Respect for Life, Coping with Death

I don’t listen often to “A Prairie Home Companion,” with Garrison Keillor on NPR. But whenever I do, he really holds my attention. He is a great story teller. He told the story of the slaughtering of one family’s hog. He placed himself in the story as one of the young children watching this process. It was a family event. The hog was going to provide food and sustenance for a significant period of time for them. It was also a hog they had raised and taken care of on the farm. The father and oldest brother did the deed. The hog died and then they processed the animal. The younger boys watched this and then began to imitate, in a playful way, leaning toward being disrespectful, that which had just happened. When the older family members saw this growing mockery of the hog’s death the boys were stopped and told this is not something of which to make fun. The parents said, “This hog gave its life so that we could eat.” The message was clear. Instead of making fun, this hog’s life and death was something to respect. That story impressed me. It was just a pig that died after all. Yet God had created this animal as well. But that family had taught their children to respect life at every level. They used this vivid illustration to teach the honoring of life created by God.

Living in awe of God’s creation and knowing that it is He that provides for us at every level and that His provision includes community and relationships, we find the respect for the life that God has given to man and to all of creation is more likely to be established.

And with this respect, children are a blessing to the family and not a burden. Yet the urban life style parent can hardly wait to get their children off to school, so I have had said to me many times. In effect children are not typically embraced as the blessing they are but are seen as a burden that imposes on a lifestyle.

The Elderly, as well, are often seen as burdens to have to look in on, more than as one who contributes wisdom and stability to the family community. One of the tasks that I had in the parish ministry was to visit shut-in members. These are people who want connection and who indeed have helpful and wise things to say were one to listen. I received such encouragement in ministry from these visits. They want to be embraced with a dignity and a respect called for in the life that God has created.

In those same homes where two or three generations lived, people also died. The family gathered around the one dying and made sure they knew they were loved by the family and by Jesus. The children watched. When my ministry was in the urban setting and when my children were young, I often brought them with me to many of the functions of ministry. This included the funerals of members. The thinking behind this was that my boys would not be afraid of the issue of death in the context of life in Christ.

The story is told of the Pastor who was called to the home of a member who was near death. The family was gathered around and the pastor wasn’t sure what to do or what to say. He read a Psalm or two and had a prayer but beyond that he was silent. He sat and watched. The member finally did die. The Pastor was wondering to himself if he had done the right things and could he have said more and what that would have been. About that point in time, one of the family members sat down next to the pastor and said, “Preacher, you did just fine.”

The presence of Christ through the ministry of the church is the coping mechanism for those in the community of believers. We know that life is precious, so much so that Jesus died and was raised again so that anyone, by faith in Him, need not fear death but have life everlasting.

If there is an advantage to the rural or urban culture in this regard, I am not certain. What I do know is that the issues of life and death are not so far removed in the rural context. A birth and a death, significant as it is, in the city is a statistic to the larger community.

The challenge in ministry is to teach that the life we have has been given to us by our Creator. We have to find ways to communicate that all life is precious and yet it is under the curse of the law. Still, our Creator loves what He made and so provides a solution to the curse that is upon us. Your life and my life is so precious to Him that He gave His own Son to die so that we could life forever. This value must not be lost.

A Week of All Weeks

In this week of all weeks there are many things upon which to focus. There is an entry triumphant into Jerusalem within which we learn that if we, as God's creatures, cannot behave the way God made us to behave, namely to praise God in our vocations, then step aside, because the rocks themselves will praise the Living God, simply by being what they were made to be; rocks. God will be adored.

Take some time to examine the righteous indignation of Jesus when He storms through the Temple and says, "You have made this place into something of dishonor." We are mindful that God will not be mocked.

On Maundy Thursday Jesus celebrates Passover one last time and then gives the church an unqualified gift, namely His body and His blood in, with, and under bread and wine.

In the garden, a grieving and distressed Jesus asks Peter, James and John to watch and pray not once, not twice, but three times; and they could not.

Then there is Judas and "the Roman cohort and officers from the chief priests and the Pharisees" coming to arrest Jesus. The one who would write, "be prepared to give a defense . . . for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence" (1 Peter 3:15) defended Jesus with a sword (the antithesis of his most recent advice to the church concerning defending the faith) and cut off the ear of Malchus.

Then the defender denies Jesus. Jesus would have to deal with that later at a place where Peter could be found; on the shore of the lake.

A mockery of a trial is held. Protocol is shattered. The sentence of death by hanging on a cross is reluctantly agreed to. "There is no cause to punish this man," says Pilate. That is true. Jesus broke no divine law. And He knew the law. He wrote the law. But His creation, specifically human kind, broke His law. There was only one thing to do about this. It was His love for us that drove Him. It was a Godly love, an unconditional love that carried no assurance of return. He alone assumed our sin, the sin of every one born of the seed of Seth. Because He did, there is every reason for Him to suffer hell on the cross. Because He did, there is no way around it.

I need to add that this was not a spur of the moment, spontaneous idea of Jesus. Jesus, being born to die for the sins of all mankind, for your sin and for mine, was first promised in the Garden of Eden when the Universe was fledgling and starlight was fresh. It wasn't so much a promise as it was a statement of fact, addressing Satan and intended for Adam and Eve to hear. Adam and Eve heard the Word of God, and they embraced it by faith. Hope was alive. Hope was alive because of God's love.

So concerning the crucifixion, appropriate is not the word to use. Amazing, remarkable, astonishing, beyond our ability to conceive, these words fall short to describe that which was accomplished by Jesus on the cross for us. But that which was accomplished brings hope, comfort, peace, and a future. These are ours because of the resurrection. With sin there is death. With Christ, there is a resurrection to life.

As you focus on the events of this week of all weeks, I encourage you also to consider the message of Peter and Paul in the book of Acts. Read this post resurrection record and as you do, notice the frequency of teaching and preaching on the resurrection. Having been sent by the risen Christ Himself, every chance they had, they talked about Jesus being raised from the dead. We are a resurrection people. We are a redeemed people who have been sent with the same message that Adam would teach to his children and their children. We have been sent with the same message as Noah, and Jonah, reluctant though he was. We have the same message as the disciples.

Is your neighbor looking for hope or peace? Assure him of this: "He is risen. He is Risen indeed!"