The Presence All Around Us

The Rev. Dr. Whitworth Ferguson III

Manassas Presbyterian Church

Manassas, Virginia

August 8, 2010

The Presence All Around Us 

Romans 6:1-11

We cannot escape.

It is everywhere,

a presence all around us.        

Try as we might to close the door,

to turn from it,

to run, to hide,

we cannot.

It is always present,

everywhere, every minute of the day.

It is in the biggest cities,

the most placid towns,

quaint rural villages,

in this country, in every country.

It is in the forests, the mountains,

the oceans,

every part of the natural world,

every part of God’s creation.

Death.

The very word unnerves us;

we don’t like to say it or hear it or think it.

And yet, it is there:

death.

All around us,

everywhere,

ever present,

never absent.

Death takes no holiday,

death knows no holiday,

death respects no holiday.

Death is as much a part of life as birth,

as much a part of life as breathing,

as the winds and the rain,

the sunrise and sunset.

And yet we speak the word only when we have to,

only when are forced to,

and even then we speak it in such hushed tones.

The etymology of the word is appropriately universal:

it comes from a blending of Old English,

ancient Germanic, and Old Norse,

all meaning the same thing:

the end of life, the final breath,

the flame extinguished.

        

When death comes, no matter where it comes,

no matter when, no matter how,

it brings wave upon wave of such powerful emotions,

especially grief.

When death visits us,

as it has three times in this congregation,

over the past three weeks,

someone we love who had been there,

whose voice was just the other end of the telephone,

whose smile was just across the room,

whose twinkle in their eyes

could always put a smile on our faces,

is gone.

“Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone

…silence the pianos…

The stars are not wanted now, put out every one;

pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,

pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.”

That is how poet W. H. Auden expressed his grief, his anguish

over the death of someone he held dear,

someone whose smile, whose presence

no longer graced his life.

(from “Funeral Blues”)

We don’t like to talk about death or think about it.

We’ve turned the details and logistics of death

over to the funeral industry

and deal with them so reluctantly.

Who counts a funeral director among their friends?

Writing a Will;

Preparing a health-care proxy,

thinking about what kind of funeral service we might like:

who wants to do those things?

And yet, we will all die, every one of us,

each in our time.

There is no denying it, try as we might.

Alfred Lord Tennyson captured our wishful thinking

in a line in one of his poems:

“He thinks he was not made to die.”

(“In Memoriam A. H. H.”)

And yet, we will, every one of us.

But the good news for us, as disciples of Jesus Christ,

is that we have the hope that carries us in this life,

through this life,

that there is another life that awaits us

after we’ve taken our last breath:

life in God’s Heavenly Kingdom,

life in the presence  of God,

life in the presence of Christ,

life in Paradise, as Jesus calls it,

eternal life.

In Christ’s resurrection, the power of death was defeated,

vanquished utterly, completely.

As Paul wrote to the people of Corinth:

“Death has been swallowed up in victory.

Where, O death is your victory?

Where, O death, is your sting?

…but thanks be to God,

who gives us victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

(1 Cor. 15:54)

No: Christ’s resurrection didn’t eliminate death;

it didn’t make us immortal.

But death doesn’t have the final word.

Death may well leave an empty chair

on the other side of the table;

silence a voice on the other end of the telephone,

Death may well leave a hole in our hearts,

and bring a flow of tears.

But only for a time.

As anguishing and painful as they are,

the loss is temporary;

the grief is temporary,

the tears are temporary.

That’s the hope that is balm to soothe us,

even a little, in our deepest grief.

Every time we use the term “communion of the saints”

we remind ourselves of death’s ultimate defeat,

of the fact that its hold on our lives,

as powerful as it can be here and now,

can be counted in years,

while life in the communion of saints,

in the presence of God

is eternal, infinite,

knows nothing of time. 

Gene Crickenberger,

Frank Tweedle,

Mary Applewhite

and Sister Denise Mosier know now

what you and I take on faith,

and will have to continue taking on faith

as long as we have breath within us.

But we trust in the promise

that’s been fulfilled in them:
“If we live, we live to the Lord,

and if we die, we die to the Lord;

so then, whether we live or whether we die,

we are the Lord’s.

For to this end Christ died and lived again,

so that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living.”

Romans 14:7-9

Or, as we said in our Affirmation of Faith

at the beginning of the service,

“In life and in death we belong to God.”

                 

The fact is, we have already died, you and I:

in our baptism, as Paul told us in our lesson,

we died to the old life

and have been raised to new life in Christ.

In our baptism, we each began a new life,

a life of grace and righteousness,

a life that doesn’t end with death.

Rather, it is a life that

“leads to the arms of God

and the communion of saints.”

(Tom Long, “Accompany Them With Singing,” 85)

                 

Death has moved on from this congregation -- for now.

But its chill wind will blow through our community again,

and whenever it does, it will be too soon for any of us.

With it will come tears and grief,

a profound sense of loss,

the presence of absence,

and the questions we can never answer

but will ask nevertheless:

“Why him? Why her? Why now?”

Auden concludes his poem with such a sad line,

“For nothing now can ever come to any good.”

Such a statement of hopelessness!

But while he is right that

there is nothing good in the fact of death,

still we have hope in our faith,
hope grounded in the promise
that we are Christ’s in this life and the next,
hope that love never dies,
hope in the “communion of saints”,

hope in the day when we will be reunited

and “mourning and crying and pain

will be no more.”

(Rev. 21:4)

Death, as present as it is,

has been stripped of its ultimate power

by the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Our tears will be dried,

and in time our grief will turn to joy.

Gene, Frank and Mary and Sister Denise know that.

All the saints who have gone before us know that.

We have the more difficult task, you and I,

for we have to take that on faith.

as we continue the journey we began in our baptisms.

Here at this Table we can pause in our journey

and stop for the renewal and refreshment we all need,

especially after the past few weeks.

Here at this table we can find nourishment,

hope and strength.

                 

Here at this table we are reminded

that we walk by faith,

that we walk in grace,

that we already walk on “resurrection ground.”

So come to this table,

perhaps on legs unsteady in grief,

vision blurred by tears,

hearts heavy.

But come and be refreshed by the Spirit

so that you can walk from this Table

“in newness of life”.

“I am the Resurrection and I am the Life,” says the Lord.

“Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live;

and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.”

AMEN