A-Good-Ending-11

Biblical Roots

We start our quest for biblical roots with the nature of the Holy One, who is at the centre of the experience. The primary image of God that gradually but unevenly emerges in the Hebrew scriptures is of a loving, compassionate, and just God.

Psalm 23

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.

[God] makes me lie down in green pastures;

[God] leads me beside still waters;

[God] restores my soul.

[God] leads me in right paths

for [God’s] name’s sake.

Even though I walk through the darkest valley,

I fear no evil;

for you are with me;

your rod and your staff—

they comfort me.

You prepare a table before me

in the presence of my enemies;

you anoint my head with oil;

my cup overflows.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me

all the days of my life,

and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord

my whole life long.

The psalm most frequently used at funerals and celebrations of life, in both Christian and Jewish faith communities, is Psalm 23. The writer of the psalm portrays God as the Loving Host at whose table the writer is safe and cared for with compassion. This may originate from a time when the psalmist felt most deeply and personally the presence of God during a service of worship.

The primary metaphor used in the psalm is of God as the Good Shepherd, and though the psalm is written in the first person, the Shepherd is herding a flock of sheep, so there is the sense of a community relationship with the Holy One. God is to be trusted, the psalmist writes, and the diligent followers of God will go the faithful way and be refreshed in spirit. More than that, in the toughest times, in “the darkest valley,” the compassionate company of the Holy One will be a strength and a comfort in the deepest spiritual sense. And the final thought is one of hope for a fulfilling and faithful life.

The way of the Loving Host, then, is compassionate action, and the strong hope is of a good life with the Holy One at the centre of it. As you go about your pastoral care with the dying person and her family, as you prepare and write the service, and as you care for the family after the service is over, it is this grace-full compassion that you will bring to your work.

Hosea 2:19–23

[Israel,] I will make you for my wife forever; I will take you for my wife in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love, and in mercy. I will take you for my wife in faithfulness; and you shall know the Lord. On that day I will answer, says the Lord, I will answer the heavens and they shall answer the earth: and the earth shall answer the grain, the wine, and the oil, and they shall answer Jezreel; and I will sow him for myself in the land. And I will have pity on Loruhamah, and I will say to Loammi, “You are my people”; and he shall say, “You are my God.”

The prophets are not usually thought of as leaders and conscience keepers who emphasize the love of God. Justice, yes, but love, no. It is something of a surprise, then, when after some hard verses about the relationship of God to Israel, the prophet Hosea uses the analogy of loving wedding partners to make clear how it will be between God and God’s people. The verses read like a series of wedding vows and give substance to the love that God affirms. The prophet says that God’s love is permanent, just, loyal and true, compassionate, and faithful and is a personal relationship. It is a love that is seldom returned by the people of Israel, but includes within it the ideas of forgiveness and mercy. There is nothing sweet or sentimental about this loving kindness. Like authentic love in a human marriage, it endures the strongest challenges and is there to encourage in the most difficult times.

It is interesting to note that in the Jewish tradition, the preparation of the dead for burial is sometimes referred to as Hesed shel emet, which translates as “true loving kindness.” This is so because there is no way in which the dead are able to repay the persons who perform this service. In the Christian tradition, we would also see this as a love overflowing with grace, and it can work itself out in some practical ways. In one pastoral charge, I remember a traditional, non-domestic husband being in a major crisis when his wife died suddenly. It was a compassionate neighbour and church member who came to his rescue with some elementary cooking, washing, and ironing lessons.

And then there are the many kind friends who bring casseroles to families when a loved one has died. Sometimes the appetizing food says more than an eloquent letter of condolence. These practical actions are in tune with the compassionate attitude of the writer of Psalm 23, for the profound love of God, God’s loving kindness, is at the heart of all you do when you work with a dying person and with her family.

It is not just in the Hebrew scriptures common to the Jewish faith and Christianity that the sense of a fully loving God is shown, but also in the Muslim faith. Each section of the Qur’an and all followers of Islam starting a project, endeavour, or journey begin with the words Bismillah Rahmaneh Rahim, which mean “In the name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful….” All life to a Muslim begins and ends with Allah. Allah, God, is the Beloved; humankind is the lover; and the process is love.

Which brings us to God’s anointed one, Jesus. Jesus had his own way of talking about the loving kindness of God. One of the stories he tells is about a son who whines until he gets his inheritance in advance, and then goes off and wastes it on the high life (Luke 15:11–32). The cash is soon gone; he needs a bailout; and his good-time friends are not there for him. So he goes back to his dad ready to become one of his hourly paid workers. He expects to be shunned and reviled by his whole family, and his brother treats him that way, but his father welcomes him home with a huge hug, a new outfit, and a party. That’s what God’s love is like; that’s loving kindness for you.

There are several instances where Jesus was called in to help those who were dead or dying, like the widow’s son at Nairn. He showed compassion to those who had lost a life’s partner or family member, in this case a beloved son.

Luke 7:11–17

Soon afterwards he went to a town called Nain, and his disciples and a large crowd went with him. As he approached the gate of the town, a man who had died was being carried out. He was his mother’s only son, and she was a widow; and with her was a large crowd from the town. When the Lord saw her, he had compassion for her and said to her, “Do not weep.” Then he came forward and touched the bier, and the bearers stood still. And he said, “Young man, I say to you, rise!” The dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to his mother. Fear seized all of them; and they glorified God, saying, “A great prophet has risen among us!” and “God has looked favorably on his people!” This word about him spread throughout Judea and all the surrounding country.

The bringing back to life of those who are dead, as in the account of the raising of Jairus’ daughter in Mark’s gospel, are present in the gospels along with other miracle stories, but the relevant question is not “Did the raising from death actually happen?” though this is a fair question. The relevant question is “What sort of person would do this?” And the answer is there within the account; it is the compassion of Jesus that marks him out and calls for a response from those of us who are concerned for dying and grieving persons today.

This is not complicated theology; the gospel accounts speak for themselves of Jesus, God’s anointed, living out this loving kindness to a remarkable degree. But it is not enough to restrict loving kindness to the Hebrew scriptures and the Christian gospels, for these wonderful qualities are apparent in the saints of the ages, those who have taken their inspiration from the compassionate Christ and work in his spirit.

I suspect that many, if not all of you, will have been on the receiving end of the extreme kindness of someone whose actions never made the newspapers or TV. I think of a statistics lecturer who in my studying days didn’t just concern himself with the statistics problems of his students, but would sit down beside each class member and ask the question “What would you really like to be doing with your life?” The response to his question was dramatic as students felt freed to train for fulfilling work they had never considered themselves good enough to do, and courses at colleges and universities that they had never known how to apply for.

On the world stage, I think of individuals like Jean Vanier, the founder of the L’Arche communities for those who are mentally challenged. Vanier had been distressed by the scandalous conditions he had encountered in institutions. His now worldwide movement began when Vanier invited two young men with developmental disabilities, Raphael Simi and Philippe Seux, to live with him in a small village in the French village of Trosly-Breuil. His loving kindness shone out in the simple response of creating a warm and accepting home environment.

On a political level, one pastor who made a world of difference, but is seldom credited with the change he brought, is Christian Fuhrer, the pastor of St. Nikolai church in Leipzig, who with a series of prayer meetings for peace hastened the fall of the Berlin wall and the end of Soviet repression in East Germany. His loving kindness was lived out when he and a group of church members took their candles over to the tanks and troops that confronted them and prayed for them and with them.

We keep this concept of the ultimate loving kindness of the Holy One in mind as we consider the resurrection. Of all the ultimate questions, the most often thought about and the least expressed is “What happens to me when I die?” And along with this question comes a raft of others: “Will I see my loved ones (and my not so loved ones) in the afterlife?” “Will I be judged by God for all the bad things I did in my human life?” “Is there a hell where I go for all eternity if I am found guilty?” “Will I have a renewed human body, and if it is a not a human body but a spiritual body, what will it feel and look like?”

For the Christian, however, it is the resurrection of Jesus that is the pointer toward the ultimate reality of a life graced by the compassionate God that begins after this one ends. The four gospels speak in some very different ways of this life.

Mark 16:1–7

When the sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. They had been saying to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?” When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back. As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed. But he said to them, “Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.”

In this, the earliest account of the rising of Jesus from the dead, the reader is called on to take note that the tomb is empty and there is the promise that if the disciples go to Galilee, they will encounter the risen Christ. The mention of Galilee is no accident as this is the place that the mission of Jesus began. The account in the Gospel of Luke expands on the Mark account.

Luke 24:36–47

While they were talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” They were startled and terrified, and thought that they were seeing a ghost. He said to them, “Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself. Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.” And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. While in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering, he said to them, “Have you anything here to eat?” They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate in their presence. Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you—that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.” Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and he said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.”

In this account, Jesus appears in human bodily form, eating and drinking with the disciples. Scholars tell us that we have in these accounts both history, which records what Jesus said and did, and metaphor, which is a reflection by the faith community of the time on the events following the death of Jesus. They remind us that truth can emerge from both history and metaphor and point toward the ultimate loving kindness of God that is worked out for us in a life that begins as this one ends.

It is this ultimate hope that you will make clear to those who are dying and those who have been bereaved, but it is also an ongoing challenge to live out the resurrection quality of life in the now. As Harry Williams puts it, “Resurrection as our final and ultimate future can be known only by those who perceive resurrection with us now encompassing all we are and do. For only then will it be recognized as a country we have already entered and in whose light and warmth we have already lived.”1

So we see from the Christian scriptures that there has been no end to God’s loving kindness for Jesus, nor will there be for us or for those we meet in the shadow of death. The words of the apostle Paul in Romans, chapter 8, which I often use in end-of-life services, echo these thoughts.

Romans 8:18, 31, 35, 37–39

The sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us.…If God is for us, who is against us?…Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? …No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Or as the last lines of A New Creed of The United Church of Canada succinctly phrase it, “In life, in death, in life beyond death.…We are not alone.”