatory “reveals a straightforward failure to grasp the very heart to what was achieved on the cross,” namely, that God “condemned sin in the flesh” of Jesus.[6]  According to the traditional doctrine of purgatory, God says in effect: “Nothing shall separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. . . but you still have to go through purgatory.”   

 

So, purgatory, at least as it is traditionally been understood, obscures the ringing declaration of pardon which resonates throughout the New Testament and which allowed Jesus to say to the criminal crucified beside him, “This day, you will be with me in Paradise.”  

 

A second possible answer to Roger’s question is the concept of the immortality of the soul.  Here, the idea is that our bodies are mere shells, which we leave behind when we die.  What matters is the soul, which flies like a bird to heaven, where we have a bodiless existence forever.  As I have said previously, the immortality of the soul is a platonic idea, not a biblical one.  According to Plato, the body is sack of bones from which we must be freed at our death, as the soul flies away like a bird to some formless, bodiless existence.   But think about what this is saying: there is a soul, which has a mind and a will, but no body to express itself?  If that is what heaven is like, would you want to go there?

 

By contrast, the biblical view of humanity is that we are embodied spirits. Now, there is more to us than just our physical bodies, to be sure: we have a spiritual life that cannot be equated with mere physical existence.  But our  spiritual life can’t be separated from our bodies, either.  Our bodies are crucial to our identity. 

 

Thomas Lynch is an Irish poet who makes his living as an undertaker (he prefers the old fashioned term).  Lynch is also a believer, who I gather takes seriously the Christian promise of the resurrection of the body.  He tells the story of serving at the graveside service of a teenage girl who died of leukemia.  One of the church deacons, in an attempt to comfort the girl’s mother, assured her that the body before them was not her daughter, but “just a shell.”  At which point the mother nearly decked him and said: “I’ll tell you when it’s just a shell.  For now and until I tell you otherwise, she’s my daughter.”[7] 

 

That mother is far closer to the New Testament vision of the resurrection than the deacon’s well-meaning but sanctimonious comment about the body as a shell.  The Christian hope includes the raising of our bodily life.  Because God cares about the entire cosmos – not just soul life.  On the last day, when Christ returns, God will recreate the entire universe, and the dead will be raised.  This recreation of the universe at the end of time will be will be a miracle on the order of the creation of the universe at the beginning of time. 

 

This means that our loved ones and all  the faithful departed are in an intermediate state, somewhere between death and the resurrection on the last day.  They await the coming day of the Lord, and we wait with them.   This is what we might call “the in-between time” – the  time between our death and rising from the dead.  What is this intermediate state like?  Are the dead conscious?  Can we experience their presence? 

 

            This takes me to the third answer to Roger’s question: the communion of the saints.  Let me be clear about what I mean by this phrase.  By “saints” I do not mean only those who are particularly virtuous: the prophets, apostles and martyrs; Mother Teresa, St. Frances – the “Saints” with a capital S.  I am using “saint” here in the proper New Testament sense of all those who belong to the Lord Jesus.  All those who are in Christ, living and dead.  To believe is to be “in Christ.”  Surely, this is bond is not destroyed by death.  We are in Christ in this life; the dead remain in Christ in their intermediate existence.  So, we are bound with believers throughout time in a community of love, with Jesus Christ at the center. 

 

The hymn, For all the saints, who from their labors rest, says it as well as anything I know:  

 

For all the saints, who from their labors rest,

who thee, by faith, before the world confessed,

Thy name, O Jesus, be forever blest.

                       

O blest communion! Fellowship divine!

We feebly struggle, they in glory shine;

Yet all are one in thee, for all are thine.  Alleluia!

 

So the answer to Roger and to all of us who have lost loved ones is this: the dead are in the presence of the Lord.  “They are with him, because he is with them.”[8]  What is this interim state like?  N. T. Wright describes it as “happy rest,” as they await the coming day of the Lord.  “You can call this ‘heaven’ if you like,” as long as we are clear that this is not their ultimate destination.  Rather, “they wait for the resurrection: a newly embodied life after life after death.”

 

There are several implications of this account of the matter.  For one thing, it means that we are probably closest to our beloved who are departed when we gather for the service of Holy Eucharist.  I think it also explains how we often experience their presence with us.   Their love and support encourage us.  The Epistle to the Hebrews assures us that we are “surrounded by . . . a great cloud of witnesses,” as the dead in Christ cheer us on, like a crowd cheers runners at the end of a marathon. 

 

Is it appropriate for us to pray for the dead?  Certainly not in the sense of moving them through purgatory.  God has done and is doing for them all that needs to be done.  We can add nothing to the completed work of Christ.  But it is appropriate to thank God for their life and love and witness. 

 

It also means that we are to respect the dead and not trample over them as if they no longer matter.  So, be careful how you speak of the dead.  We have no license to slander people just because they are not longer in the land of the living.

 

In the end, the answer to Roger’s question is not really an answer so  much as an invitation to follow the Lord Jesus Christ on his way.  Jesus Christ is on his way toward the final day of the Lord, when the entire universe is recreated.  He set out on this way at his incarnation, cross, and resurrection.  He has gone “to prepare a place for us.”  And now he calls us to follow where he leads the way.  We can hear this invitation in these words from our Gospel:

 

My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. no one will snatch them out of my hand.

 

We stand before a great mystery. But one thing is clear: the Lord’s promise that that no one, no-thing will be able to snatch us out of his hands – not us, and not our departed loved ones. 

 

I read an article some years ago in a wildlife preservation magazine about a man who was fishing at a deep water creek in the South Carolina low country.  He was standing right at the water’s edge with his dog, a golden retriever, next to him. Suddenly, before he knew what was happening, the surface of the water exploded, and an alligator lunged out of the water, grabbed the man’s dog, and tried to pull him under water.  In the following seconds, a death struggle ensued, as the dog tried to free himself.  The man held on to the dog and tried to fight off the alligator, but the alligator managed to pull the dog into the water.  The man held on.  The alligator pulled the dog under the water.  The man continued to hold on as all three went under.  He held on to his dog as long as he could, but eventually, he ran out of breath and had to let go. 

 

The same thing that makes life in this world interesting also makes it dangerous, and you never know when the next danger will rear its ugly head.  Anyone who loves life is vulnerable to suffering and loss.  In fact, the more you love life, the more you suffer.    

 

But, the risen Christ is more powerful than any threat; not even death is a mach for him.  We are his sheep.  He cares for us.  He is interested in us.  He has promised to be there for us, until we take our dying breath, and then to usher us to the other side.  He has given us his promise: No one, no-thing will be able to snatch us out of his hands.  And he will raise us up on the last day.