March 30, 1956
A year ago, I asked you to consider with me the meaning of Christ's Atonement. Jesus came, the Incarnate Deity (God in the flesh), to show us the nature of God. He suffered and died for the sins of the world, for your sins and for mine; but He conquered Death, rose again, and gave us the assurance of eternal life.
Therein lies our salvation and our hope. Our salvation, through no merit of our own, but through His sacrifice, His Atonement for our sins; our hope, because we have a living Lord and Savior. In Christ's conquest of Death and in His Resurrection lie the Power and the Glory of our Christian faith, and it is of this Power and Glory with the assurance of Immortality that I have been thinking during these days of Lent and of Holy Week.
On many an ancient Roman grave archaeologists found these letters: NFFNSNC representing non fui, fui, non sum, non curo, meaning, "I was not, I was, I am not, I do not care." In the total lack of faith and hope, and in their cynicism; I think these are almost the saddest words I have ever read. Out of nowhere into the here; passing from here to I know not where, nor do I care. Men of Rome, surfeited and wearied with their materialistic life, persuaded themselves that Death ends all, and that they did not care. But, to us Christian s, that is contrary to God's plan for He endowed each of us with a spirit that Death cannot reach- and it is part of the Power and Glory of Christ's Resurrection that we have His assurance that the soul cannot die.
In pondering on the Resurrection, I am reminded of some facts on the historic development of the concept of Immortality. Since the beginning of Creation, many people of divergent faiths have believed in some form of eternal punishment for the wicked and some kind of eternal life for the good. In the Old Testament, Jehovah was regarded as from everlasting to everlasting, In Deuteronomy, we read: "The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms," 1 and, in Isaiah, "Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust: for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead." 2
Later, the Greek poets applied the stages of the lowly caterpillar, the larva, and the butterfly, to typify man's earthly form, his apparent death, and his ultimate celestial destination. Centuries before Christ, Socrates said, "All men's souls • are immortal, but the souls of the righteous are immortal and divine," and Plato set forth his belief in Immortality when he pointed out in "Phaedo" that the soul is in an unfinished state in this life.
Still later, the Apostle John stated, "Whosoever, believeth in Him should not perish, out have eternal life." 3 And as Jesus Himself declared, and as we repeat in taking Communion, "Who so eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day." 4 Thus although the belief in immortality existed long before the time of Christ, the core of the Christian faith lies in the fact that because He lives, we shall live also. Christ brought life and Immortality to light so that Christians have an assurance and peace that passeth all understanding.
Some people, however, labor under the misapprehension that it is the weak, the timorous, and the superstitious, who snatch at the hope of eternal life. On the contrary, it is the courageous, the adventurous, and the enlightened who look beyond this earthly life to the "eternal glory by Christ Jesus." 5 It is the defeated who persuade themselves that death ends all. Have we not all heard people say, "I am so worried that I do not know what to do. I wish I were dead!"? Those who do not know where to turn, or who try to end their troubles by suicide, are the cowardly, the terrified, and the despairing. In the heroic, the daring, and the confident who trust the eternal goodness of God, there is something intangible which refuses to accept the agnostic's "I do not know," or the atheist's "I do not believe," or the cynic's "I do not care." The valiant and the strong, in triumph shout with Job, "For I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that He shall stand at the latter day upon the earth," 6 or sing with the Psalmist, "As for me, I will behold Thy face in righteousness: I, shall be satisfied, when I awake, with Thy likeness," 7 or rejoice with the Apostle John, "Thou alone hast the words of eternal life." 8 Such people look with Faith through death to the hope of a continued life beyond the grave, for life on earth is but a transitory period of resting and training in preparation for eternity. "The spirit of man which God inspired cannot together perish with this corporeal clod," wrote Milton; and according to Emerson, the "only sane solution" for life's enigma is that the world here below is for man's education.
The form of the resurrected body of man has always seemed to trouble many people throughout the ages. The Apostle Paul discussed this subject at length in I Corinthians 15: "But some man will say, How are the Dead raised up? and with what body do they come?" 9 He labeled such questions as foolish since "We look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal." 10 According to scientists, the chemical elements in a human body are only worth ninety-eight cents, It is the spirit, the personality, the soul that gives man value. It is his spiritual value as a child of God; not his material value reduced to a matter of chemistry that gives man his worth. Let us rest content that at the Judgment Day God will give us bodies "as He had chosen" 11; it profits us nothing to fret over the form with which the spirit will be clothed.
Sometimes I have wondered, too, why people seek to commune with the departed, except for curiosity's sake. Do they ever learn anything that helps them to live better or more useful lives here on earth? Why do they worry over a parent who dies at thirty, while a son or daughter lives to a ripe old age, as if in the other world an old son would have a too-young father? The famous theologian Reinhold Niebuhr is credited to have observed that it would be unwise for anyone to claim knowledge of the temperature of hell, or the furniture of heaven. Few of us think of an anthropological God, of a heaven with gates of pearl and streets of pure gold. Do these details really matter to the Christian? Are they not inconsequential and incompatible with our acceptance of the anogenic ways of God? Do not idle speculations reduce Immortality to the level of the materialistic life which here on earth makes men and women forget the spiritual? What matters except that because Christ lives, we shall live also? What really matters except that we shall be with Him and with our loved ones? Death is a door opening from the confines and limitations of earthly life into life abiding and immortal.
Immortality does not only mean the incorruptibility of the corruptible; it means continue growth of mind, infinite expansion of spirit and increased stature of personality. An earl New England minister once said, "How prudently most men creep into nameless graves, while now and then, one or two forget themselves into Immortality" How true it is that those whose names are best remembered down through history in every land were those who forget themselves in serving others.
Brother Lawrence, scrubbing in a monastery kitchen, polishing his pots and pans to the glory of God and serving his brethren in the lowliest capacity;
Abraham Lincoln devoting himself to the unity of his country and justice to the slaves;
Garibaldi, working for the liberation of Italy and challenging others: "If you seek honor or fame or ease, you will not find it in our ranks. But if you will march for long hours with little or no food; if you will wear tattered clothing, come with us and share the glory of dying in a sublime cause";
Sun Yat-sen, the Father of our Republic, laboring incessantly for the cause of China's national integrity and the Three People's Principles;
Four chaplains on a torpedoed ship in World War II - Jewish, Catholic and two Protestants (one of whom was Dr. Daniel Poling's son) — giving up their life-jackets sp that others might live;
These men and other like them forget themselves into Immortality.
In brief then, we came to understand the nature of God through the Incarnate Christ-even so we have the assurance of Immortality because of the Power and the Glory of Christ's Resurrection from the dead. Second, Immortality is not a straw grasped, by the weak, the timorous, and the apprehensive; it harmonizes with the nature of God that He should will us to continue unto perfection, through all eternity, the work begun here and unfinished in our short span of life on earth. Third, the earthly body matters little; at death the soul takes its fight from the earthy temple and returns to God. The Power and the Glory of Easter is that when men had done their cruel worst in crucifying our Lord on the Cross, there was an unfathomable caliber in Christ which they could not reach-a caliber which defied the sting of death. He lives, and we shall live also as beautifully expressed in the Collect for Easter:
"Almighty God, who through Thine only-begotten Son Jesus Christ hast overcome death, and opened unto us the gate of everlasting life; We humbly beseech Thee that, as by Thy special grace preventing us Thou dost put into our minds good desires, so by Thy continual help we may bring the same to good effect; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy Ghost ever, one God, world without end. Amen."
References:
1. Deuteronomy 33:27
2. Isaiah 26:19
3. John 3:15
4. John 6:54
5. I Peter 5:10
6. Job 19:25
7. Psalms 17:15
8. John 6:68
9. I Corinthians 15:35
10. II Corinthians 4:18
11. I Corinthians 15:38 (Revised Standard)
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Rules of Behavior
"It is never too late to repent and there is no crime greater than to try to cover up wrongs done…. The best thing is to behave well from the beginning to the end, and the second best is to behave badly at the beginning but well at the end, which is difficult enough for anybody." — Dr. Sun Yat-sen.