The Risen Christ and Health, Sickness, and Death

 

5 Pentecost cycle b proper 8 June 27, 2021
Wisdom of Solomon 1:13-15; 2:23-24 Lamentations 3:21-33
2 Corinthians 8:7-15 Mark 5:21-43

Lectionary Link

Benjamin Franklin wrote that there were two certainties in life; death and taxes.  And this seems to be a contradiction to say that in life there is death.  And of course, this is short hand for saying that in the human experience of life one cannot avoid the experience of death.

 

And the experience of death is not pleasant particularly for the one who loves to be alive and loves the presence of their family friends who are alive with them.

 

Death is such a big issue in human experience, one might understand the life of faith as being borne out of the crucible of knowing that we must die.

 

The writer of the Wisdom of Solomon felt that death was so repugnant, that God could not be held responsible for death.   The writer thus wrote, "God did not make death and does not delight in the death of the living."  Who then is responsible?  The blame is "kicked down stairs" to the created order:  Death happened because of the devil who was able through the serpent to instigate the experience of death into the realm of Adam and Eve, who were evicted from the Garden of Eden.  The Garden of Eden was that perfect state of existence where Adam and Eve were to be progressively trained and be able to partake of the Tree of Life, so that they could live forever.  How poetically fluid is biblical imagery?  The tree of life became the Cross of Jesus as the Tree which would bring everlasting life.

 

This is the symbolic order of the biblical presentation of the spiritual history and destiny of humanity.

 

We live within a symbolic order of our tradition which gives us insights about how we can live better toward God and toward each other.

 

By the time that Jesus appeared in Nazareth, the people of the world assumed the supremacy of death.  Death could only be tamed by presentations of afterlives.  Because if there were an afterlife, then death would not be seen as permanent but as simply a phase in time or a gateway to another dimension of living.

 

We are quite certain about death because we know that time ages us.  And everything ages differently.  Every phase seems to have shelf life before it expires.  Living our life in front of death means that degrees of death and life always confront us.  What do we call degrees of life and death?  Health.  And what is health called in the holistic sense?  Salvation.

 

The Gospels present Jesus as one who is with us in the degrees of life and death known as health and sickness.

 

The Gospels were written in a different language than Jesus used.  They were written in different places than where Jesus lived.  They were written decades after Jesus lived for persons taking training in "Christ-based" communities.  In these Christ-based communities the spiritual leaders were oracles of the Risen Christ.  They spoke and wrote wisdom words of Jesus and they intermingled them with narratives of Jesus of Nazareth as a teaching method to illustrate how the Risen Christ is with us.

 

If death and taxes are two things certain in life, more certain than taxes are the relative states of health and sickness.  It's gloriously wonderful to be healthy especially when one contrasts it with one being sick or observing the sickness of others.  One of the worst sicknesses to observe is the sickness of one's child.  "Preacher, can the Risen Christ be known and experienced when my child is deathly ill?"  What is certain about health and illness?  What is certain about health and illness, is that sometimes, sick people get well and are restored in health and sometimes healthy people get ill.

 

Does the presence of the Risen Christ encompass death and all the states of illness and health in the passing of time?  The Gospel writing of this day came to preaching and writing because of the experience of meaningful reality of the Risen Christ for all human experience, including health, sickness and death.

 

St. Paul refers to another kind of health, one which we don't often regard, but it is intimately tied in with the health of our spiritual life.  It is stewardship or financial health.  Stewardship and financial health for St. Paul was the common good of the community.   The purpose of taxes is to promote the common welfare of the community; and if our taxes do not do that effectively, we should always work on making them do so.  St. Paul was dealing with the certainty about "spiritual tax;" namely Christians giving alms to help those with the poor health of poverty so that they could be equalized back to stewardship health.

 

What is the Gospel charge for you and me today?  Are we finding the Risen Christ with us today as we go in and out of the states of health and illness in our aging process?  Are we honoring the certainty of our Godly stewardship tax as a way of bringing stewardship health to the people who are poor and in need?  And are we experiencing the Risen Christ while be live so that we know we will also experience the Risen Christ after we die who will continue to incorporate us into the Community of All.

 

I do pray that the Risen Christ will be known to us in sickness, health, at and through death and beyond.  Amen.