Oak Chapel United Methodist Church

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Charles Dodgson was a distinguished professor of mathematics at Oxford. For relaxation, when he wasn’t teaching, Dodgson liked to write children’s stories. Never married, with no children of his own, he would test his stories by telling them to the children of a close friend, Dean Liddell. After a while, Dodgson’s stories started to become better known, and he confided to Liddell that if he were to be remembered only for those silly children’s tales (instead of for his far more important work in mathematics), he would consider his life a total failure. You know “the rest of the story.” One of Liddell’s daughters was named “Alice”. Charles Dodgson’s pen name was Lewis Carroll. We know almost nothing about his math (and don’t care), but we all know The Adventures of Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. We can’t always say how we will be remembered.
The disciple Thomas, poor fellow, is remembered as “the doubter.” (You recall that Thomas wasn’t present when the risen Christ first appeared to the disciples, Easter night, and when he returned -- from the 7-Eleven, or wherever he was -- and the others told him what they had seen, he doubted.) Any one of us would have doubted, too!. For the hard, fast line between living and dead is cut deep in our brains. A person (or an animal, or plant) is either living or dead – never both.) But, although his response was perfectly reasonable, Thomas was know forever after as “Doubting Thomas.”
I would rather remember Thomas for his courage. In John’s Gospel, when it is clear that Jesus has decided to return to the Jerusalem area, where his enemies lie in wait -- and the other disciples can’t believe their ears (because they all knew that returning to Jerusalem would be to putting one’s head into the lion’s mouth), Thomas says to them, “Let us also go that we might die with him.” I would prefer to remember Thomas for that. At some point we have to die with Christ.

Must Jesus bear the cross alone, and all the world go free?
No, there’s a cross for everyone, and there’s a cross for me.

This section of John’s Gospel, Chapters 11 and 12, is the prelude to what John calls Jesus’ “hour,” that is Holy Week – an “hour” (an appointed time) set by God. It would be the “hour” of Christ’s deepest revealing, the “hour” of his death, his resurrection and his ascension into heaven. We’re coming to the end. Here the heavy subjects of life and death step forward on the stage, and will dominate the scene from now on. And this prelude to the end, these two chapters, begins with Jesus’ going to Bethany and raising his friend Lazarus from the dead. Jesus will use this miracle, not only to save his friend, but (much more important now) to soften, in his disciples’ minds, that hard line between life and death. To show that death, in the deepest truth, is an imposter. That real life comes from God through Jesus (comes not at our first births, from whence we all think life is derived, but from our second), and, therefore, death cannot remove us from that real life. Maybe there’s a glimmer of understanding among his followers, but not much. They keep clapping for Jesus the magician. Both Mary and Martha, sisters of the dead man, say, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” “You would have done the trick!” He says to Martha, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha responds, “I know he will rise in the great resurrection at the end of time.” Jesus says to her (in essence) you don’t have to wait for that. “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.” (A promise not just for funerals.) Martha says she believes, but when Jesus orders the tomb opened she says, “Better not. He’s been in there four days. He’s going to smell.” She doesn’t understand. And neither do we, most of the time.

Jesus calls his friend from death, and Lazarus stumbles out of the tomb, still tangled in the grave linens, and Jesus says wonderful words: “Unbind him, and let him go.” That’s right! When we understand that eternal life begins now (because Jesus is the resurrection, not was the resurrection, not will be the resurrection), when we’ve experienced that new life (“re-birth,” call it what you will) in Jesus, we are, in fact, unbound from much that has restrained us and set free. Then we can live without fear (as all the saints lived), trusting in God, knowing that his eye is, indeed, on the sparrow, that he watches us and has counted every hair on our heads. He unbinds us from sin and death, and gives us a freedom that is beyond free.

But to enter that eternal life, which we now know, thank God, can begin immediately (“to enter the Kingdom of God,” is another way of saying it), some things must die. “Let us also go, that we may die with him.” In some of the earliest Christian churches, the place of baptism was built to resemble a sepulcher, a narrow slit in a stone wall through which a candidate for baptism would slip, and inside (in semi-darkness) would be immersed in a pool of water. The new man would rise again from that watery grave, and emerge into the light, but an old man had to die first. St. Paul reminds us that we are “buried in baptism.” And this is what keeps many people from the faith. The rich young ruler had to bury his love of money, and he wouldn’t. So he missed his chance. The man who asked a few days to arrange his father’s funeral, had to bury his concern for worldly things (no matter how noble), and he lost his chance. When Thomas said, “Let us also go, that we may die with him,” he was right on the mark. Something in us has to die. Our pride. Our shallow view of freedom, doing whatever you please whenever you want. Our attachment to this earth and to this fleeting, momentary life. Some things have to die.

One of the greatest books in the English language, John Bunyon’s A Pilgrim’s Progress, contains a passage about the fear of death that has inspired millions. The two pilgrims, Christian and Hopeful, receive their summons (to die) and they come down to the river. When they see how deep, and wide, and swift, and dark its water are, they are stunned – and are terribly afraid. But then they meet two travelers, whose clothing and faces shine like the sun, and they ask the two if there is no other way to get to the gate of the Heavenly City. Are there no boats, no bridges, no fords, no ferries? But the men say, “You must go through, or you cannot come at the gate.” Then they ask if the water is all the same depth, and the men answer, “You will find it deeper or shallower as you believe in the King of the place.” They step in, and Christian immediately begins to sink. He cries out to his companion, “I’m sinking. The waves are going over my head.” But Hopeful answers, “Be of good cheer, my brother. I feel the bottom, and it is good.” Then Christian brakes out in song, “Oh, I see him again, and he tells me, ‘When thou passeth through the waters, I will be with thee, and through the rivers they shall not overflow thee.’” Bunyon writes, “And they both took courage, and the enemy (that is, the river) was after that as still as a stone until they were gone over.”

We’re coming up on Easter. Ester proclaims an astounding thing: that there is nothing to fear in death, or in life (for that matter) if we “believe in the King of the place.” We all must die. “Cowards die many times before their deaths. The valiant never taste of death but once.” Easter says there is eternal life, and there is eternal death, and we don’t have to wait to experience either. They can be ours right now. But if we want to live, we have to die. It’s not, “I’m going to live, live, live until I die.” It’s, “I’m going to die, die, die until I live.” Isn’t that an odd thing to tell people.