What’s your attitude to death?
If you were to visit a doctor tomorrow
and they said you were dieing, how would you react?
Would you be like one of my mates who said, I can’t afford to die yet,
I don’t have enough money for the funeral?
Or perhaps you might be like the lady who said of course I know that, from the moment I was born I began to die?
Death is part of life…
Every year over 132,000 people in Australia die.
Every day of our life is one step closer to you dieing.
Death is a costly business.
The average funeral costs around $5000 per person.
Maybe this explains why so many people will do anything to avoid dieing and many who worry about dieing.
One day a ninety-five year old woman at the nursing home received a visit
from one of her fellow church members.
“How are you feeling?” the visitor asked.
“Oh,” said the lady, “I’m just worried sick!”
“What are you worried about, dear?” her friend asked. “You look like you’re in good health. They are taking care of you, aren’t they?”
“Yes, they are taking very good care of me.”
“Are you in any pain?” she asked.
“No, I have never had a pain in my life.”
“Well, what are you worried about?” her friend asked again.
The lady leaned back in her rocking chair and slowly explained her major worry.
“Every close friend I ever had has already died and gone on to
heaven.
And I know what they are like
I’m afraid they’re all wondering where I went.”
And we seem to live amongst people who worry about dieing or would do almost anything to avoid dieing.
There seems to be a ‘fear of death.’
Are your actions in life influenced by death?
I know of people, who will only visit a retirement homes or funeral if they are dragged there,
because they don’t like death.
What is ironic is that even though many people don’t like death,
death seems to strongly influences how they live.
Advertising and media stories relating to health and safety are often slanted towards scaring us about dieing.
With the underlying message if you don’t do this
or that you will die.
Lose weight or you will die.
Eat healthier or you will die.
Drive slower or you may kill someone.
Exercise more or you will die.
.
Interestingly our reading from Romans 8 verse 6 says something about this.
The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace;
As baptised people of God there is more to life than death.
Death is not the end.
Do you realise that there is more to life than dieing.
There is more to life than being worried about death.
There is more to life than being driven by the fear of death.
In today’s Gospel reading we see how Jesus responds to death.
If you would like, please open up to chapter 11 of John.
For a start when you scan down the chapter,
you will see the very next verses following our reading,
verses 45-57
the plot to kill Jesus begins.
Even in today’s reading the plot to kill Jesus has begun.
And this plot thickens and gets closer to reality in chapters 12 and 13.
We see the events that ultimately lead up to Jesus death and resurrection.
So today’s reading about Lazarus’ death and resurrection
is very close to the events that lead to Jesus’ death and resurrection.
Today’s reading is preparing us as disciples of Jesus Christ for His death and resurrection.
Verse 4 makes a very important statement relating to the Christian life.
Jesus gives us his perspective on death.
And this perspective is foundational to our perspective on death.
Reading from verse 3, so we get the context.
3 So the sisters sent word to Jesus, “Lord, the one you love is sick.” 4 When he heard this, Jesus said, “This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God’s glory so that God’s Son may be glorified through it.”
Now the word glorifying is a word bandied about in Chrsitian circles.
It basically means about praising, worshipping, honouring God, acknowledging God is doing fantastic things.
Have you ever thought about that through your difficulties, your sicknesses and even your death God can be glorfied?
Not because you got sick or died.
But how God worked through that sickness or death.
How can God use your death to highlight how good he is?
To demonstrate how great he is.
This is an important perspective to have.
Have you thought about that?
In fact as a result of any difficulties
and flaws we have God can be glorified.
We can glorify God through sickness and death in at least 3 ways.
We can glorify God by how we react to life and death.
Some of you know Dorothy Krist a lady who was a member of our congregation for over 20 years.
For much of that time Dorothy had cancer.
And she encouraged me to use her story whenever I saw fit.
She spent the last three months of her life in Mount Vincent nursing home, quiet ill.
But even during this time her perspective on life and dieing was inspirational to many.
She was positive.
She was pleasant.
Not because she expected some miraculous physical healing, but because she knew that her loving God was with here and would ultimately take her to her heavenly home free from all pain and suffering.
Now what was interesting was this rubbed off on many people including the carers.
I remember talking to two of her carers who said she is so inspirational and this was at a time she was physically incapable of doing much and this altered the way they saw God.
You see Dorothy didn’t worry about what was happening to her now, but was looking forward to what God had done and was going to do for her.
Through how we react to situations like death, sickness and difficulties we can influence others by glorifying God.
Secondly we can glorify God by making sure our funeral has a Christ centred focus.
Have you spent time thinking about the Christian message you want your friends and family to hear at your funeral?
Have you thought about the hymns, songs, bible readings, the focus form your funeral?
If you want help with that please contact me so we can help you.
And thirdly and most importantly we can glorify God by relying on him to get rid of permanent death
and breathe new life into us.
By saying God without you I am useless.
God I need your forgiveness,
I need help to get off the path of death and to stay on the path of life.
God it is only you who can forgive me my sin and help me live in ways that are consistent with your approach to life.
Without Jesus dieing on the cross and rising for me I have no hope of eternal life.
God please give me the new life you have promised.
And why do we do this?
Why is it important to glorify God in all aspects of our life including death and difficulties?
Well jump down to verse 45 of John 11 and lets look at what ti says.
Because those who had come to be with Mary who mourned, saw what Jesus did and put their faith in him…
In our lives, our good times and those difficulties like death people will come expecting one thing or another,
but when we glorify God
we bring God into their midst.
We be witnesses of the hope that God offers everyone.
And we do glorify God so people have another opportunity to put their faith in him.
Jesus perspective on death enabling us to glorify God comes clearer when we see how he reacts to death in this reading
Jesus doesn’t see or treat death as the end of something,
as the completion of life.
Look at verse 6 to 10 he is not scared of it
or phased by even the possibility of his own death.
He is even prepared to go amongst people who are likely to kill him.
And when it comes to Lazarus’ he doesn’t panic.
Look at verse 6.
Instead of rushing to see Lazarus when he is sick Jesus takes a rest.
Instead of rushing to be beside Lazarus and Mary and Martha,
Jesus by his actions says look I am not going to be dictated to by death.
I am going to enjoy life here.
He takes his time.
He stayed where he was for two days.
This is because as verses 28 to 44 highlight the fact that for Jesus and all his disciples including us death is not permanent.
And this perspective on death should have an influence on our lives.
For those people who believe that death is the final end,
their focus on life is to enjoy life,
earn as much as possible,
and live as long as possible.
However for us who believe that their life is life after death,
our focus in on preparing for life after death,
by developing a relationship with the God who gives us this life.
By knowing him better
and by developing relationships with other Christians.
And when we look at verse 44 we see that death does not restrict Jesus.
And when we look at the reading from Romans chapter 8 we see that death should not restrict us.
Instead we should recognise that Christ lives in us.
And because of this we too are going to live beyond death.
But death still affects us
And this is why we need Jesus
We need Jesus to deal with death.
And like Lazarus
we need Jesus to give us new life.
A new life that comes about by Jesus forgiving our sins….
So let us now spend some time in prayer seeking God’s forgiveness and offer of a new life.
