The Meaning of Death

A little more than two years ago, we gathered here to say goodbye to my father. Now we are saying goodbye to Verna Mae Climenhaga, his wife of 24 years, our step-mother and grandmother. Those of us in the next generation are aware that we are now on the front lines. With that awareness, I want to reflect on the meaning of death. This is a different question than, “What is the funeral for?” The most important part of the funeral is the committal service: “Ashes to ashes and dust to dust.” The funeral recognizes and enshrines the great transition from this life to the next, the final transformation that Paul describes eloquently in 1 Cor 15:

For behold I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye. … For this corruption must put on incorruption and this mortality put on immortality! Then shall come to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory!” Death, where is your sting? Grave, where is your victory? The sting of death is sin and the strength of sin is the Law. But thanks be unto God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!

I am asking instead about death. The great task of life is learning how to die. Death is one task that none can shirk. Whether we have been wealthy or in modest circumstances, whether we have had good health or lived with pain and disease, whether we exercise power in this world or have lived under the rule of others, we all die. What does it all mean? We are all engaged in the search to answer this question. I hope primarily to honour Verna Mae as we remember her and to stimulate your own thinking as you and I continue to prepare for the end of this life.

Verna Mae

Our beloved step-mother and grandma and sister and aunt and great-aunt was born in 1932. Her birthday was the day before my own, on May 29. She entered the BIC Church at Conboy BIC, close to the birthplace of the BIC Church as a whole. She spent some years at the Navajo Mission in New Mexico, where my wife was then a small girl. She once told us that she remembers Lois and Carol (Heise) and Nancy and MJ (Heisey), four girls at the mission, peering in at the window at this new arrival to their home. Years later, in the BIC Missions Office, our paths were again intertwined, as she sent out the cheques that supported Lois and me in our work with BIC missions. Then, in 1993, two years after our mother died, Dad and Verna Mae were married in the Conoy BIC Church. Now the intertwining of our lives on this earth comes to an end as we say goodbye.

We say goodbye to someone who taught our family much. One mothers’ day, my father recalled the women in his life – his mother, my mother (Dorcas), and Verna Mae. His comment about Verna Mae was significant: “She taught me to accept people without judging them.” John Climenhaga and his descendants always enjoyed a good argument. It took Verna Mae’s quiet presence in Dad’s life for him to see the strength of simple acceptance. [Of course there were others in the family who knew how to accept people well, but this simple acceptance was a special gift in Verna Mae.]

Verna Mae also helped others to implement their dreams. When the old Missions Handbook came to an end (in 1978), Wilmer Heisey had the idea of listing the names of all those who had served with BIC and other mission agencies from the beginning in the 1890s to that point in time in 1978. Verna Mae coordinated the massive task of working through the relevant documents and compiling the list – a wonderful resource to researchers, as I can attest.

These memories bring me to the question, “What is the meaning of death?” which in turn brings us to the passage we read from 1 Corinthians 15.

1 Corinthians 15

In this chapter, Paul spends a lot of time and space on one central subject: the resurrection. He begins by naming this as the core of the gospel. That core consists of several affirmations:

·         Jesus Christ (Jesus the Messiah) was crucified for our sins

·         Jesus was dead and buried

·         Jesus was raised on the third day

·         Jesus appeared to the disciples and even to Paul.

In these affirmations, we find the gospel; we find God’s desired shape for our lives. God created us to be in relationship – with each other and with God. We have rebelled against God, breaking relationship with each other and with God and with all of creation. God desires reconciliation and does everything possible to restore these broken relationships. That is why Jesus died for our sins – to restore the relationship. That is why Jesus rose from the dead – to give reconciliation “power”. That is why Jesus appeared to so many and comes to you and to me still today – to make reconciliation in our lives a reality.

There’s a lot to unpack there, and Paul takes the rest of a long chapter to unpack it. Just one small piece for us here: Jesus died, rose, appeared, and ascended to God the Father to restore relationships. What is the meaning of life? Reconciled relationships. What is the meaning of life’s end, death? Reconciled relationships.

What will we wish we had done more when we die? Will we wish we had made more money? I doubt. Will we wish we had spent more time with family and with friends? Probably. We are wired for relationship, and time spent with others is worth more than money earned. Relationships made right – with God and with each other – are the core of Christian faith. When someone dies, we remember that life and death are about relationships more than anything else.

Death is an impenetrable curtain, and none of us can report what we see beyond. Recently, a good friend died of cancer. We were talking together and he said something like this, “Jesus cared so much for relationships that I am confident I will meet my loved ones in Heaven. I don’t know what that will look like. I can imagine joining my loved ones who have preceded me in Heaven, and starting to exclaim about what is around me, and then someone (probably Dad) saying, “Hush! Look there! You see Jesus coming?” But my friend is right. Relationships are the centre of our faith – right relationship with God and right relationships with each other. Verna Mae is with those whom she loved on earth, and most of all, she is with Jesus.

So What?

As I said, this reality – the reality of the death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus – is the central reality of our lives. Verna Mae lived and died on that basis, the source of all love and acceptance in human relationships.

C.S. Lewis wrote a little book (The Great Divorce)in which he imagined what the borders of Heaven might be like. He imagines various of the bright people from Heaven. Near the end of the story, Lewis sees one of the “great people of Heaven”. Here is how he describes it:

… All down one long aisle of the forest the under-sides of the leafy branches had begun to tremble with dancing light; … Some kind of procession was approaching us, and the light came from the persons who composed it.

First came bright Spirits, not the Spirits of men, who danced and scattered flowers-soundlessly falling, lightly drifting flowers, … Then, on the left and right, at each side of the forest avenue, came youthful shapes, boys upon one hand, and girls upon the other. If I could remember their singing and write down the notes, noone who read that score would ever grow sick or old. Between them went musicians: and after these a lady in whose honour all this was being done.

… I have forgotten [what she wore]. And only partly do I remember the unbearable beauty of her face. “Is it? … is it?” I whispered to my guide. “Not at all,” said he. “It’s someone you will never have heard of. Her name on earth was Sarah Smith and she lived at Golders Green.” “She seems to be … well, a person of particular importance?” “Aye. She is one of the great ones. Ye have heard that fame in this country and fame on Earth are two quite different things.”

“And who are these gigantic people … look! They’re like emeralds … who are dancing and throwing flowers before her?” “Haven't ye read your Milton? A thousand liveried angels lackey her.”

“And who are all these young men and women on each side?” “They are her sons and daughters. … Every young man or boy that met her became her son – even if it was only the boy that brought the meat to her back door. Every girl that met her was her daughter.”

Can you see Verna Mae there? I can! She lived quietly and lovingly, embracing the people she met without question. I believe that Jesus has greeted her already, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” Not everyone sees life the way that I have just described, and we can discuss such questions at other times and in other places. Here, this morning, this day of remembering Verna Mae and of committing her to God, we affirm that the central meaning of life is found in loving God and loving each other and loving all of creation. Not in power or in money or in any of the other places that we look, but in building and restoring relationships wherever we can.

When Dad said that Verna Mae taught him to accept people as they are, he expressed a central piece of her identity – as one who simply lived at peace with God, with others, and with herself. She died at peace with God, and now she lives in the glory of Peace Incarnate.

7 September 2019

Messiah Village

Text

1 Corinthians 15:1-11

The Resurrection of Christ

15 Now, brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. ² By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.

³ For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, ⁴ that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, ⁵ and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve. ⁶ After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. ⁷ Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, ⁸ and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.

⁹ For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. ¹⁰ But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them—yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me. ¹¹ Whether, then, it is I or they, this is what we preach, and this is what you believed.