Readings
Isaiah 25:6-9 The
Lord will swallow up death
On this
mountain the Lord of hosts will prepare a feast of rich food for
all peoples, a banquet of aged wine, of rich food filled with
marrow, of fine wines strained clear.
On this
mountain he will destroy the shroud that enfolds all peoples, the
sheet that covers all nations; he will swallow up death forever.
Then the Lord God will wipe away the tears from all faces; he will
take away the disgrace of his people from all the earth, for the
Lord has spoken.
On that day
they will say, "Surely this is our God; we waited for him and
he has saved us. This is the Lord for whom we have waited. Let us
be glad and rejoice in his salvation!"
Luke 24:1-12 Angels
at the Lord's resurrection
On the first
day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb, taking the
spices that they had prepared. They found the stone rolled away
from the tomb, but when they went in, they did not find the body
of the Lord Jesus. While they were perplexed about this, suddenly
two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them.
In their fright the women bowed their faces to the ground; but the
men said to them, "Why do are you looking for the living
among the dead? He is not here; he has risen! Remember how he told
you, while he was still with you in Galilee, that the Son of Man
must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third
day rise again." Then they remembered his words.
When they came
back from the tomb, they told all of this to the eleven and to all
the others. It was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of
James, and the other women with them who told this to the
apostles. But they did not believe the women, because their words
seemed like idle nonsense. However, Peter got up and ran to the
tomb. Stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths lying by
themselves. Then he went home, wondering to himself what had
happened.
Apocalypse
Explained #659a Angels, death, and resurrection
In the Bible,
being buried means waking up to life and resurrection because when
we die and are buried, we wake up and rise again into eternal
life. After we die we continue living just as we did in the world;
but we set aside our earthly, physical body, which was useful to
us in the physical world, and continue living in a spiritual body.
So all that happens when we are buried is that we set aside the
outer husk that we carried with us in the material world.
Burial means
waking up to resurrection and eternal life because the angels do
not know what a person's death or burial is. With them there is no
death or burial; rather, they think of all things spiritually. So
when the Bible mentions someone's death, the angels instead think
of that person's passing over from one world into the other; And
where the Bible mentions someone's burial, they think of that
person's resurrection into life.
Sermon
Suddenly two
men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood before them. In
their fright the women bowed their faces to the ground; but the
men said to them, "Why do you look for the living among the
dead? He is not here; he has risen!" (Luke 24:4, 5)
It is always
nice to see so many faces of members, friends, and visitors in the
church on Easter Sunday. Though we do not have a coffee hour on
Easter Sunday (since people are heading out for their Easter
dinner) it is still a time for our extended congregation to gather
together, enjoy each other's company, and celebrate an event that
lies at the very heart of our religion: the resurrection of the
Lord Jesus Christ, who reigns as the God of all the universe.
Around the
world on this day, Easter services are attracting tens, perhaps
even hundreds of millions of people for whom this is one of only
two or three services experienced all year. A large percentage of
the over one billion Christians in the world are attending some
sort of service today. When you think about it, this is really
ironic, since there were no people at all present for the event we
celebrate on Easter. By the time those few women arrived at the
tomb, the resurrection had already happened. They had missed it!
However, there
were some beings there who hadn't missed the resurrection.
The women who came to the tomb to anoint the body of Jesus saw two
men in clothes that gleamed like lightning! Even today, with all
our technology, we still don't have garments of brilliant light of
the kind that these men were wearing. However, many people have
seen beings with garments of light when they have had close
encounters with death, and have spent a brief time with angels in
the spiritual world. These garments that some angels wear are not
bright from light that is shining on them; the clothing itself
is shining with light.
This light that
shines from angels' clothes is not like our earthly light. Those
who have experienced it sometimes say that feeling this light
shining on them is like feeling love and understanding shining on
them. Emanuel Swedenborg, who gave us the Bible interpretations
and teachings that our church is based on, experienced this light
of love and wisdom throughout the years in which he spent much of
his time in the spiritual world. It is the light of a different
perspective on life--the angels' perspective, which is a spiritual
perspective. This perspective of the angels transforms our
attitudes toward ordinary and not so ordinary things. It
especially transforms our views of the ultimate questions of life
and death.
The angels that
the women saw at the tomb had a completely different perspective
on the Lord's burial in the tomb than the women did. To the women,
death meant only death: it meant that this Jesus whom they loved
was gone forever. They had come to anoint his body with spices--to
pay their last respects. Those of us who have had a loved one die
can understand how those women felt. We were so used to having
that person's presence in our lives, and now he or she is gone. We
feel a cold void where once there was warmth. We feel lonely and
abandoned. There is a pain in our chest--sort of a heart attack of
the spirit.
Yet to the
angels, physical death is not a sad event, but a happy one! The
angels at the tomb said, "Why are you looking for the living
among the dead? He is not here; he has risen!" The angels
that Swedenborg met in heaven had the very same view of death as
these angels whose words were recorded nearly two thousand years
ago. Swedenborg tells us:
Angels do not know what a
person's death or burial is. With them there is no death or
burial; rather, they think of all things spiritually. So when
the Bible mentions someone's death, the angels instead think of
that person's passing over from one world into the other. And
where the Bible mentions someone's burial, they think of that
person's resurrection into life. (Apocalypse Explained
#659a)
This view of
death certainly is different from the world's view. From a worldly
perspective, death is the end of life. But from an angelic and
spiritual perspective, death is just the beginning! For those of
us who have a strong faith in our resurrection into the spiritual
world, it may be hard to realize just how bleak the end of life
would be without that promise of continuing life on the other
side. It is hard enough to deal with our feelings about being
separated from a loved one by death without having to feel that
the separation is permanent.
For those of us
whose faith wavers, or who are just starting out on the path of
faith, the angels' perspective may seem like "idle
nonsense": that when someone dies here, it is a time to
celebrate a life that has now gone on to higher usefulness and
fuller joy. Most of us will never have so bright a perspective on
death as long as we live in this world. But the angels of the
resurrection do call us toward this more optimistic view of death
and life.
In fact, I
believe that it is not simply the cultural trappings of the
holiday that bring this larger congregation into the church on
Easter Sunday. I believe that there is a deep need within us all
to feel that life has some larger purpose, a purpose that
transcends even death, which from the world's perspective has the
final say. Whatever our outward reasons, we come to church on
Easter Sunday because deep within, we need to be reminded of
Jesus' resurrection from death, and of its meaning for our own
lives.
The human
spirit withers and dies without faith and hope in a heavenly life
to come, where we will be reunited with the loved ones we have
lost, and where all we have learned on earth will be put to
eternal service in a human community of mutual love and kindness.
For those of us who have had a difficult life, this faith and hope
in a future life of happiness can serve as the life raft that
keeps us from drowning in our struggles and disappointments. For
those of us whose lives have been happier, it gives us the joy of
knowing that our happiness does not have to end, but can continue
forever with those we love. And so we come to church on Easter
Sunday to recharge our spiritual batteries and sustain our souls.
To paraphrase our reading from Isaiah, on this mountaintop
experience of Easter Sunday, the Lord will destroy the shroud of
death that enfolds all the people of the world. The Lord will
swallow up death forever, and put in its place a rich feast of new
spiritual life and love.
The Lord offers
this feast to each one of us. The depth and richness of life that
we can gain from an active, growing faith in our risen Lord goes
far beyond anything this world and its enjoyments have to offer.
Yes, we are meant to enjoy the pleasures of this world; the Lord
gave us physical senses so that we could take pleasure in our
surroundings and in each other.
Yet the angels
know a secret that so many of us miss out on as we get caught up
in the whirl of activities that wants to consume all our time here
on earth. The angels know that the time and effort we put into
developing our inner, spiritual life will give new meaning and joy
to all of the other activities that we engage in. When our faith
is weak, our day-to-day activities are like going for a walk on a
cloudy, rainy day as fall fades into winter. Sure, the walk is
good for us, and we enjoy getting out of the house. But something
is missing. When we have a living, growing faith, our day-to-day
activities are like going for a walk on a beautiful, sunny day in
springtime, with birds singing all around us. The warmth and light
of the Lord's love and understanding in our souls makes everything
around us so much brighter!
The deeper
message of Easter is that we do not have to wait for physical
death in order to experience the meaning of resurrection in our
lives. If we are living under a cloud of uncertainty, doubt, and
the lack of deeper meaning and purpose in our lives, the Easter
story offers the personal resurrection of a strong, warm, and
growing spiritual life within us. If our relationships with those
we love seem to be missing something; if we wish we could feel
closer to each other and have more happiness with one another, the
Easter story offers a resurrection of new life from the Lord
shining like the bright springtime sun, coaxing open the buds of
our wishes and dreams into blossoms of tender and joyful love for
each other.
It is our lack
of faith in the Lord and in each other that separates us and draws
us inward toward ourselves. And it is the light and warmth of
faith and love from the Lord that opens us up to all the new
possibilities there are right here on earth. When we leave behind
our preoccupations with our own concerns and our own wellbeing,
and focus instead on higher motives of mutual love, understanding,
and kindness that the Lord taught us through his life on earth, we
open up all sorts of new possibilities in our relationships with
the people who are closest to us, the ones we share our homes
with--and with everyone else as well.
When we look at
ourselves and our relationships honestly, we realize that when we
are not happy with how things are going, there are parts of our
own selves that need to be transformed so that we can accept the
richer and more loving relationships the Lord calls us toward.
This transformation of our feelings and attitudes is the deeper
meaning of the angels' words. Why do we seek the life of mutual
love and joy among the dead bones of our old, mistaken attitudes?
Those attitudes must die so that we can be reborn as new people,
able to love and be loved; so that we can feel other people's joy
as our own joy; so that we can take pleasure in the simple
goodness of a kind word, a hug, the company of those we love.
To the angels
eyes, this simple goodness and love that comes from the Lord is
the deepest reality of life. As we each go to share the Easter
feast with our loved ones, I pray that we will also open ourselves
up to the spiritual feast of faith, of mutual love, and of joy
that the Lord invites us to as he rises again in our hearts and
minds each day of our lives. Amen.
|