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The Twenty-Third Sunday After Pentecost
O God, whose blessed Son was manifested that he might destroy the works of the devil and make us children of God and heirs of eternal life: Grant us, we beseech thee, that, having this hope, we may purify ourselves even as he is pure; that, when he shall appear again with power and great glory, we may be made like unto him in his eternal and glorious kingdom; where with thee, O Father, and thee, O Holy Ghost, he liveth and reigneth ever, one God, world without end. Amen. (Proper 27)
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The Twenty-Third Sunday After Pentecost
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Scripture citation(s): I Thessalonians 4:13-18
A Sermon by
Fr. Mead
on
I Thessalonians 4:13-18
✛
Rest in Peace, Rise in Glory
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For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. I Thess. 4:13-18
In the Name of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost. Amen.
The Church gathers all Holy Scripture together in her teaching about death. In doing so she grounds her doctrine on the death of our Lord Jesus Christ and the event which is the basis of the Gospel: the Resurrection of Jesus from the dead on the third day – his empty tomb and his glorious bodily appearances to his disciples.
Death is the separation of the soul from the body. The human body ceases to live, decays, and turns to dust, and the soul goes to meet God, while waiting to be “re-clothed” with its glorified, imperishable body. In death we sow a mortal physical body. In the resurrection we shall rise in an immortal spiritual body.
Man was not created to die. Death is contrary to the eternal plan and will of God. Had the human race not sinned – that is, had we not turned away from our life-source which is our relationship with God – man would have been immune and free from death. Instead, as our aboriginal story in Genesis says, in Adam and Eve we turned ourselves out of Paradise. In Adam all die; in Christ, however, all shall be made alive.
Death is the close of our mortal life’s experiences. Death puts an end to the time that we have to accept or reject God’s grace manifested in the mercy of Christ. So when we die we receive from God in our immortal soul our “particular judgment.” We are shown what it is we have chosen – either heaven, eternal life in our enjoyment of God, or hell, eternal death in our rejection of God.
The reason we pray for the dead is that we still hold them in our love, and because we trust that in God’s presence the souls of those who have chosen to serve him will grow in his love until they are ready to behold him in his glory. In the intermediate state between death and resurrection, there is a purification of all who have chosen to serve the Lord. God perfects the good work begun in them, so that they may achieve the holiness necessary to enjoy the kingdom of heaven.
Heaven is the perfect life within God, a communion of life and love within the Most Holy Trinity, with blessed Mary and all the saints, with the angels, in a redeemed creation. It is the Beatific Vision of God and the joy of reunions with and introductions to all heaven’s citizens. Heaven is the fulfillment of the purpose and meaning of human life, the perfection and consummation of the deepest human longing, and the state of supreme, definitive happiness – all made possible by the triumph of Christ. Heaven surpasses comprehension. Scripture speaks of heaven in images: light, peace, music, choirs, visual splendor, wedding feast, banquet, wine of the kingdom, the Father’s house, the heavenly city of Jerusalem, paradise restored. Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him.
Hell, the state of exclusion from this communion and happiness of Heaven, is the result of a choice: the sin against the Holy Spirit manifested as a life’s work not to repent, not to turn to God, but rather to prefer the darkness to the light. Hell is self-exclusion, the result of a willful insistence and refusal. God predestines no one to this; hell exists only as the creation of the fallen spirits and of human sin, a state embraced against all goodness and mercy. In Christ God has done everything possible to open the kingdom of heaven, except to violate his creatures’ free will.
The Resurrection of all the dead, both the “just and the unjust,” will precede the Last Judgment. This is the hour, as Jesus said in today’s Gospel, when all who are in the tombs will hear the Son of man’s voice and come forth, and those who hear will live. Those who have done good, receive the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, receive the resurrection of judgment. (John 5:24-29) Christ the King will separate them as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and his criterion is love. To borrow words from Bonhoeffer, the question is, Did you live love?¹ What occurred at each person’s particular judgment in the hour of death will be made clear for all. This moment, which occurs in the twinkling of eye, at the last trumpet, no one knows, not even Jesus himself in his humanity, but only the Father. This is what is meant by the Church’s confession that Christ will come again in glory to judge both the living and dead, and his kingdom shall have no end, and he shall reign forever and ever.²
So here we are, celebrating a great Requiem Mass for the departed! What shall we say to all this? While we do cry and miss our loved ones when they die, we do not mourn as those who have no hope. Our beloved dead are not lost. They have gone before us. As travelers, voyagers, they are to be longed for, not lamented. We may wear dark clothing to express our loss of them, but only for a while; they have already assumed bright garments on the other side.³
Jesus gave the name “sleep” to death, out of which he will awaken us. While it is true that the wages of sin is death, Christ has turned death into a release, the deliverance of the soul from the burden of the flesh to go unfettered to God and to joy and happiness. Our purification for the Vision of God is something to be desired: “that, having this hope, we may purify ourselves even as he is pure.” Who would not pray to be more quickly transformed into the fullness of life in Christ? Who would not yearn for the changing of our corruptible body into the splendor of the Resurrection Body?
Because of Christ, death is the finish line of the race set before us, a rescue from the tribulations of this life, a release from the pains of this mortal flesh. The older we get, the more of our loved ones await us: parents and grandparents, brothers and sisters, relatives and kinsfolk, lovers and friends, spouses and beloved companions, children, mentors, benefactors and exemplars; and beyond these, saints and heroes from all ages, only dreamed of, are our patrons and companions in glory. They all watch and pray for us to join them. Let us redeem what time we still have left. A great cloud of witnesses surrounds us on our way. Glory be to God, who in Christ has conquered our last enemy, death, and made death the passageway into life everlasting!
In the Name of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost. Amen.
___________________
¹The Last Judgment in St. Matthew 25:31-46.
²The preceding paragraphs are based on the Catechism of the Book of Common Prayer (1979), pp. 845-862; and The Catechism of the Catholic Church (1994), pp. 258-276. Their doctrine is harmonious.
³The concluding paragraphs are indebted to St. Cyprian, quoted for All Souls Day in They Still Speak, J. Robert Wright, editor, pp. 199-200.
