Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity

Many people choose a religion in the same way that we might choose ice cream. Whether you like rocky road, strawberry, or rainbow sherbet, there is a flavor to suite your taste. Some people here may remember the old days, when there were only two flavors: vanilla or chocolate. But along came Baskin Robbins with its thirty-one flavors and gave us seemingly infinite freedom of choice. Americans love choice. We love to have thirty-one options. But sometimes we learn that our options aren’t really so different. Take away the artificial colors and flavors and what do we find? All thirty-one flavors have the same basic ingredients. We had only the illusion of choice.

The same is true for religion. There appear to be many options to suit every fancy. Do you like meditation and nature? Try Buddhism. Are you skeptical of modern medicine and willing to explore the power of positive thinking? Perhaps you should be a Christian Scientist. Would you like a religion that allows you to marry four women and enslave your enemies? Islam might be a great fit for you. There are far more than thirty-one flavors to choose from, and yet, strip away the packaging, and you will find the same old ingredients.

There are, in fact, only two religions in the world: There is the true faith of Christ, and there is the false faith of Satan. The true faith is the narrow way that leads to life. The false faith is the broad path that leads to destruction. The true faith is called Christianity. The false faith is called by many different names and comes packaged in many different flavors. But underneath the wrapping is the same old religion and the same core beliefs.

Every man-made religion on earth recognizes that the world is messed up. Somehow things are not the way they should be. Somehow the train of mankind jumped the track. Somehow we lost our connection to God, by whatever name he is known. Every one of these religions promises to help us bridge the gap that separates us from God and restore us to our lost paradise. Whether you call it heaven, enlightenment, or nirvana, if you play your cards right, you can ascend out of the muck, mire, and decay of this world and find your personal flavor of heavenly bliss. If you follow the rules. And the rules vary from religion to religion. Be a good person. Go on a pilgrimage to Mecca. Don’t drink alcohol or coffee. Be a model citizen. Tithe ten percent of your income. Do all these things—whatever things your religion considers to be good works—and you will live.

This is the message of every religion on earth—every religion, that is, except the true religion. And what is different about Christianity? It is this: While every other religion teaches us how man can ascend to God and escape this world, Christianity teaches us how God descended to man and entered our world. No other religion has the Incarnation, where God joins himself to humanity in a physical way, becomes one of us, suffers and dies as one of us. Christianity does not teach us to abandon ship and attempt to escape from our broken world. Instead, it teaches us about the God who enters the broken world in order to redeem it. It teaches us of the Holy God who conquers the poison of sin by taking all of it into his own body, the God who cleanses the curse of uncleanness by becoming a curse himself, the God who conquers death by dying.

There are only two paths – the path of the world’s religions, which promise escape from death and yet lead only to death, and the path of Christ, who collides with us on our march toward death in order to bring us life. We see the intersection of these two paths in our Gospel text. Jesus is headed in one direction, followed by a great crowd of believers. At the same time, another crowd is headed in the opposite direction. Jesus, the source of life, meets the sad human procession of death. These are the only two paths, the only two religions. Every man-made religion, no matter what particular flavor it claims to offer, is but a tragic procession toward death.

And the situation here was tragic. Think of it: a widow burying her only son. The past life she had once had died when she buried her husband. Now all her hope for the future had also died when they laid her son upon the bier. A great crowd from the city went with her. They couldn’t help her. They had no true comfort to offer, no solution for death except to accompany her to the grave. It’s a bit morbid to consider this, but it’s true nonetheless: All human existence is but a slow and relentless march to the grave. At the moment of birth, the process of dying begins. By the time you hit forty, you know it’s true. Every one of us is that young man on the bier, being carried to the grave. The false religions with all their promises can’t stop it. Human efforts can’t roll back time. There is no magic pill, no secret remedy, no one with the power to stop the funeral procession – no one, except Jesus.

Jesus looks at the woman, who has no other hope on earth, and he sees his bride, the church. He sees you, and he has compassion. Jesus approaches the sad procession of death and he does what no other god in any other religion has ever done: He comes near. God doesn’t sit up in heaven waiting for you to get your life together, to pull yourself up by your own bootstraps, to ascend up to heaven. No. God comes near to you. This is the heart of the Christian faith. Jesus had compassion on you. He saw you in the midst of all the muck and mire of sin, in the midst of your funeral procession, in your hopeless state. He saw you, and he was moved with compassion.

And then Jesus did another thing that no one else would ever do: He reached out and touched the funeral bier. Any good Jew could have told him, “Don’t touch that. There’s a dead body. You’ll be contaminated. You’ll become unclean. You’ll be cast out of the community.” Exactly so. That is the measure of Jesus’ compassion toward his church. Knowing that he would be contaminated with our sin and death, Jesus reached out and touched us anyway. The Source of Life touched our death, and took it all into himself. He touched our sin and in so doing became a sinner—in fact, the greatest sinner who ever lived. The entire monstrous burden of humanity’s uncleanness was heaped upon him. Jesus, the spotless Lamb of God, took on every one of our blemishes and was cast out from the community of God, crucified outside the walls of the Holy City.

And when Jesus touched our death, something amazing happened, because death itself died. For the first time in our sorry human history, the funeral procession stopped. The bearers stood still. Life and death met there outside the city. Death poured all of its fury out upon Christ it had nothing left to give. Out of compassion for you, Jesus drank that bitter cup to the bottom, and Scripture records that death was swallowed up in victory. Here is the mystery of the Incarnation, God with us, Emmanuel. The people cried out, “God has visited his people!” This is what Christianity is all about. Every one of us had been swept up in the relentless procession toward death, powerless to stop it, without hope in this world, unable to come to God. So God came to us. Truly, he has visited his people, and has turned our march of mourning into a procession of joy. That crowd of death that was headed one direction collided with Jesus, and suddenly you found that God had lifted you from the way that leads to death and set your feet on the only path of life. You didn’t choose him. God chose you. Jesus had compassion upon you. Jesus touched you. Jesus took your death and gave you his life. This is the Christian faith, and it is the only true religion. May God keep you in this faith unto eternal life. Amen.