Glen Avon Presbyterian Church

Giving Death and Resurrection a Thought

Rev. Lon Weaver

Have you thought about death and resurrection lately? You only need to turn on the news to bring it to mind. News from Japan brought it vividly into our homes. A stable way of life was thrown into turmoil there. A photograph of a person riding a bicycle along a path through seemingly endless piles of debris grabbed our attention on the front page of the newspaper. A life past was layered thickly in those piles. There the works of human hands were scattered in brokenness. There the memories of many generations lay strewn in hopeless disorder. Geological, natural events brought normal life to a stop within mere hours. Then, following earthquake and tsunami came a series of nuclear disasters. The unimaginable—or, better, that which we refused to imagine could happen, the failure of human creations—came to pass. Taken together, death came to pass: the death of people, the death of creatures, the death of dreams, the death of inheritances.

Another picture sticks in my mind as well. It was one of a father carrying his child. I don’t recall whether he held the child in his arms or bore the little one on his back. What I remember is recognizing one who knew the danger of death and who acted to preserve life. It was a Passion Week moment. It was a cross-bearing instance. It was a fullness-of-time event ranking up there with an empty tomb and a post-resurrection meal on a beach. While death threatened, life would not be conquered. Life would arise out of the debris of death.

In recent years I’ve begun to savor the German Requiem of Brahms. In the powerful sixth part, I Corinthians 15 forms the text:

Behold, I show you a mystery: we shall not all sleep,
but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye,
at the last trumpet: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. Then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? (15:51-55)

With three culminating chords, the word “Death!” is offered up to express the great dramatic tension of its threat. Then, all is resolved in an amazing, full-voiced chorus that declares the death of death with the question, “Where is thy sting?” It’s bone-tingling stuff.

It’s our great hope that amidst the frailty of life, you may experience the profound depth of this miraculous message of resurrection!