Isaiah 25:6-9 [NLTse]
6 In Jerusalem, the Lord of Heaven’s Armies will spread a wonderful feast for all the people of the world. It will be a delicious banquet with clear, well-aged wine and choice meat. 7 There He will remove the cloud of gloom, the shadow of death that hangs over the earth. 8 He will swallow up death forever! The Sovereign Lord will wipe away all tears. He will remove forever all insults and mockery against His land and people. The Lord has spoken!
9 In that day the people will proclaim, “This is our God! We trusted in Him, and He saved us! This is the Lord, in Whom we trusted. Let us rejoice in the salvation He brings!”
Sermon
Most people are afraid of death. Most people are afraid of themselves dying or of their loved ones dying. It is that fear of death that gives terrorists such power. It is that fear of death that has made the healthcare industry so profitable. It is that fear of death that keeps so many parents up at night worrying about their kids, and so many husbands or wives worrying about their beloveds, and that keeps so many other friendships and caring relationships that are so burdened by worry: Because of so many people’s fear of death.
But Jesus tells us that these people uuu are not dead, but just sleeping, at least to Him. The leader of a synangogue came to Jesus asking Him to help his daughter who was deathly ill, only she died before Jesus could get to her. And Jesus said of the synagogue leader’s daughter who had died, that she was just sleeping, and then He raised her from death and she came back to life. (See Matthew 9, Mark 5, and Luke 8.)
Jesus said to His disciples about the death of their friend, Lazarus, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but now I will go and wake him up.” The disciples didn’t get what He was saying and so responded, “Lord, if he is sleeping, he will soon get better!” (Because they thought Jesus had meant that Lazarus was actually sleeping.) So He told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead.” And then Jesus went and called Lazarus – who’d been dead for 4 days – back from death to life. (See John 12.)
The Sadduccees – a Jewish denomination that didn’t believe in the resurrection of the dead – came to Jesus once seeking to prove to Him their belief that once dead always and forever dead. But Jesus asked them, “Haven’t you ever read about this in the writings of Moses, in the story of the burning bush? Long after Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had died, how God said to Moses, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? So He is the God of the living, not the dead…” (See Mark 12.)
Jesus told a story once about a rich man and a poor man that well-illustrated what happens at death because in the story both men died. The rich man had been greedy and hard-hearted, so when he died his soul went to Hell, where he suffered greatly. The poor man had loved the Lord (we are to assume), so when he died his soul went to Heaven, where he met father Abraham and was greatly comforted. So the story gives us a picture of what happens to people at death: Our bodies are inactive – they rest, they sleep; but our souls continue just as alive and awake as before either in Heaven with the Lord being comforted or in Hell apart from the Lord suffering torment. But, either way, we’re not dead. These are not dead. [Pointing to the slide of Milford Cemetery.] Jesus has conquered death!
In Jesus Christ there is no more fear, of death or anything else! Do you remember that the very first thing the angel said to the women when they arrived at the tomb was, “Don’t be afraid!”? Well, that was not only a verb of command – exclamation point, “Don’t be afraid!” – but it was an ongoing action verb – most literally saying, “Don’t ever be afraid again!” Why could the angel tell them to never be afraid again? Because Jesus was no longer in the tomb! He had risen from the dead! Jesus has defeated death!
In our reading this morning – 500 years before the birth of Jesus – Isaiah prophesied that the Christ would “remove the cloud of doom, the shadow of death that hangs over the earth.” (V. 7) And now Jesus has suffered that doom for us, and so it has been removed. And we no longer live in shadow but we are the direct recipients of Jesus’ marvelous light: We and all those who believe and have ever believed! That’s what Jesus has done! That’s what His victory over death and Hell has done!
He’s proved wrong the Sadduccees and any who would say that after this life there is nothing, only oblivion, only worm-food. And He’s likewise proved wrong all those who believe in reincarnation and that we all have many lifetimes behind us and many lifetimes still to come. No, at death our bodies sleep while our souls live-on in comfort or suffering. But there will come a time when He returns – when He, Jesus, physically raised from the dead, returns – and when He will raise us – but not spiritually this time, physically – will raise us physically from the dead. And we will go on to life or go on to death depending on our deeds and whether or not our deeds were motivated by faith.
So it all comes down to faith. Not trying to keep our loved ones alive, but sharing faith with them. And not just a deathbed conversion! But sharing with them a lifetime of trusting and resting, free from fear and believing in our beloved Jesus! Faith is what counts.
So, do you believe that God raised Jesus from the dead? Do you believe that God will raise you from the dead? Do you believe that upon your death that your soul will go to be with Jesus in Paradise while your body sleeps – rests – in the grave? Do you believe that when Jesus returns to raise you from the dead that a new Heaven and a new Earth will be created for all to live in where holiness and righteousness and love and grace will be the law of the nations? Do you trust God with those you love? (That is, trusting Him to judge them fairly and to give them life if they love Him?) Do you trust God with those you love who have already died? (Your parents, unborn children, children or brothers and sisters who’ve died too young, friends, neighbors, husbands, wives? Do you trust God to do what is best and right and most loving for you and for them?)
All this and so much more is what everyone means when they say, “Jesus has conquered death.” His resurrection gives us a bedrock of evidence for our faith so that we need never be afraid of anything or anyone ever again! Because if He is for us, who or what can be against us? Secure in His Kingdom, secure as members of His family, with the apostle Paul “I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of Hell can separate us from God’s love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (See Romans 8.)
That is what Jesus’ resurrection from the dead promises and guarantees. That is what has secured us in this life and in the resurrection-life to come: Not our own goodness or righteousness. (After all, none of us are really all that good, are we? Though we’re getting better.) No, what secures us is God’s love for us, and our trusting in His love more than in our worries, fears, and circumstances; the death-defeating love that Jesus Christ has shown us in rising forever from the dead!