Not Abandoned to Death

Introduction

Today we, friends, family, and fellow Christians, have gathered to do two things.

First, we have gathered to celebrate a life well lived of a mother, a friend, a sister in Christ, and the many other things she was to us here gathered. Though life is short, it is good and blessed and carries much meaning and memoury which we would like to keep alive though Marcelle is no longer with us herself to share it with.

Second, we have come together to face the reality of death and what it has done. Death is a good and wise thing to behold and to contemplate because none of us can escape our own. I do not think we should shy away from this aspect of what we will experience today, for if we cannot look at death than how will we gain the right perspective to live? Without such contemplation, we will surely fall into meaningless state of living without any awareness of how limited and precious it is.

I want to encourage you today that death is not so fearful a thing that our must avert your eyes from it today, and that is because of what Scripture teaches us in this Psalm. The Gospel dispells the fear of death and uproots the stranglehold it have over us. When we consider that our Lord and Saviour has submitted even death to his will, than we will be able to look it in the eye without dred or despair.

David’s Devotion to God

First, David’s heart is one of devotion to God as he contemplates his relationship with the LORD. God has shown David covenant love, and David has responded in faithful devotion.

Blessing the LORD. David blesses the LORD in verse 7. That is, he gives praises to the LORD and draws others to worship his name. He uses his lips in a living devotion to God.

Instructed by the LORD. But his devotion to the LORD is not merely verbal, but heartfelt. He sets before the LORD for instruction. The LORD give him counsel, and he takes it, showing a spiritual wisdom that is founded on the fear of the LORD.

Setting the LORD before him. Finally, David displays his devotion to faith in the LORD by setting the LORD before him. In other words, he is going to follow God wherever God directs him. He will walk in God’s ways, practice his instruction, and continue in his faith until the end.

Now, what is the reason for his devotion to the LORD? What drives him to continue in a way that at times is very difficult and leaves no room for compromise. David has chosen to follow the LORD without turning away in any way.

The reason is that he holds to God because of his confidence in God’s ability and promise to hold him fast. God is at his right hand, meaning before he goes to anyone else for counsel or help, he goes to God. Because God holds such a prominant place in his life, David relies on God’s covenant love to keep him from being shaken in times of distress.

Like David, our sister in Christ Marcelle blesed the Lord with her words and life. Her faith, which she decared, was shown in the way she took the instructions of her heavenly Father to heart and put the LORD before her. On this basis, she was able to have this confidence that the LORD would hold her fast.

David’s Confidence in God

David’s joy and security. Now in verse 9, we see that this created a perspective of joy for David, a joy that filled his entire being. Now only does he know that he will not be shaken, but specifically says that his flesh will dwell securely. This means that the unshakableness he spoke of in verse 8 isn’t just some metaphorical or spiritual foundation, but has a physical promise as well. God will not only protect David’s soul, but also his body.

Not Abandoned to Death. The text goes further than this. In verse 9, not only is David assured of physical preservation by God, but also preservation from death itself. Here we must stop and wonder; how can this be true? David himself died and was buried. Sheol doesn’t mean hell as we think of it, but the realm of death, like Hades or the underworld. Essentially, this meant that David would not be left to death. The Holy One here is probably David too, since both verse 9 and verse 11 refer to David.

How can we say that this passage is true? David died, his body deteriorated, and he is no longer here. On this mournful day, we recognize the same to be true for our sister Marcelle. She trusted the Lord, she put his ways before her, she set her confidence upon her Saviour, how is it that she is no longer with us? Did God fail to hold her fast? Did he refuse to make her flesh dwell secure, knowing that she struggled with infirmities and illness for years? What answer do we have when the silent and yet unmistakable voice of death speaks so devestatingly to our hearts?

This isn’t about David at all. However, this Psalm isn’t mainly about Marcelle, or even about David. As we can see in Peter’s quotation of this Psalm in Acts 2, this passage is prophetically about Christ. Listen to the words of the Apostle Peter in Acts 2:29-31

Acts 2:29–31 NET

“Brothers, I can speak confidently to you about our forefather David, that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. So then, because he was a prophet and knew that God had sworn to him with an oath to seat one of his descendants on his throne,David by foreseeing this spoke about the resurrection of the Christ, that he was neither abandoned to Hades, nor did his body experience decay.

In other words, David was not speaking about himself personally, but about Christ as his forefather. Jesus was the Son of David. He alone delighted perfectly in his Father’s will. He alone set God’s way before him. He alone perfectly followed the Father’s instructions. God clothed in human flesh then died on a cross for the sins of mankind. Surely, his disciples must have wondered to a much greater degree than we do, whether God had broken his promise or not. But as we see, the Father did not abandon the Son to death. He did not let the Holy One see decay.

The Path of life, joy, and delight. In verse 11, David prophecies further of the resurrection as the way of life was made. The result was joy, hope, victory over sin and death, and a kingdom of life to come.

However, this promise extends to all whom Christ unites to himself in covenant love. It was he whose flesh was saved from death, and he has promised to make his blessings our own. In unity with Christ, we can have confidence that, despite her sufferings, infirmities, and now her bodily death, her spirit is not in the realm of death, but in a world of life with Christ. And Christ who is her life and promised a body of life and righteousness for her, for David, and for every believer on the last day.

A Christian’s Confidence in the Life of Christ

Through her faith, Marcelle submitted to baptism and what it meant: following Christ. Through this faith, Christ united himself to her by the covenant in his shed blood.

This union with Christ means that all the promises of God, which belong to Christ Jesus the Son of God, belong to her also.

In love, Christ took Marcelle and made her part of his church, and he makes his church perfectly united with himself. This love means that Christ brings her into all that he has accomplished in his obedient life, death, and glorious resurrection and ascention into heaven, where both he and Marcelle are today.

True, covenant love takes another and unites them to self in permenant union. Christ did this for Marcelle in his blood, and so it is impossible for her to truly die. Death cannot hold her, because it could not hold Christ. Though he visited the grave, he did not stay. The Father did not abandon his soul to death. He did not let the holy one, Christ our Lord, see corruption. If this is case with Christ, it must also be the case for our sister Marcelle. If Christ rose from the dead and in doing so received immortality, glory, and a Kingdom, and if he is the loving God we believe him to be, than this must be her reality as well.

Conclusion

And so, I always like to think of the burial of a Christian as a second baptism. In her first baptism, she committed her self to Christ by embracing a death to sin and self for a life in the Spirit. Just as she was lowered into the waters, today she is to be lowered into the earth. However, just as she did not stay submerged, but came up again into the promise of life, her Saviour will complete this second baptism one day by raising her to the sight of that life. In the mean time, she dwells with him in spirit awaiting her return to a redeemed body.

This is the hope of a Christian funeral. This is why we can stand up to death, look it in the eye, and know our Savioiur has put it under his feet.