Life, Death And God's Steadfast Love

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I was feeling a but lazy so I went to Chat GPT to see if it could come up with any good ideas for this weeks sermon - and to be honest it was not very helpful. But it did come up with a great title - “life, death and God’s steadfast love”

This week I am meeting an elderly mum to talk about the upcoming funeral for her 44 year old son who suddenly and unexpectedly died in his sleep?. What DO you say to someone in such a circumstance? What can be more devastating than to have one’s child die before one?

Picture the scene in our bible reading from Mark Chapter 5. Jairus “one of the leaders of the synagogue” - that’s basically like a church warden or PCC member - the people who ran the synagogue. They would have called in different rabbis on different weeks to preach, and these leaders of the synagogue were responsible for the rotas.

Jairus is terrified and desperate. His “little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well, and live.” He breathes a sigh of relief as Jesus says yes. Now perhaps it will be OK. But then there is an inter-ruption along the way. It slows them down. And when they get through it, messengers come with the dreadful news. “Your daughter is dead.”

The way this was phrased in the original language was even more abrupt. They literally said to this worried daddy, “DEAD, your daughter is.” (probably an ancestor to Yoda) It must have been like a knife in his heart to hear that word, “dead.” It’s the most absolutely harsh and hopeless word in any language. (1)

The absolute horror of death. There’s a saying “where there’s life there’s hope.” But with death, all hope is gone. What do I say to the elderly mum I meet this week? What could Jesus say to Jairus in the midst of his pain?

How can God allow this death?

We then hear our first reading from the book of wisdom -

13 because God did not make death,

and he does not delight in the death of the living.

14 For he created all things so that they might exist;

the generative forces of the world are wholesome,

and there is no destructive poison in them,

and the dominion of Hades is not on earth.

15 For righteousness is immortal.

23 for God created us for incorruption,

and made us in the image of his own eternity,

24 but through the devil’s envy death entered the world,

and those who belong to his company experience it. (2)

That’s sounds a bit of a cheat- is God trying to get himself off the hook here? Let me counter with a story, a story that may be apocryphal but makes a valid point:

A University professor challenged his students with this question. “Did God create everything that exists?” One student bravely replied, “Yes he did!”

“God created everything?” The professor asked. “Yes sir, he certainly did,” the student replied.

The professor answered, “If God created everything; then God created evil. And, since evil exists, and according to the principal that our works define who we are, then we can assume God is evil.”

The student became quiet and did not answer the professor’s hypothetical definition.

The professor, quite pleased with himself, boasted to the students that he had proven once more that the Judaeo-Christian faith was a bunch of myths.

Another student raised his hand and said, “May I ask you a question, professor?”

“Of course”, replied the professor. The student stood up and asked, “Professor does cold exist?”

“What kind of question is this? Of course it exists. Have you never been cold?” The other students snickered at the young man’s question.

The young man replied, “In fact sir, cold does not exist. According to the laws of physics, what we consider cold is in reality the absence of heat. Every body or object is susceptible to study when it has or transmits energy, and heat is what makes a body or matter have or transmit energy. Absolute zero (-460 F) is the total absence of heat; and all matter becomes inert and incapable of reaction at that temperature. Cold does not exist. We have created this word to describe how we feel if we have no heat.”

The student continued, “Professor, does darkness exist?” The professor responded, “Of course it does.”

The student replied, "Once again you are wrong sir, darkness does not exist either. Darkness is in reality the absence of light. Light we can study, but not darkness. In fact we can use Newton's prism to break white light into many colors and study the various wavelengths of each color. You cannot measure darkness. A simple ray of light can break into a world of darkness and illuminate it. How can you know how dark a certain space is? You measure the amount of light present. Isn't this correct? Darkness is a term used by man to describe what happens when there is no light present."