Life After Death
Sermon
We're coming up to that dark time of the year just before Christmas, which most of us try to lighten by busying ourselves with all the preparations for the festive season. But if you're a SAD person, that is, suffering from Seasonal Affective Disorder, you'll notice the gloom and darkness more than most and probably need some artificial sunlight to help you through the winter.
Even our lectionary readings gradually become darker and gloomier. It's as though as we're moved towards and through Advent we're deliberately plunged into the darkness which we see all around us, in order to enjoy once again the huge contrast of the light which streams into humanity with the birth of Jesus at Christmas.
Perhaps it's the natural time to be thinking about death and whether or not there's anything after death, and this seems to be the common theme through all today's readings.
At the time of Jesus, the Sadducees were a group of aristocratic priests, fond of the cut and thrust of religious debate. They only accepted the law - the first five books of the Old Testament - as scripture, and based their religion around this law. Since resurrection of the dead is unheard of in those first five books of the Bible, the Sadducees didn't believe in an after-life.
Resurrection is a comparatively late idea in the Old Testament. Today's passage from the book of Job appears to support resurrection, but the original texts are fragmentary. Although in our original Latin Bible (the Vulgate) Job does seem to indicate resurrection after death, the ancient Hebrew version is much less specific. So the meaning of this passage is not as clear as it first appears to be.
Nonetheless, this passage from Job 19 is often taken to be the first suggestion in the Old Testament of an afterlife. The book of Job was written as a dramatic poem around the time of the exile in Babylon of the Israelite intelligentsia, about six centuries before the birth of Jesus. Since the book deals with the problem of suffering, it would be logical to suppose that it was at least beginning to ask questions about what happens after death. One solution (albeit not a very satisfactory solution) to the problem of suffering is to say that it's all put right by God in the next life, although this is not Job's solution.
Job pleads to be allowed to see God and to hear from God the cause of his suffering. But God doesn't answer by justifying his action in causing or allowing Job's suffering, but by referring to his own omniscience and almighty power. Job is overawed by God's response and his attitude changes as his trust in God is deepened and strengthened by his experience of suffering.
This often seems to be the result of suffering. There's nothing fair or just about it, but it does allow human beings to deepen and strengthen their faith and trust in God. And the more we believe and trust in God now, the more likely we are to recognise God after we die.
Belief in an after-life gradually took hold during the next 600 years, so that by the time of Jesus some sects of Judaism such as the Pharisees believed in it, but others such as the Sadducees, did not.
But then came the death and resurrection of Jesus and the development of a new sect of Judaism, the Christians. With the birth of Christianity, belief in life after death took off in a whole new way. For the first time in the history of God's relationship with his chosen people, someone actually defeated death and came back to prove it.
After his death Jesus was seen as a human being, but a human being with a difference. He was no longer limited by time or space and he could be experienced and known not so much by his appearance or his voice, but more by his actions and his inner being.
The disciples knew him, but they didn't know him - at least, not immediately. They became aware, usually through some familiar action, that this was the same Jesus that they had always known, although he was clearly living in some different dimension. He was healed and well and able to walk seven miles with ease (Luke 24:13-35), despite having injuries that were so appalling that he died from them just a couple of days earlier.
One of the great Christian promises - part of the Good News of Christianity - is that we too will live on after our death and that we too will be changed. We too will be healed and fit and well, and living in a different dimension, where there will be no more tears, no more pain, no more mourning, no more death (Revelation 21:4).
Furthermore, we have already received forgiveness for our sins, so are right with God. We have no need to fear a terrifying judgement, for that judgement happened on the cross. Jesus saved us from all of that so that we can live the rest of our lives (after death) in peace and happiness and love.
Way back in the Old Testament, Job perhaps caught a glimpse of this new dimension of excitement and splendour which we call "Heaven". But since Jesus, all of us are able to experience it for ourselves. This is indeed Good News in the midst of the gloom and darkness.
Even our lectionary readings gradually become darker and gloomier. It's as though as we're moved towards and through Advent we're deliberately plunged into the darkness which we see all around us, in order to enjoy once again the huge contrast of the light which streams into humanity with the birth of Jesus at Christmas.
Perhaps it's the natural time to be thinking about death and whether or not there's anything after death, and this seems to be the common theme through all today's readings.
At the time of Jesus, the Sadducees were a group of aristocratic priests, fond of the cut and thrust of religious debate. They only accepted the law - the first five books of the Old Testament - as scripture, and based their religion around this law. Since resurrection of the dead is unheard of in those first five books of the Bible, the Sadducees didn't believe in an after-life.
Resurrection is a comparatively late idea in the Old Testament. Today's passage from the book of Job appears to support resurrection, but the original texts are fragmentary. Although in our original Latin Bible (the Vulgate) Job does seem to indicate resurrection after death, the ancient Hebrew version is much less specific. So the meaning of this passage is not as clear as it first appears to be.
Nonetheless, this passage from Job 19 is often taken to be the first suggestion in the Old Testament of an afterlife. The book of Job was written as a dramatic poem around the time of the exile in Babylon of the Israelite intelligentsia, about six centuries before the birth of Jesus. Since the book deals with the problem of suffering, it would be logical to suppose that it was at least beginning to ask questions about what happens after death. One solution (albeit not a very satisfactory solution) to the problem of suffering is to say that it's all put right by God in the next life, although this is not Job's solution.
Job pleads to be allowed to see God and to hear from God the cause of his suffering. But God doesn't answer by justifying his action in causing or allowing Job's suffering, but by referring to his own omniscience and almighty power. Job is overawed by God's response and his attitude changes as his trust in God is deepened and strengthened by his experience of suffering.
This often seems to be the result of suffering. There's nothing fair or just about it, but it does allow human beings to deepen and strengthen their faith and trust in God. And the more we believe and trust in God now, the more likely we are to recognise God after we die.
Belief in an after-life gradually took hold during the next 600 years, so that by the time of Jesus some sects of Judaism such as the Pharisees believed in it, but others such as the Sadducees, did not.
But then came the death and resurrection of Jesus and the development of a new sect of Judaism, the Christians. With the birth of Christianity, belief in life after death took off in a whole new way. For the first time in the history of God's relationship with his chosen people, someone actually defeated death and came back to prove it.
After his death Jesus was seen as a human being, but a human being with a difference. He was no longer limited by time or space and he could be experienced and known not so much by his appearance or his voice, but more by his actions and his inner being.
The disciples knew him, but they didn't know him - at least, not immediately. They became aware, usually through some familiar action, that this was the same Jesus that they had always known, although he was clearly living in some different dimension. He was healed and well and able to walk seven miles with ease (Luke 24:13-35), despite having injuries that were so appalling that he died from them just a couple of days earlier.
One of the great Christian promises - part of the Good News of Christianity - is that we too will live on after our death and that we too will be changed. We too will be healed and fit and well, and living in a different dimension, where there will be no more tears, no more pain, no more mourning, no more death (Revelation 21:4).
Furthermore, we have already received forgiveness for our sins, so are right with God. We have no need to fear a terrifying judgement, for that judgement happened on the cross. Jesus saved us from all of that so that we can live the rest of our lives (after death) in peace and happiness and love.
Way back in the Old Testament, Job perhaps caught a glimpse of this new dimension of excitement and splendour which we call "Heaven". But since Jesus, all of us are able to experience it for ourselves. This is indeed Good News in the midst of the gloom and darkness.
