Beckett: Sermon – Experiencing Death

Date: November 26, 2023
Festival: Last Sunday of the Church Year (Proper 29)
Text: 1 Corinthians 15:20-28
Appointed Scriptures: Ezekiel 34:11-16, 20-24; 1 Corinthians 15:20-28; Matthew 25:31-46
Sermon Hymn: LSB #532 The Head That Once Was Crowned with Thorns

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today is the last Sunday of the Church Year. For the past few weeks, we’ve been in that brief time of the Church Year that we read texts about eschatology, which simply means things pertaining to the Last Day. So, just before a new Church Year begins with Advent, which also has us anticipate the coming of our Lord, this time of the year brings us to contemplate life and death, that is, death and resurrection, which point us to the final Day of the Lord that will usher in eternal life for God’s people. So, let’s reflect.

Most, if not all, of us have experienced death in some way. Simply consider how many funerals you’ve attended. Perhaps it was someone in your family you love, or a friend, or a church member. On New Year’s Eve we will commemorate the dearly departed saints from this year, and maybe this year was a lot of sorrowful firsts for you—the 1-year anniversary they got that diagnosis, the 1-year anniversary of their death…

I remember my first experience with death. I was 9-years-old when my mom’s stepfather died of lung cancer. I didn’t know him very well, so I wasn’t very emotionally affected by it; but his funeral was the first time I saw a dead body, and it was weird. I didn’t quite know what to think of death, but I remember it being morbidly surreal—how inanimate his body was. I might not have fully understood what had happened, but I knew then that the saying, “Death is a natural part of life,” is a lie. That sentence makes no sense because life is the antithesis of death, so how could death possibly be natural? The only thing that is natural is that people want to live. Even in this sin corrupted world, life is natural—plants, animals and people are naturally born and, generally speaking, want to live. “Natural death” is a lie Satan wants us to believe—the one who convinced Adam and Eve to introduce the perpetual plague of death into the world.

So, even as a kid, if there’s anything I understood, it’s how disturbing and unnatural death is. And now, as a pastor, I’ve encountered death more times than I care to in a single lifetime, even though I’ve only been a pastor for two short years. But every time I look upon the corpse of a beloved brother or sister in Christ, I experience that same morbid surrealism of disbelief that they’re gone. It’s no wonder that Paul in our epistle reading, and in other places, calls death a “sleep,” for it truly looks like they’re only sleeping; and in a very real, spiritual sense, they are, for the Lord will wake them up on the Last Day just as He said of that young girl He rose from the dead, “The girl is not dead but sleeping” [Matt. 9:24].

But there’s another way in which we experience death, which is what I really want to focus on today, and that is mental health because of how often it is falsely stigmatised. We often consider death with our eyes—how and when we’ve seen it. But the other way in which we experience death is with our minds. Some of you will know what I mean when I say it can be described in a single word: depression.

In the spirit of reflecting on this past Church Year, if you’ll allow me to be vulnerable for a bit, at the beginning of this past August I was having suicidal ideations. I was beginning to formulate a plan; but mostly, for various reasons I won’t get into, all I wanted was simply to cease existing. I just wanted to die and be with Christ. As Paul wrote to the Philippians, “I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better. But to remain in the flesh is more necessary on your account” [1:23-24]. Similar to Paul’s feelings, there were two people in my life who prevented me from following through on those negative thoughts.

The first person was my wife. If I were to off myself, who would take care of her? I love her way too much to do that to her. To remain in the flesh is more necessary on her account. The second person was all of you. The Holy Spirit called me to be one of your pastors for a reason. I still don’t know why He called someone like me to be your pastor—perhaps I never will—but He did, and to remain in the flesh is more necessary on your account. Anyway, in early August I was diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder. Try not to worry too much because I am getting help, I’m better than I was, and I’m continuing to receive help. Then last month, I was diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) with the co-occurring conditions of depression, anxiety, and other things. If it were still different than ASD, I would’ve been diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome.

For a while, I wondered if I could still be a pastor with autism—that maybe it was a mistake. But then the Lord reminded me that the pastoral office isn’t like any other job; it is a call from the Holy Spirit, and God doesn’t make any mistakes. He used Paul, a murderer; He used the ever-impetuous Peter; He used the slave, Joseph; He used Moses, who was terrified of public speaking (maybe he was autistic!). Certainly, then, He can use me despite my limitations. I am finally beginning to understand what Christ meant when He said to Paul, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness” [2 Cor. 12:9]. The crux of the pastoral office is not me and my limited powers but the all-encompassing, limitless power of Christ the Lord.

So, death is often something people struggle with in the mind, which means they struggle with it silently, and often alone. I shared all that with you not for your pity (I don’t want it), but so you’d know that everything I say today is not theoretical but that I get it. When it comes to mental health, self-isolation is the last thing we need. While therapy and medication have been helpful for me in my depression and as I continue to learn my limitations and where I’m socially comfortable with where I’m at on the spectrum, treatment remains incomplete without the Word of God. However you and I may experience death, there is one thing we know for certain and that is, as we heard from Paul this morning, the fact that “Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep” [1 Cor. 15:20]!

Death came through the one man, Adam, so we all witness it, perhaps desire it, and we all will pay the wages of sin [Rom. 6:23a] unless Christ returns first. But through the one man, Jesus Christ—the second Adam—came life. He is the first fruits because, like any natural first fruit, His rising from the earth gives life to all around Him. Not a single person in all of human history has died and come back to life until God—God the Son—took on human flesh. Elijah raised Zarephath’s son from the dead, but only by God’s command [1 Kings 17:8-24]. Lazarus rose from the dead, but only at the command of Christ [John 11:43-44]. The Apostles raised the dead, but they all attributed this work to the power of Christ, not themselves. The entire Holy Trinity was involved in the resurrection of Christ, thus raising Himself from the dead [Acts 2:24; John 10:17-18; Romans 8:11].

“The last enemy to be destroyed is death,” writes Paul [1 Cor. 15:26]. Yes, Death itself will die because, from the Gospel of John, “In Him [Christ] was life, and the life was the light of men” [John 1:4]. Christ—that is to say, the Source of Life—became human and died. Death thought he conquered the Life, but then the Life rose from Death, thus breaking its hold on every human. That means the corpse of your loved one will not remain inanimate forever because the Risen One will raise them from the dead. If they were cremated, they will not remain ashes forever because the God who created us from dust will make them bodily whole again when Christ delivers the kingdom to God the Father. That means depression will be blotted out and replaced with the ineffable joy and peace of the Lord for all eternity.

If you’re depressed, or if you’ve ever been depressed, you might know there are little things that often help us get through life. Those things vary depending on the person, but it might be something like reading a book, being with your kids or grandkids, watching a game or movie, playing video games, listening to music, playing music, and so on. However, for the Christian who suffers with depression, nothing is more important than God’s Word and Sacraments. Yes, you heard it from me: the Word and Sacraments are essential to mental health. They are not the cure, for the cure is the resurrection on the Last Day, but they are essential—and I would even say necessary.

So, when we think, “I’m worthless,” we can look to our Baptism where God—the King of the whole universe—made us His dear children. We can look at the stars and the amazing new telescope images that looks like we’re looking through a kaleidoscope of God’s creation and think we’re insignificant compared to the infinite vastness of the universe, but it wasn’t the stars or planets or whatever whom God baptised, but you and me whom He made His children. Think of how precious children are to us; that’s how precious you and I are to God. Think of how your heart flutters and how giddy you get when you see your child or grandchild or any child—that’s how God gets when He sees you and me, only on an infinitely greater scale.

And when we think, “I have no reason to live,” we know this is a lie of the devil because he has been a liar and a murderer since the beginning [John 8:44], and Christ says otherwise when He gives us His body and blood in the Lord’s Supper, which not only gives us forgiveness of sins but also life and salvation! Whether or not you deserve to live has nothing to do with it, because Christ gives us His very life anyway; His very body and blood gives us His eternal life and His eternal righteousness, which is to say eternal worthiness.

And how precious is the Word of God—how incessantly it pushes back that demon of the mind called depression like Christ did to Satan in the wilderness when He declared to that worthless creature, “It. Is. Written!” His Word reminds us that God is Immanuel—He is with us—and of how beautiful life is, and how it reminds us of the life that is to come. Day and night show us the resurrection: the night falls asleep, and day arises—so you and I will fall asleep and arise on the Day of the Lord. So tomorrow, when the sun rises and you bemoan because it’s Monday, you can pray with the psalmist, “This is the day that the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it” [Psalm 118:24]. Maybe even start your day off with a hymn.

Likewise, when we drive through farmland, even the crops serve to remind us of the resurrection. To paraphrase what Christ says about the grain of wheat that falls into the earth and dies and then grows [John 12:23-26], what manner does the planting take place? The farmer goes forth and casts the seeds into the earth. These seeds fall into the earth dry and bare, and they decay; but then from their decay God’s providence raises them up and they bear fruit [developed from 1 Clement 24.1, 3-5]. So it will be at the resurrection—our bodies will be planted into the earth, they’ll decompose, and at God’s providence He will raise us up full of life immortal to produce the fruit of the Spirit forevermore. If someone you love was cremated, again, the God who formed us from dust and created every invisible atom and knows exactly where each of them are will put them together bodily at the resurrection.

So then, brothers and sisters, as we near the Day of the Lord, I have three exhortations for you to encourage patience and understanding. First, many people don’t understand depression. They think it’s just a pervading sadness; but it’s much, much more than that. It saps your energy, it destroys your will to live, and it literally changes your brain chemistry. So, don’t ever say to someone who’s depressed, “Just get over it,” or “Snap out of it,” because we can’t. Your inability to understand does not mean what they’re experiencing isn’t real or isn’t a big deal; it means you require patience and compassion.

Second, many people also don’t understand autism. Remember that autism is called a spectrum for a reason—no two people who are on the spectrum are alike. For me in particular, I’m not always comfortable in large gatherings. I’m often awkward in one-on-one conversations. I’m not very good at the announcements at the end of the service, and I often speak with a flat affect. At times, you might perceive me as being unfriendly, but I’m not being unfriendly; I simply don’t socially interact like everyone else because my brain doesn’t function or process thoughts the same way as everyone else. I simply exhort you toward continued patience and understanding. Educate yourself about autism. What a lot of people don’t understand about autism is that they think we can change to be just like everyone else when this is who we are. If we could be just like you, we wouldn’t be autistic; there’s no cure for autism, and there doesn’t need to be. Remember, our brains don’t function like yours; you cannot change our brain structure, which means we come with certain limitations unique to where we are on the spectrum.

German Lutheran pastor, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, would call this the “ministry of bearing.” He writes the following, “[The Christian] must suffer and endure the brother. It is only when he is a burden that another person is really a brother and not merely an object to be manipulated. The burden of men was so heavy for God Himself that He had to endure the Cross… But He bore them as a mother carries her child, as a shepherd enfolds the lost lamb that has been found… In bearing with men God maintained fellowship with them. It is the law of Christ that was fulfilled in the Cross. And Christians must share in this law… what is more important, now that the law of Christ has been fulfilled, they can bear with their brethren” [Bonhoeffer, 100-101]. So, educate yourself about ASD and depression, and be patient and understanding, helping us bear our burdens just as our Lord did on the cross, not just for my sake, but also for your other Christian brethren.

Lastly, and most importantly, I exhort you to take full advantage of Christ’s Word and Sacraments. Depression and ASD are something I’ll suffer with for the rest of my life, and I recently began the practice of praying the psalm mentioned earlier every morning, “This is the day that the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it,” for the Lord has risen us from our beds another morning to bring us closer to the Sun of Righteousness to dawn on the Day of the Lord [Mal. 4:2]. Perhaps do something likewise in your own devotional life—memorise Luther’s morning and evening prayers (they’re easy to memorise and right there in your Small Catechism) or find a verse or two in a psalm to pray every morning, or an entire psalm if you’re feeling ambitious.

And when you’re feeling down, or depressed, you can seek Christ not just in His Word but also in His Sacraments. Remember who you are in your Baptism—the infinite worth Christ gave you there as a beloved child of God, the God who not only created the vast cosmos but also personally knitted you together in your mother’s womb [Psalm 139:13]. When you hunger and thirst for righteousness [Matt. 5:6], which means to desire things to be put right, you can be satisfied in the Lord’s Supper where Christ puts you in the right with our heavenly Father. These gifts—these Means of Grace—are available to you every single day of the week. Simply walk into your pastor’s office—mine or Pastor Bakker’s—and we will feed you Christ who is the Bread of Life in His body and the Vine of Life in His blood until you grow full of His grace ready to bloom into life eternal.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Bibliography

Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. Life Together. Translated by John W. Doberstein. New York: HarperOne, 1954.