Up and at 'em!

Sermon for the sixteenth Sunday after Trinity

Have you ever been

to a stately home

which has a family vault?

Generations of

aristocratic families

all buried in one place?

There's something creepy 

about it,

something of 

the Edgar Allen Poe

and Vincent Price

lurking in the shadows

of the family crypt.

For those of us

of a more modest

and lowly status,

we will find our resting place

in a cemetery 

or a crematorium.

Unlike family vaults,

cemeteries and crematoria 

are usually set away 

from places where people live.

There's something 

uncomfortable about living

in the House by the Cemetery.

Why?

Do the living not want

to associate with the dead?

[PAUSE]

For the people of Nain,

it is important for everyone's health

that the dead be carried out 

of the City.

It's not that they 

dishonour the dead -

they would not treat the dead

with such ritual and care -

but that the dead rest in peace

while the living are kept away

from the unpleasant nature

of death.

As far as the people of Nain

are concerned,

they know the scriptures:

"For the living know 

that they shall die: 

but the dead know not any thing, 

neither have they any more a reward; 

for the memory of them 

is forgotten."

"So man lieth down, 

and riseth not: till 

the heavens be no more, 

they shall not awake, 

nor be raised out of their sleep."

"His breath goeth forth, 

he returneth to his earth; 

in that very day his thoughts perish."

And then comes Our Lord.

[PAUSE]

The widow's son 

lives!

His thoughts have not perished!

His breath has returned!

He has been raised,

just like Lazarus,

just like Jairus' daughter.

In raising the dead,

Our Lord shows the difference 

between the old life

of sin, depravity 

corruption and death,

and the new life

of restoration, renewal

sanctification and communion

with God and His saints.

The Old Testament 

gives us the facts

that sin leads to death.

It presents us with the Law

and then shows how the best of us

Saul

David

Solomon

even Moses

fall away.

As far as the Law goes,

when you are dead

there's nothing more

that can be said.

Indeed,

it's just a short step

from that

to believing that 

when you're dead,

you're dead - finito!

[PAUSE]

What the Old Testament does do

is point beyond itself

to the One Who Lives

the true God 

in Whom there is life 

and love.

He is not the God of the dead

but of the living.

He is the God of Abraham,

of Isaac

of Jacob.

"Is," not, "was."

With Him appear

Elijah and Moses

after Moses' death.

And Jesus says to Martha,

before raising Lazarus,

"whosoever liveth

and believeth in Me

shall never die."

These are the words of God.

[PAUSE]

So we can be sure,

at the words of Our Lord,

the saints are alive 

and have not died

because they have lived 

and believed in Christ

and therefore

live beyond their bodily death

and in Eternity.

We see this 

in the Revelation 

of the saints who have died for Christ

alive beneath the altar

crying to God.

We see the prayers of saints

rising up to God

like incense.

Their life is in Christ 

and the whole of Holy Scripture 

points to this common fact

of reunion with Christ in Eternity.

Indeed, we shall be like Him

because we shall see Him

as He really is.

And we have communion

with the saints who have gone before

in the great cloud of witnesses

seen by St Paul 

and told to the Hebrews

the people of the Old Testament 

who once thought

that death is an end.

Indeed,

in Christ we have life 

and death is no more a state 

but just an event in our lives.

Just a passing from

a world of sin and toil

and into the world of light 

and love.

And the saints still love us

- how could they not? -

so, looking with Christ,

cheering us on,

welcoming our entry into life 

with feasts and joys,

and praying to God for us

in the communion of the saints

which we have always believed in.

[PAUSE]

The one who says

"The saints are dead"

lives in the Old Testament 

waiting for the New to be born in him

from on high.

The saints live 

raised

like Lazarus,

like Jairus' daughter,

like the widow's son in Nain,

and they will accompany us

from the place of the dead

back into the city

where mourning is replaced with joy

and sorrow with jubilation.

Come, Lord Jesus.