|
FAMOUS
FIRST WORDS! Mark 16: 1-8 (also 9-11)
Mark was three years old when his pet lizard died. Since it was her
grandson's first brush with death, Grandmother Marie suggested that he and an
older boy in the family hold a "funeral" for the lizard. Granny explained what a funeral was--a ceremony where you
said a prayer, sang a song, and buried your loved one. She provided a shoe box and a burial place in the backyard.
The boys thought it was a fine idea.
And so they proceeded to the yard. The
older boy said a prayer, then asked little Mark if he wouldn't like to sing a
song. With tears in his eyes, Mark clasped his hands, bowed his
head, and belted out the Ray Charles' favorite, "Hit the Road, Jack." (1)
One of the most difficult
things for most of us to do at the time of death is to know what is or is not
appropriate. We usually don't have to worry about what to sing--but we do worry
about what to say or to do. When someone we love is dying, what can we say that
will comfort them? Words are so inadequate. And what about when WE are dying?
What can we say to encourage those who are left behind?
There was a time when people recorded the last words of their loved ones.
This custom has almost vanished, perhaps in large part because many people die
today quietly in some hospital room or rest home--alone. It's a shame because
there is comfort in some of those
last words. Maria Mitchell, the first woman astronomer in America spoke
these words just before her death: "Well, if this is dying, there is
nothing unpleasant about it." Does that give you comfort? It does me.
In one of life's most tragic ironies, Beethoven spent the last part of
his life totally deaf--unable to hear his own magnificent music. His last words
were, "I shall hear in Heaven."
Most certainly.
Thomas Edison, that man of imagination and foresight, spoke his
last words in a whisper and with a smile on his face, "It is very
beautiful over there!"
I have appreciate the wonderful last sentence from Peter Marshall, the
Chaplain of the United States Senate. In his biography, A MAN CALLED PETER, his
wife Catherine tells how, as he was being carried from his house on a stretcher
on his way to the hospital, he said to her, "I'll see you in the
morning." (2)
Last words. They can give us comfort and hope. Untold numbers of
sermons have been preached on Jesus' Seven Last Words on the Cross. And those
words are meaningful and helpful. I wonder, though, why we haven't devoted as
much time to Jesus' first words after
his resurrection. After all, LAST words are a dime a dozen.
But there have only been a few words spoken by one who has come back from
the dead and lives forevermore, and those words all come from the mouth
of the same man, Jesus.
The accounts of the first Easter are jumbled. The stories are told
differently by each of the Gospel writers. That's one of the reasons the stories
ring with such authenticity: if the scholars who first compiled our scriptures
were trying to fool us, they could have easily ironed out the discrepancies. But
eyewitness accounts rarely agree as to details. And that's what these were: eyewitness
accounts passed down by persons who were close to Jesus.
One thing that both the Gospels of Mark and John agree on
is that the first person to whom Jesus spoke after his resurrection was Mary
Magdalene--a woman, Mark reminds us, who had once been possessed by seven
demons. And, what were Jesus' first words to Mary?
JESUS' FIRST WORDS TO MARY AFTER HIS RESURRECTION WERE THESE:
"WHY ARE YOU CRYING?" At
first it seems like a foolish, even insensitive question. Why was she crying?
She was crying because her best friend was dead. Why was she crying?
She was crying because the man who had brought her from darkness into
light was dead. Why was she crying? Because all of her hopes and dreams had been
crushed. That is why she was crying. What business was it of this gardener to
ask such a question in the first place?
And if it had been the gardener who asked the question, we could
ignore it,. But it was Jesus who was asking, "Why are you crying?"
Jesus was the most compassionate man who ever lived, but he surely found
the lack of faith on the part of his friends tiresome. He had told them that he
must be crucified, but on the third day he would be raised to life. Were they
not listening? Did they not believe
him? Yes, they heard his words, and
they believed that he was sent from God. But victory over death? Victory
after crucifixion? Victory after two days in the tomb? Faith is easy in the
abstract, when things are going well, but when our lives cave in on us,
faith is much more difficult.
Diane and Bruce Ringgold led a charmed life.
They were successful in their work, happy in their marriage, and the
proud parents of three wonderful children.
But one night, that charmed life came to an end.
Bruce, an experienced amateur pilot, was flying the family to California
in his small plane. But he lost his way in the overcast sky, and crashed the
plane into the side of a mountain. Diane
was the only survivor. After escaping from the wrecked plane, she lay down in a
field and prayed to die. Who can
blame her? The people she loved most were now dead in a terrible accident. But
then, a shining figure appeared in the field.
She knew it was God. God told her that her life was in His hands, and it
was not up to her to ask for death. At that moment, she surrendered all her pain
and grief to God, and asked God to carry her through. She knew then that
everything would be all right.(3)
Faith in the abstract is easy. Anybody can have faith when life is easy.
But what about those times when the shadows bring a chill, when the specter of
death threatens our security and happiness? Then faith is harder to sustain.
I’m sure there is someone here who is having difficulty believing in
the good news of Easter. The doctor has given you bad news about your
future or the future of someone you love and you want to cry out, "This
isn't real! Why me? Where is God?" But
God is where God has always been--looking after those who love Him. Jesus says
to Mary, "Why
are you crying? Whom are you
looking for?"
You see, Mary, too, thought God was AWOL.
She thought this man who was intruding into her grief was the gardener.
"Sir," she said, "if you have taken him away, tell me where you
have put him, and I will go and get him."
How human Mary's reaction is. No mention of God, no thought of Heaven.
Just "let me get back to my routine. Let me do what I came here to do, then
I'll work it out. A year of mourning and I'll be back to normal. Don't you know
about the seven stages of grief? Denial, anger, etc. Just tell me what you have
done with his body and I will be able to carry on from there."
One of the most natural and normal reactions to loss is grief.
Jesus asked, "Why are you crying?" Surely he knew that crying is good
for us. It allows us to let go of pent-up pain, anger, hurt, fear, loss.
There are times when we need to cry and we should never apologize for
it. But as St. Paul write in First Thessalonians, we are not to grieve as
those who have no hope. Paul writes, "And
now, dear brothers, I want you to know what happens to a Christian when he dies
so that when it happens, you will not be full of sorrow, as those are who have
no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and then came back to life again,
we can also believe that when Jesus returns, God will bring back with him all
the Christians who have died."
The answer to loss is not grief, but faith--faith
in the power of God over the grave--faith that the gardener is indeed Jesus
who was crucified--faith that neither life nor death will be able to separate us
from the love of God. You see,
some people become stuck in their grief. Not only does their loved one
die, but they quit living as well. And this is not God's will for His
children. God's will for us is to believe the Master when he said, "I go
to prepare a place for you that where I am you may also be." God's will
is for us to go on with life, not by our own will and determination, but by the
calm assurance that death is but one of a chain of events in our lives--and
it is not the final event at that. God's will is for us--even in the face
of death to live gloriously, triumphantly not only as people of the cross, but
as people of the empty tomb.
There was an article by Robert N. Test in the CINCINNATI POST many years
ago. It was about dying, but even
more so, it was about living. Here is what Mr. Test wrote:
"The
day will come when my body will lie upon a white sheet neatly tucked under four
corners of a mattress located in a hospital busily occupied with the living and
the dying. At a certain moment a
doctor will determine that my brain has ceased to function and that, for all
intents and purposes, my life has stopped.
"When that happens, do not attempt to instill artificial life into
my body by the use of a machine. And
don't call this my deathbed. Let it
be called the Bed of Life, and let my body be taken from it to help others lead
fuller lives.
"Give my sight to the man who has never seen a sunrise, a baby's
face or love in the eyes of a woman. Give
my heart to a person whose own heart has caused nothing but endless days of
pain. Give my blood to the teenager
who was pulled from the wreckage of his car, so that he might live to see his
grandchildren play. Give my kidneys
to one who depends on a machine to exist from week to week. Take my bones, every muscle, every fiber and nerve in my body
and find a way to make a crippled child walk.
"Explore every corner of my brain.
Take my cells, if necessary, and let them grow so that, someday, a
speechless boy will shout at the crack of a bat and a deaf girl will hear the
sound of rain against her window. Burn what is left of me and scatter the ashes
to the winds to help the flowers grow. If you must bury something, let it be my
faults, my weaknesses and all prejudice against my fellow man. Give my sins to
the devil. Give my soul to God.
If, by chance, you wish to remember me, do it with a kind deed or word to
someone who needs you. If you do all I have asked, I will live forever."
The test of Christian faith is not how often we attend church
or whether we teach Sunday School or sing in the choir. The test of Christian
faith is what happens after the last shovel-full of dirt has been heaped on the
grave of a loved one. Do we give up on life or do we hear the Master call our
name?
"Why are you crying? Whom
are you looking for?"
Speaking of last words, in one of his splendid books, Dr. C. Roy Angell
wrote about the death of his friend Ben Bronner. For about two years before his
death, Bronner was confined to a wheelchair. He even had to sleep in the
wheelchair.
Late one night Roy Angell was summoned to the Bronner home. When he
arrived at the house, Bronner was asleep. But
in a few minutes he awakened, recognized his pastor, and said, "Good news,
Roy, I'm going home before the day is over and I'm so glad."
The man in the wheelchair asked his wife to bring all his fishing gear
in, and when she did, he gave it to Dr. Angell.
"Remember the good times we had fishing, Roy?" he asked.
"After I'm gone, take the fishing gear and enjoy it. Don't let it rust. Use
it and wear it out and think of me when you catch a big one."
Then Bronner asked Dr. Angell a question: "Didn't your father die
recently?" When Angell replied that his father had died the previous
December, Bronner asked if Dr. Angell would like to send a message to his
father. "I think I'll know him when I see him over there," Bronner
said. Then Bronner gave Roy Angell his last request: "Take my body down to
the old burying ground in Virginia, the old home burial ground, and bury it .
And tell the folks Ben Bronner was smiling when he went home."(4)
"Why are you crying?" the risen Christ asked Mary. "Whom
are you looking for?" "Tell
the folks Ben Bronner was smiling when he went home."
"I'll see you in the morning," said Peter Marshall to his wife
Catherine. "Don't touch
me," Jesus cautioned Mary, "for I haven't yet ascended to the Father.
But go find my brothers and tell them that I ascend to my Father and your
Father, my God and your God." Happy
Easter. 1. Lois Wyse, YOU WOULDN'T
BELIEVE WHAT MY GRANDCHILD . . . (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994). 2. ALL
THE SAINTS ADORE THEE by Bruce Shelley, BakerBooks, 1988, p. 37. 3. Melvin
Cheatham, M.D.& Mark Cutshall, LIVING A LIFE THAT COUNTS (Nashville: Thomas
Nelson, 1995). 4. Roy Angell, IRON SHOES, (Nashville: Broadman Press, 1953), pp.
108-109. |
|
|