In the world today about 56,597,034 people die a year. Which works out to approximately 155,000 people a day, 6458 an hour, and 108 people a minute. Which means every second 2 people die. For every breath you take approximately seven people have died. Death is everywhere, and it happens to everyone.
This week I took a walk through a graveyard in Ann Arbor. It’s one of my favorites. Graves are all around you. Some are extravagant others are simple, but every one of them marks the same thing a person who was born, who lived, and now has died. This one in particular has a few graves I always like to visit. It has one tombstone on which is engraved what is possibly the most evil sounding name I have ever heard. “Slitler Weingar.” There are others with statues of angels, and many that are only half finished. One person lies there and their spouse has a name written with a year of birth, but a blank space for a death year.
There are few things as sobering as having your grave already picked out. I can’t imagine what it would be like to sit in front of a grave and know that someday, maybe soon that date will be filled in and you will live just six feet below where you stand for the rest of time.
When I was in Denmark I spent a lot of time in graveyards. I went and visited Hans Christian Anderson, and then went and saw Kierkegaard These were men who moved and directed human imagination and thought throughout the whole world and I found myself alone beside them with no one around. No matter how great you are you will die. Death is nothing special it is nothing new.
Today the Christian church remembers the death of Jesus. We call it Good Friday. Many of you probably went to a service today where the story of Christ’s brutal execution was retold. I’ve gone to many of these services over the years. Protestant, Catholic, this week I even went to a Jehovah’s Witnesses’ service. We all remember the death of Jesus.
Why?
Why was Jesus’ death special?
There is no other death that is so widely honored.
It has been featured in movies, incorporated into books, and remembered in songs (including a few of my own).
But Jesus’ death was nothing special apart from his life.
The power of the crucifixion is in the life that it ended.
The word passion is rooted in the Latin word patior- to suffer.
The thing about the passion of the Christ is that it didn’t really start in the garden of Gethsemane. It started in the manger.
Have you seen the Film? Have you read the gospels? On Good Friday we see the life of Jesus lived out powerfully. He was poor in spirit, he mourned and he was comforted. He was humble, gentile, and submissive unto death, the portrait of a meek servant. He was filled with righteousness, and was merciful, even to those who came to take his life. He saw God, his father, and his heart was pure. In the midst of violence he brought peace. And he was persecuted even to the point of death.
Does this sound failure? It should. It was the kind of life Jesus talked about in Matthew Chapter 5.
Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn,
for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek,
for they will inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
for they will be filled.
Blessed are the merciful,
for they will be shown mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they will see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they will be called sons of God.
Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
The message of the passion is more then you were saved through Jesus’ death. The message of the passion also tells Christians that you were part of Jesus’ death. In Galatians 2:20 Paul states, “I have been crucified with Christ.”
Through faith we are united to Christ in his death.
And it’s a death that that we are called to every day. Paul emphasizes this again in 1 Corinthians 15:31 where he tells us that he dies everyday. That is our call, to offer our bodies as living sacrifices (Romans 12:1).
What is a sacrifice? “Forfeiture of something highly valued for the sake of one considered to have a greater value or claim.”
We were bought at a High price, the life of Jesus. We are called to live a life that reflects the price that was paid, the life of Jesus.
What is our sacrifice? Forfeiture of our own lives for the sake of life that Jesus claimed us with.
To live the life of Christ today.
To be A follower of Christ.
A little Christ.
A Christian
Because that’s what the word means.
John 3:16 tells us God so loved the world that he went his son.
Through Christ we have become Sons and Daughters of God, and guess what? God still loves the world.
You have been saved, but that means you have been sent.
The Christian religion isn’t about honoring Jesus with songs and services where we offer him praise with our lips, but honoring Jesus with our lives.
James 1:27 - Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and guard against corruption from the godless world.
Amos 5: 11-12, 21-24 –
“You trample on the poor
and force him to give you grain.
Therefore, though you have built stone mansions,
you will not live in them;
though you have planted lush vineyards,
you will not drink their wine.
For I know how many are your offenses
and how great your sins.
You oppress the righteous and take bribes
and you deprive the poor of justice in the courts.”
"I hate, I despise your religious feasts;
I cannot stand your assemblies.
Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings,
I will not accept them.
Though you bring choice fellowship offerings,
I will have no regard for them.
Away with the noise of your songs!
I will not listen to the music of your harps.
But let justice roll on like a river,
righteousness like a never-failing stream!”
Do you want to honor God this Good Friday? Do you want to show Jesus you are thankful for his Sacrifice?
Look at the scriptures. What kind of praise does God want?
There is something wrong with the church when we build mansions for God, but leave the homeless without shelter.
Jesus was a homeless man who said we would find him in the broken and destitute of the world.
During the time it took me to talk to you around 540 Children have died from hunger related causes. Many of those without ever knowing God’s love first hand.
In our country alone there are 3 Million homeless people. One third of which are homeless.
In Matthew 25 Jesus tells a story where he divides the righteous from the unrighteous.
The righteous are on his right and the unrighteous are on his left. Jesus says, “"Then he will say to those on his left, ’Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’
"They also will answer, ’Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’
"He will reply, ’I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’
Jesus passion didn’t end on the cross
He is suffering today, all around us.
And he is calling to love.
The story of Jesus doesn’t end with the cross (if you don’t know what I’m talking about go to a church on Sunday and listen real close… it’s pretty awesome)
Everyone will die, but God has called us to live a new life. Just as we died with Christ so we live with him.
That life begins today. Go the harvest is plentiful but the workers are few.
