March 31, 2013
Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco.
In the news this past week, a 68 year-old retired teacher died after being hit by a car when she was walking across Vicente Street at West Portal Avenue. She and her husband were returning home after an evening at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre.
A big-rig truck driver choking on his lunch on Interstate 80 passed out, veered across the freeway near Davis and slammed head-on into a sedan Thursday, killing the car’s driver and passenger.
A former water polo coach at Aragon High School in San Mateo fainted in the courtroom as he was sentenced to two years in state prison for having a sexual relationship with a 17-year old girl who played on his team.
A man killed when a BART train at the Glen Park Station hit him is now ruled by investigators as a suicide. And these were only the news stories from Thursday’s paper.
And it has only been 100 days after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting that took 20 children and 6 school teachers lives that politicians feeling the pressure of gun lobbyists are recanting and recoiling from their commitment to do something about the violence that prevails in our country. The President said, “I have not forgotten those kids. Shame on us if we’ve forgotten.”
There are too many bad news stories about a “fallen world.”
When you read the daily paper like the San Francisco Chronicle, you can be sure that in the Bay Area section, you can read all about the shootings and killings that happened the day before. In the Datebook section, you’ll get of more of the good news like the newest restaurant opening or trending fashions. One section is mostly bad news; another section is mostly good news. The obituary pages can usually be found in the Bay Area section.
It seems like the Bay Area section captures what the fallen world looks like. A San Francisco police officer who walks away from a crime scene said, “We live in a fallen world.” We don’t know anything about that officer’s religion, but it’s possible he had a church background, for the idea that we live in a “fallen” world is a foundational belief of Christianity.
Good and the Bad
We know that our world is not marked only by fallenness. Most of us experience life as a mixture of the good and the bad. Imagine that you had a piece of paper in front of you with a line drawn vertically down the center, dividing the sheet of paper into two columns. In the first column—let’s call it GOOD—you are to write down all the good, enjoyable and happy things of your life, the things you count as blessings.
What might go on there?—the births of your children, being grandparents, some fun vacations, a hobby or pastime you really enjoy, your good health, life free from worrying about having basic necessities, and so forth, as well as wider-scale blessings, such as the freedoms we enjoy in America, our relative affluence as a nation, the Dow Jones stabilizing over 14,000 points, and so on.
Then in the other column—BAD—you are to list the things that you count as troubles, pains, bitter disappointments, fears, terrors, griefs and so on. What might go on there?—worries about your children’s choices, crime, fear for personal and family security, chronic pain, unemployment or employment at a job you hate, poor health, maybe a unhappy home, etc., as well as such global problems as abused children, school shootings, poverty, drug use, human trafficking, North Korean’s threat for war, terrorism, and on and on.
Depending on our individual stories, some of us might have a longer list on one side or the other, but suppose for a moment that you could simply take all the bad stuff in the BAD column and with a wave of your hand, make it all vanish into thin air; as though it never happened. Your life would consist of only the blessings on the other side of the paper. What might you call your world then? How about “utopia,” “paradise” or even “heaven?”
Now suppose, instead, that the awesome stuff in the GOOD column totally disappears and your life consists only of the awful staff in the BAD column. What might you call your world now? How about “nightmare,” “purgatory,” or even “hell?”
But life as most of us know it is not just GOOD stuff or just BAD stuff; it’s a mix of both. So what do we call that world?
We call it “the real world” or on TV, “reality TV!” Perhaps we should call it the “fallen world.” When we see the world as fallen, we are saying it’s the world that we are actually living in and not the world we’d like to live in. The BAD side sometimes intrudes into the GOOD side and that’s what happens when we read the Bay Area section of the Chronicle.
Paul’s Letter
Now let’s get back to that two-column list once more. In which column would you put death? Certainly the police officer, thinking about the homicide, was putting it in the BAD column. And no doubt most of us would put it there as well.
But on this side of the resurrection and on this Easter morning, perhaps we can rethink that.
In writing to the Christians in Corinth, Paul talks about the resurrection of the dead, apparently in response to some who were saying there is no such thing. He argues that there is such a thing as the resurrection of the dead, and for proof, he points to the resurrection of Jesus.
After a lengthy scenario, Paul points out that resurrection is for both Christ (v. 20) and for humanity (v. 21). Christ’s resurrection is not of his own accord, but is the work of God. It is not that Christ rises, but that he has been raised from the dead by the power of God. Like a field of crops, Christ’s resurrection is the “first fruits” and we having the confidence that there would be many more ripen fruits to come.
In verses 21-22, Paul says that because of Adam’s sin that resulted in death, it affects all of humanity. In the same way, then, Christ’s resurrection is also more than a one-time occurrence. It affects all of humanity in all time. We will all now be made alive in Christ.
When the kingdom of God comes (v. 24), Christ will hand over the kingdom of God to the Father at which time is the destruction of rulers, authorities and power. All the enemies will be put under his feet and the last enemy to be destroyed is death itself. In the end, death itself is destroyed is Paul’s argument for the resurrection of Christ. While death has not been fully vanquished yet, Christ’s own resurrection has put into motion a chain of events that will lead to the definitive destruction of even the last enemy and thus providing the power of life-giving resurrection for us all.
Listen to Paul’s letter to the Corinthians again, but this time from The Message, which is a biblical paraphrase by Eugene Peterson:
If all we get out of Christ is a little inspiration for a few short years, we’re a pretty sorry lot. But the truth is that Christ has been raised up, the first in a long legacy of those who are going to leave the cemeteries.
There is a nice symmetry in this: Death initially came by a man, and resurrection from death came by a man. Everybody dies in Adam; everybody comes alive in Christ. But we have to wait our turn: Christ first, then those with him at his Coming, the grand consummation when, after crushing the opposition, he hands over his kingdom to God the Father. He won’t let up until the last enemy is down—and the very last enemy is death!
Paul talks about those who trust Christ eventually will be leaving cemeteries, and that reminds us of those words from Revelation (21:3-4) about death being no more. One of the places we sometimes hear these words aloud is at cemeteries when we’re gathered around an open grave, about to lower the casket containing the body of a loved one into the ground. There at the graveside, we need to hear this promise from God:
See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them; they will be his people, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.
“The first things have passed away.” Another way to say that is: “The fallen world has passed away.”
Following Christ in a Fallen World
When I give the Benediction and you walk outside, you will be in the fallen world again. What can we do or what attitudes can we embrace, to follow Christ in a fallen world?
First, because we follow a risen Christ, we know sometimes it’s not possible to immediately know whether something is BAD or if it’s GOOD. We know that Jesus has a way of transforming or redeeming things that at first we thought were BAD and turn them into beautiful and wonderful things. On the imaginary sheet of paper that we had the two columns, some of the things that you listed in the BAD column, Christ may transform and redeem for GOOD. When we follow Christ, we believe that all things in heaven and on earth are under God’s reign—even all the things in your BAD column.
When we follow a risen Christ, we know that the BAD things are not the end of our stories. Our lives are stories being written and we believe that today is only a prelude to a life hereafter. When Martin Luther King, Jr. speaking about how BAD segregation is to African Americans and for our country, he spoke about the “arc of history,” meaning that we have this longer view and more hopeful faith that God will transform and redeem us from our sins.
Secondly, following the risen Christ and being faithful to his teachings will—in and of itself—prevent us from making dubious choices, committing unethical practices. You may have come to Easter services because it’s what we do. And now that you’ve come, you want to sing, “Christ the Lord Is Risen Today.” But, there’s more to just coming for one service on Easter. You take away the understanding that following Jesus makes our lives a whole lot better by discouraging us from making stupid decisions and doing bad things from even happening in the first place.
If you were to go back to your list of BAD things, there may be some things there that you caused to happen yourself because of your poor judgment or the fact that you have not been following the risen Christ and being faithful to his teachings. Let’s take our poor health. We know that when we eat better, exercise more, get sufficient sleep, worry less, have more friends, and keep our eyes on Jesus, you can move “poor health” out of your BAD column and into the GOOD column with “great health and a beautiful body!”
Thirdly, following the risen Christ means that we lived as he lived—to serve others. There’s absolute joy that comes to you when you serve others. Studies after studies point out the truth that when we follow Jesus’ commandment to “love one another as I have loved you,” GOOD things happen. Jesus said, “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”
If you will be having Easter dinner today, I want to challenge ourselves about giving thanks for the blessings that we have and to recommit ourselves to be more like how Jesus lived—to serve others. How could you take the abundance that you have to help others in greater needs? What can we do today to become more aware and active in helping others? And how can we take this renewed sense of service to go beyond just this moment of caring and compassion because I mentioned it? How can we add, “following the risen Christ the way he lived” into our everyday DNA?
Let’s go back to that list of GOOD things and BAD things. Until Christ returns, I’m sorry to say that we are still going to have to deal with the list of BAD things. But on this Easter day, we know that Christ is the proof that death, our final enemy is destroyed, defeated, no longer a pain and trouble for us. Some day, that list of BAD things will be wiped away and we’d only have the things on the GOOD list. We live in a fallen world only to be blessed with hope in the Risen Christ!
Risen Christ
Getting back to the Chronicle, I read that the 2013 baseball season begins on Monday with both the Giants and the A’s projected to going deep into the post-season. There are really some GOOD things in the world like baseball.
We do not gather on Easter morning merely to celebrate a miracle that happened to Jesus 2000 years ago. No, we gather to declare that because he defeated death, Christ is the Lord not only of our lives, but also of our destiny. We live in a fallen world, but we follow a risen Savior who has come to release the world from the bondage to death and to put the shadows that are on our lives—all that terrible BAD column stuff—into a context of hope, until the day when the kingdom of God comes in its fullness, and death is no more and all the BAD things are no more!
Thanks be to God for all the GOOD stuff! Thanks be to God for the Risen Christ!
Let us pray.
Thank you, O God for the resurrection of our Lord, Jesus Christ to whom we now see the promise of new life in him. While we may still experience evidence of the fallen world all around us, we pray that our lives will reflect the coming of the kingdom to come when there is no more dying and no more crying. The time to come is when the old and fallen world has passed away and everything is new once again. This morning we have been blessed with a glimpse of that new day to which we are most grateful and from which we dedicate ourselves to be like Christ in the world. Because Christ is risen, the story of God’s hope, love and grace lives on. We pray these things in Christ’s name. Amen.