Wisdom of Solomon 1:12-15 and 2:23-24
I have to admit that the wisdom books are some of my favorite literature.
I don’t know if our members have ever been introduced to the apocryphal/deuterocanoninical books, but if you’ve grown up in the Roman Catholic tradition, they are included in the Bibles used in that tradition.
They are also included in the Harper Collins Study Bible, the NRSV version which is used for academic studies at institutions of higher learning.
To give you a background about The Wisdom of Solomon, would be to explain this book as an horatory discourse featuring a highly enthusiastic and eulogistic invocation of wisdom.
It was written in Greek by a learned and profoundly hellenized Jew of Alexandria after that city’s conquests by Rome in 30 B.C.E.
To begin an appreciation of today’s lectionary text, we might recognize that the author is looking at death as the lot of the sinner.
Death is the eternal separation from God.
And we know that separation from God brings chaos and endless pain and suffering.
The author of wisdom pays little attention to the reality of physical death.
Hades is personified as in Job 38:17, Rev. 6:8 & 20:14 as one would read, “I looked and there was a pale green horse! Its rider’s name was Death, and Hades followed with him; they were given authority over a fourth of the earth, to kill with sword, famine, and pestilence, and by the wild animals of the earth.” “Then Death & Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire; and anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire.”
Now before I go any further, I want to share with you a thought that came to my mind the week before I began reflecting on this scripture to prepare this message.
I noticed an old church’s worship service being broadcast on national television from the time period when hell, fire, brimstone, and damnation were heavily preached in the church.
The parallel came to my mind, that when people had a reverent fear of the Lord on their hearts, the churches were filled to capacity and often times overflowing, needing several services to accommodate the large crowds.
Where has our reverent fear of the Lord gone?
Are we hearing too much preaching of Jesus love you and you’re ok and I’m okay, and what you do is okay if it doesn’t effect anyone else?
Look what’s happened to Roe vs. Wade.
Since Roe vs. Wade was won in the courts, there have been countless numbers of abortions.
We cannot say that what one person does does not affect another.
I wonder how many women are suffering from post abortion trauma and guilt because they’ve been told that abortions are ok.
Now that Roe is a Christian, she is sueing the courts to reverse their decision.
I had a few interesting encounters on the street in the past several weeks.
I was visiting one of our shut-ins at PPH and when I was getting out of my car, the girl in the car next to me was screaming at her boyfriend using very unlady like profanity. She looked at me, immediately stopped yelling, and apologized to me.
I smiled at her and said, “You never know who’s listening.”
You see, she knew what she was doing was wrong.
What she failed to realize, was that God is always watching what she is doing.
A few days later, I was at Rita’s getting an Italian Ice when some school kids were getting out of school and there was a group of kids hanging out on the corner across the street. I had to cross at that corner to get back to my car. As I was waiting at the light, one of the girls was using very inapropriate language. When she saw me, she stopped and apologized.
I was thankful that at least these two girls in these two situations recognized that their behavior was not how they should be acting.
A few days after that, when I was taking my mother back to Valley Forge Park, we stopped in the restroom before saying good by in the parking lot. I heard one lady whisper to the other, “There’s a minister in here.”
I thought it was interesting to see how people’s behavior changed in the presence of clergy.
At least there is respect left in the world for the office.
But I still stop to think how God is always watching.
I will not be their judge, God will.
Do we need to begin preaching fire, brimstone, and damnation again to balance the anything goes, God loves you, rhetoric of this generation?
There are even pastors at Seminary who don’t believe in hell.
I guess they haven’t read Revelation.
I guess they don’t say or believe the apostles’ creed.
We know there is “hell” on this earth.
Why would we not expect there to be hell in the life to come?
Are we giving false hope to the lost and the wicked when we don’t balance God’s love with God’s wrath.
It was just two Sundays ago that I mentioned how king Uzziah disobeyed God’s law and he got leperosy all over and it stayed with him until his death.
Of course, that was pre-Christ time.
We live in a post-Christ time where Jesus atoned for our sins.
But if everybody is going to heaven, regardless of their behavior, then there is no need for prayer, no need for confession of sins, no need for repentence, and Christ died for nothing.
God could save us without Christ’s suffering if God wanted to….but that’s not the covenant.
The covenant is that we need to repent of our sins…we need to receive Christ’s gift of grace, and we need to be in relationship with God.
There is no cheap grace.
Christ paid the price.
And it was a gruesome, costly price.
If there was no hell, Jesus would not have had to descend there before His resurrection!
If we look at Revelation chapter 20, verse 11-12, the heading for this pericope in the NRSV is “The Dead Are Judged”.
John writes, “Then I saw a great white throne and the one who sat on it; the earth and the heaven fled from his presence, and no place was found for them. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Also another book was opened, the book of life. And the dead were judged according to their works, as recorded in the books.”
So how do we get from here to an uplifting sermon?
We get there by the price Jesus paid on the cross.
We get there as ambassadors for Christ.
We get there by the grace of a God who loves us so much that He was willing to send His only begotten son to die for our sins, so that we would be guarenteed a place in His heavenly kingdom for all of eternity.
We get there by going back to the second part of our lectionary text from the Wisdom of Solomon:
“Thus they reasoned, but they were led astray, for their wickedness blinded them, and they did not know the secret purposes of God, nor hoped for the wages of holiness, nor discerned the prize for blameless souls; for God created us for incorruption, and made us in the image of his own eternity, but through the devil’s envy, death entered the world, and those who belong to his company experience it.”
We enter the uplifting sermon by recognizing that God wants to restore us to the Garden of Eden, the perfect place created for us under obedience to His will.
Like a loving Father who only wants the best for His children.
But sometimes children have to learn the hard way.
Children often times become defiant of the parent’s law.
Children need an opportunity to return to the bosom of their loving parent and be comforted just at the prodigal son who received a party when he returned home after a life of partying.
The Bible is full of examples of God’s people making mistakes, missing the mark, and then coming home to a banquet feast or act of loving kindness after leaving their sinful life behind them.
Let us be like sheep that return to the shepherd.
It is never too late.
We can never stray too far for God to find us.
May God add God’s blessing to God’s Holy Word.
Amen.
