Pastor's Message
                                                                                          

SPIRIT STEPS/RESURRECTION-April 2009

 

I was shocked by the news of his death.  He was just 60 years old and in good health the last time that I heard.  He stopped by unexpectedly about six months ago to tell me that he was doing well and had not had any alcohol in over two years.  I told him that I was happy for him, but I was late for a meeting and didn’t have time to visit.  I told him that I would e-mail him and set up a time to get together.  I hadn’t seen him in a couple of years so there didn’t seem to be any urgency in getting off an e-mail.  Maybe that’s why the shock.  I owe an e-mail.

He was a very talented person yet his life was one tragedy after another.  It is hard to imagine dealing with all the pain and suffering that he had to deal with.  Maybe that is why he drank so much.  Maybe, but I don’t think so.  I suspect that much of the tragedy of his life was a result of his trying to live a lie; trying to pretend to the world and to himself, that he was someone other than who he was.  Overwhelmed with guilt and shame he tried for most of his life to hide himself.  He put on a mask of who he thought he should be, tried to play the part.  I believe he drank because he couldn’t deal with the guilt, couldn’t deal with the shame of knowing that he was a fraud.  He couldn’t really love anyone and he couldn’t really receive love because he couldn’t let anyone really know him.  It was only in the past couple of years that he was able to be a bit of himself, and now suddenly he’s dead.

As we move through the Lenten season on our way to Easter this death gives me cause to stop and reflect on death … and resurrection.  At times it seems that life is only an ever accelerating movement toward the grave.  Yet as a Christian I believe that death is not the end.  I believe that not only is there life after death but that there is a resurrection, just as Jesus was raised.  We confess in our creed that we believe in the “resurrection of the body” but did you ever stop to think about what this means.  Does a resurrection of the body mean the body that we died with, are we talking about physical cells, or are we talking about something else?

Our physical bodies are constantly changing.  The cells of our bodies are constantly dying off and being replaced with new cells so that from hour to hour we literally do not have the same body. Yet throughout our life there is a uniqueness about us that makes us recognizable regardless of how our bodies have changed.  That uniqueness, that individuality, that spirit, remains throughout our physical life.  I believe it is that spirit that lives on after our physical death and what cells house that spirit does not seem too important.   It seems to me that Easter is about newness of life.  It is about a resurrection to life in its fullest.  For someone who spent most of his life ashamed of who he was it means walking proudly in the light of God.  It means being recognized and honored for who he is.   

I see death all around me and yet when I look I also see new life breaking in.   

 

Happy Easter!

Pastor Bob