Life and Death

The scriptures referred to are 1 Corinthians 15:1-11.

Whenever someone tells you we don't need religion because science has the answers, ask them what the scientific consensus definition of life is. Because there isn't one. There are many attempts to come up with one but as it turns out, on this planet alone not every creature fits all of the criteria. The definition has to fit not just animals but plants and fungi and protists, which are neither plant, animal or fungus, plus bacteria. Oh, and it would be nice to determine if viruses are alive or not. And one day what about robots with artificial intelligence? If the person does even a half-way decent job with a scientifically rigorous definition of life, then ask him what consciousness is.

We are not even sure what death is. Is it the cessation of all biological functions? Then what do we make of tardigrades? These creatures, half a millimeter long, are practically the most resilient animals on earth, able to survive on mountaintops and at the bottom of the sea, in mud volcanoes as well as in Antarctica. They can survive extremes in temperature, pressure, lack of air, radiation, and starvation. They can survive in outer space. They have been dehydrated only to be restored to life a decade later. So can you kill a tardigrade? Yes but you really have to work hard at it. Just recently it was found that while they can survive being boiled for an hour, if you keep them in water at 104 degrees for 2 whole days, you can kill them. Well, half of them. However, if you gradually warmed them up in two hour increments, 72% of those who were allowed to acclimate to higher and higher temperatures survived the hot water for longer than 48 hours. Still, though previously thought to live until the death of our sun, it seems that global warming might permanently kill off these nearly indestructible creatures.

But with human beings the differences between life and death are clear, right? Well, what about a person in a coma with a pacemaker keeping their heart going and a respirator keeping them breathing and a feeding tube delivering nutrition? Are they alive? Or has their dying simply been drawn out? But what if a person wasn't hooked up to machines and died? That's permanent, right?

There is a rare medical phenomenon called Lazarus Syndrome, where the heart spontaneously returns to a normal cardiac rhythm after attempts at resuscitation fail. A 66 year old man had a heart attack. They gave him shocks from a defibrillator and chest compressions for 17 minutes before pronouncing him dead. 10 minutes later, the doctor felt a pulse. He was treated and full recovered with no lasting physical or neurological problems. The world record for recovering from clinical death is held by Velma Thomas whose heart stopped 3 times during treatment and was finally declared clinically dead after going without brain activity for 17 hours. 10 minutes after life support was discontinued she revived and recovered.

My point is that the lines between life and death are fuzzy, especially nowadays. But whatever detours our life takes it inevitably leads to death. And in Jesus' day, there was no CPR, nor machines, nor anything we would call effective medical procedures to save your life. If you stopped breathing and/or bled out, you were dead. And if you were whipped, beaten, forced to march a fair distance, then nailed to a piece of wood and hung on a tree for hours, and finally pierced in the heart with a spear, you were definitely dead. If the Romans knew one thing, it was how to make you dead. When Jesus' mutilated body was wrapped in linen, placed in a tomb, and sealed behind a rock door, that should have been the end of him.

It wasn't, of course. And I needn't go over the events of the first Easter; we just read them. What I want to think about are the effects his resurrection had, not only on the disciples but also on the world, right up to today.

The disciples were not fools. They knew Jesus was dead. And the Tanakh, the Hebrew Bible, didn't say much about resurrection. Yet, aside from the Sadducees, most Jews accepted that everyone would be resurrected on the last day of the present evil age, kicking off the Messianic age. There was no idea that the Messiah would be resurrected, especially not himself alone. So the disciples didn't know what to do with Jesus' teaching about being raised on the third day. It was unprecedented. Which is why they were skeptical about the first reports of his resurrection, just as we would be.

But once they were convinced, by which I mean, once they met the risen Christ, it changed everything for them. Whereas Jesus found them cowering from the authorities in a locked room, when he ascended into heaven, they went out in public and fearlessly proclaimed a unique message. It was all about how Jesus had been executed on a cross but God had raised him from death. And they were eyewitnesses. And the only conclusion to be drawn is, as Peter put it on Pentecost, that “God has made this Jesus whom you crucified both Lord and Christ.” (Acts 2:36) If there was any question that Jesus was the Messiah, his resurrection dispelled all doubt.

So encountering the risen Jesus gave them courage to spread the word and defy those in power, the same ones that handed Jesus over to Pilate. Peter had chickened out after Jesus' arrest and denied knowing him 3 times. Now Peter couldn't shut up about Jesus. And he did at last die for Christ, many decades after he had told Jesus he would.

And that was probably because he no longer feared death. Nor did the others. Death and the fear of death makes people compliant with the injustices of the world. Why have people endured tyranny, slavery, caste systems, racism, sexism, exploitation of the poor by the powerful, the glorification of war, colonization, all of man's inhumanity to man, if not for the fear of death? People stand by and watch as other people are victimized because they are afraid that if they speak up or do something about it, the same will be happen to them. Anyone who tried to save Jews during the Holocaust was at risk of going to the camps themselves. During the civil rights era here in America, white people who marched with Martin Luther King or tried to sign up black voters were also in danger of being beaten or even killed. And Jesus and his disciples knew the story of how, when Herod the Great died, and the capital of Galilee, Sepphoris, revolted, the Romans came in, destroyed the city and crucified 3000 men. Fear of death kept the Romans in charge. Fear of death keeps injustice going and its perpetrators in power.

But if death is no longer the final word, then what is to hold people back? The disciples preached the good news of how God through Jesus dealt with the evil we unleashed upon the world, reconciled us to himself and overcame the ultimate consequence of evil—death. If you had met a person who had defeated death and who offered to do the same for all who followed him, could you keep that a secret?

This knowledge emboldened generations of Christians to not only proclaim the good news but live out its implications. They were inspired to take care of plague victims and lepers, to free slaves, to shelter Jews under the Nazi regime, and to stand up to oppression. The good news that Jesus frees us from not only sin but the fear of death changed people and they in turn changed the world.

The earliest Christians faced death simply for calling Jesus the King of kings and Lord of lords rather than the “divine” emperor. Missionaries took the good news to foreign and warlike tribes despite the dangers. Reformers who recovered the good news stood up to the church at the peak of its political power despite the risk of martyrdom. Christians became abolitionists and were part of the Underground Railroad and defied the Fugitive Slave Act. If death is not permanent but just a phase we pass through on the way to resurrection in a new heaven and a new earth, then the power of death and the power of those who wield it is broken.

The Bible tells us that death is the consequence of sin. We depart from God's way and that separation can become permanent. But God sent Jesus to seek us out and bring us back and end that separation between God and us. And he also ends that separation that sin causes between humans. And by doing that, he restores communities and families.

Not merely fear of death but death itself separates us from those we love. We are still living through a period in which death has taken so many. Covid-19 has killed 2.8 million people worldwide, more than a half a million in the US, making it the 3^rd leading cause of death last year, after heart disease and cancer. And most cruelly it has separated us from our loved ones before death, quarantining them in their last days and hours. Most, like my mother, died without being surrounded by family. Neither my brother nor I was able to be there for her at the end. I am still awaiting the day when it becomes safe for my brother and his family to come down with her cremains so we can give her a proper funeral. I hope I hold up better than when I did the service for my dad.

Jesus' triumph over death not only ends our separation from God but our separation from those who have gone before us. When Jesus healed people he restored them to the community of God's people from which they were separated. A healed leper could once again worship in the temple and embrace friends and family and live with them again. Resurrection is the ultimate in healing and it will restore us to God's people not just in this life but for eternity.

When we talk about someone playing God, we mean that they are deciding matters that can spell life or death for others. We forget that death was not God's original plan for us. He is the God of life, the One who causes all things to be. The Bible says we brought death into the picture. And, indeed, the leading causes of death in the US—heart disease, cancer, lower respiratory disease, stroke and unintentional injury, to which we have to add Covid-19, temporarily we hope—are largely preventable. By reducing obesity, high blood pressure, smoking, alcohol and drug abuse and by driving safely, wearing seatbelts, wearing masks, social distancing and getting vaccinated we could easily prevent more than a million deaths each year. Plus in the US we have a much higher rate of homicide than 22 other high income countries. In the first covenant God makes in the Bible, our part is not to shed the blood of people made in God's image. And then when God comes in person to tell us to love one another, we shed his blood. We are not playing God; we are betraying what God intended humans to be.

But there is hope. And that is what today is all about. In Jesus we see that God the lifegiver triumphs over death. In Jesus we see that God the healer undoes the ultimate result of disease. In Jesus we see that God the creator has begun work on his new creation, where mourning and crying and pain and suffering and death are no more. Earthly life is superseded by eternal life. It begins with Jesus and, as C.S. Lewis put it, like a good infection it spreads from him to the disciples, to the Jews, to the Samaritans, to the Gentiles, and finally to the world. But unlike Covid, this infection doesn't come into you uninvited. You must open your heart to it. You must embrace Jesus, not keep him at arm's length. You must breathe in his Spirit. And you want to pass on this good infection, this new life. And some day, soon we hope, we will be able to spread it without all the precautions of this pandemic. Because nothing is too hard for the God who banishes disease and restores health and who brings life even out of death. Jesus said that with God nothing is impossible. And on Easter he proved it. How can we keep such good news to ourselves?

Christ is risen!

He is risen indeed!