One More Move
Notes
Transcript
Existential Threat
Existential Threat
Story of Philosopher and fear of death:
In his 1996 book about death, Herbert Fingarette argued that fearing one’s own demise was irrational. When you die, he wrote, “there is nothing.” Why should we fear the absence of being when we won’t be there ourselves to suffer it?
Twenty years later, facing his own mortality, the philosopher realized that he’d been wrong. Death began to frighten him, and he couldn’t think himself out of it. Fingarette, who for 40 years taught philosophy at the University of California at Santa Barbara, had also written extensively on self-deception. Now, at 97, he wondered whether he’d been deceiving himself about the meaning of life and death.
“It haunts me, the idea of dying soon, whether there’s a good reason or not,” he says in Andrew Hasse’s short documentary Being 97. “I walk around often and ask myself, ‘What is the point of it all?’ There must be something I’m missing. I wish I knew.”
A man trained in rationality who cannot rationalize his fear of death. What an incredible story of the battle we have to make sense of our physical reality with our souls.
I can understand his problem.
Since I had kids I have become afraid of flying. I never had any anxiety before but now I fight near panic attacks when the doors of the plane are shut. (stakes are higher, leaving orphans is a tragedy they will never recover from.
So I tried to use my rational brain.
I learned about aerodynamics, how the planes work, how they are manufactured....trying to rationally deal with my fear.
I know they are safe and are very, very, very likely to get me safely to my destination.....and I know that scientifically You are nineteen times safer in a plane than in a car. Every single time you step on a plane, no matter how many times you fly, you are nineteen times less likely to die than in your car.
But it doesn’t feel like that because when I drive a car I feel like I have control over what happens, even though statistically I am more likely to be killed by the terrible decisions by other drivers on the road.
Sometimes it doesn’t matter what we think about something, our bodies know better. My body knows that its not natural for humans to be moving at 600mph in an aluminum tube 5 miles above earth.
Our relationship to existential dread of death changes over our lifetimes.
Our Relationship with Death:
-No idea (baby)
-Seriously interested (4-14) (Theo asking about what kind of body he can have in heaven)....pre-adolescent fascination with
-Indestructible (15-30)
-Try To ignore (30-45)
-Stare It deep in the eyes (45-60)
-Hello Darkness My Old Friend (61+)
We had a somber time on Friday remembering the deep cost of Jesus’ work on the cross, Good Friday is all about death…and Easter is all about this resurrecion....but what does it mean to be resurrected?
Have you ever thought about that?
A body is built cell-by-cell over decades, remade and remade as the years flow by.
Your soul grows too as your brain and body develop your soul becomes human, aware of its place in existence and fearing for its future.
Then one day your body is going to run out of strength. The cells are going to stop replicating, or creating cancerous masses that will strangle your body....and then one day, you will stop breathing, your body will no longer be able to convert oxygen into lifeblood and your body will start to decay in the earth.
Have you ever seen a dead body? Have you ever smelled a dead body?
(we have sanitized our world of death), but a body will start to decompose almost immediately as all of the bio-chemicals necessary to sustain life no longer function as they are meant to.
That takes us to the Easter story.
Luke 23:50–24:1 (NLT)
Now there was a good and righteous man named Joseph. He was a member of the Jewish high council, but he had not agreed with the decision and actions of the other religious leaders. He was from the town of Arimathea in Judea, and he was waiting for the Kingdom of God to come. He went to Pilate and asked for Jesus’ body. Then he took the body down from the cross and wrapped it in a long sheet of linen cloth and laid it in a new tomb that had been carved out of rock.
This was done late on Friday afternoon, the day of preparation, as the Sabbath was about to begin.
As his body was taken away, the women from Galilee followed and saw the tomb where his body was placed. Then they went home and prepared spices and ointments to anoint his body. But by the time they were finished the Sabbath had begun, so they rested as required by the law.
But very early on Sunday morning the women went to the tomb, taking the spices they had prepared.
Sunday AM early dutiful women who loved and served Jesus, get up early headaches from crying. Tears right at the surface, numbness, disbelief....could not properly mourn (risky)
Really practical concerns....that are only important to the neighbors of the tomb....and those convinced of the resurrection.
They have gone to some lengths to prepare to care for the body of their friend (bc who else will do it?) and their frail attempts to stave off decomposition are put to shame as they are confronted with the reality at the tomb:
They found that the stone had been rolled away from the entrance. So they went in, but they didn’t find the body of the Lord Jesus. As they stood there puzzled, two men suddenly appeared to them, clothed in dazzling robes.
The women were terrified and bowed with their faces to the ground. Then the men asked, “Why are you looking among the dead for someone who is alive? He isn’t here! He is risen from the dead! Remember what he told you back in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be betrayed into the hands of sinful men and be crucified, and that he would rise again on the third day.”
Then they remembered that he had said this. So they rushed back from the tomb to tell his eleven disciples—and everyone else—what had happened. It was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and several other women who told the apostles what had happened. But the story sounded like nonsense to the men, so they didn’t believe it. However, Peter jumped up and ran to the tomb to look. Stooping, he peered in and saw the empty linen wrappings; then he went home again, wondering what had happened.
Even though Jesus had told them time and again that he was the messiah, they still were blown away by the reality that they were experiencing.
The body that they had seen decimated by torture, which breathed its last…blood and water pouring from his side, after a spear was shoved through its ribs....the body of the messiah king....it stopped being a body and was filled once again with air....pneuma
Resurrection…what is it?
Is it our bodies breathing again?
Resuscitated brain dead patients on intubators have breath and their body is pumping blood but I wouldn’t call that resurrection.....its more like duct taping on a severed limb.
Is it about these bodies....there is something special about this DNA and these cells and how they interact with each other and the world....that has to be reanimated for us to be us?
Why do we hope so much in it? Why are we so afraid of no longer existing? What a crazy thing to be afraid of. There would be no pain, no angst, no struggle if were ceased to exist......so why was Herbert Fingarette…the philosopher and why are you and I so afraid of no longer existing?
Humans have been trying to describe the soul for all existence.
It is what makes humanity Sui Generis ----of its own kind among all creation: Bears don’t create elaborate narratives to describe the spiritual realm beyond their senses.
There is something deeply unique about us that we have existential dread and awareness of our existence.
It is not just a quirk of evolutionary overreach (those who are most afraid of death are more likely to stay alive)....so we became more cautious…and more anxious/afraid of death and everything else
In some ways we need to pull back and get some perspective.
First, there is something about us that is eternal, that will survive beyond the passiing of this mortal flesh. We call it the Soul, or spirit. It is who you are when your body is taken from you. We get glimpses of it across scripture:
•In 1 Samuel 28, Saul consults a witch at Endor, and she facilitates communication with Samuel, who is dead. Samuel’s individual personality and memory have persisted in ways the text does not explore.
•In the New Testament, Jesus promises paradise to the dying thief (Luke 23:43).
•In John 3:16, Christ promises “eternal life” for those who believe. Later in the same Gospel he promises that “everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die” (John 11:26).
•Likewise, Christ promises “eternal life” to his sheep in John 10:28.
•In the parable of Lazarus and the rich man, Jesus describes a poor man who enjoys the comforts of heaven upon his death and a rich man who experiences the horrors of hell after his (Luke 16:19–31).
We could go on and on…but this is something that everyone knows in their deepest being, beyond rational scientific thinking....There is some part of you that will survive beyond this world and what happens there is very, very important.
This last year, I have sat with several of your relatives as their bodies started their transition from life to death....and in each of them, they were desperate for assurance that they would not make the transition from this life to the next on their own.
the lucky among us will die quickly in a tragic accident, not enough time to think about our existential dread....but the vast majority will watch our bodies disintegrate into cancer, heart disease, diabetes or dimentia.
But this is not the end. Thank God this is not the end.
This world is in a cosmic battle of good and evil.
Evil Destroys and brings death (war disease famine flood pestilence oppression)
But God, the creator comes for one reason:
The thief’s purpose is to steal and kill and destroy. My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life.
Death is not God’s plan, it is not God’s idea.
It is the ploy of God’s enemy to make Him suffer by destroying His creation. Like a good Father, he suffers when His kids suffer. The powers of darkness, systems of this world and even our own bodies conspire to spread death like a virus through all of creation, so that God Himself would ache for the renewal that we all ache for in this broken world.
And easter is all about this one hope: Death will not have the final say.
The resurrection was hotly contested in the first century. What happens after we die. In some ways we stopped asking this question in our modern age because we are afraid of the answer.
But we know deep down, it is a question that we have to answer. When we have those near death experiences…when we are near someone who is going through death....we have to ask again: What will happen?
Our bodies will fail and death will come to us all....and then what?
First, let me walk through what God tells us about what is next:
-There will be a time between this body and the new creation where you will be without a body, a soul awaiting the final resurrection.
-it will have a place for those who are righteous and those who are not. The righteous will be in paradise/Abraham’s bosom, those who are God’s enemies will be with his enemy, away from life and love.
For us to resurrect into a new bodily existence....which the Bible tells us will be a New Heaven and the New remade earth (all things set right)....becoming The Kingdom of God. An incredible city with a garden and a river of life flowing through it.....someone has to kill death itself....because right now, death wins 100% of the time.
That’s where Jesus’ Resurrection comes in.
Jesus’ death on the cross was not just a performance, he wasn’t there to go through the motions. He really died. His body was overtaken by the prince of darkness prowling around like a Lion looking to devour.
God’s enemies thought they had won. They killed the creator, the savior, the one who brought life to all things had himself been destroyed.....but hold on. That’s not all that was happening.
This is a picture of a painting that hung in a wealthy mans estate in Richmond Virginia. It is called Check Mate by Moritz Retzsch.
as detailed in the Columbia Chess Chronicle (America’s only weekly newspaper devoted to Chess in 1888)
“With the close of supper, deeply interested, Morphy approached the picture, studied it awhile intently, then turning to his host he said, modestly: “I think that I can take the young man’s game and win.”
Morphy was challenged as follows: “not even you, Mr. Morphy, can retrieve that game.” Morphy replied “Suppose we place the men and try.” The anecdote continues:
“A board was arranged, and the rest of the company gathered round it, deeply interested in the result. To the surprise of every one, victory was snatched from the devil and the young man saved.”
Because there was one more move that the devil did not see.
One more move that would save the young man.
Instead of saving the king, the king would sacrifice himself.
He would bear the punishment for the faustian bargain the young man made. He would bear the shame his family would be made to walk. He would himself be forsaken by God and descend to hell in His place…He would take the natural consequence of sin, death…he would suffer and die....but that was not the end.
What would God’s kingdom be like without the Son? Without the king?
No. The King would storm the gates of hades, and literally set hells prisoners free. Peter says that Jesus preached to those held as prisoners and set them free. Anselm described the work of resurrection as Christ’s victory over death itself.
And with the resurrection, that one more move is complete.
And Paul would quote the Psalmist in declaring defeat over our foe: Death itself.
O death, where is your victory?
O death, where is your sting?”
And the 1000 year old words of Ezekiel would get new meaning.
This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Look! I am going to put breath into you and make you live again! I will put flesh and muscles on you and cover you with skin. I will put breath into you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the Lord.’ ”
I love this picture. He isn’t just filling these old bodies with our old souls…but rather he is creating us again, and just like at first in Genesis breathing life into dirt and seeing the very image of God come to life.
jesus has passed through death and come out the other side. A Walking Talking Piece of New Creation.
We no longer have to fear that which we do not know. If you are here, you know of the one who has power over all life and death....you know that He the king has sacrificed his own life so that you could find the resurrection you’ve been hoping for.
you can put your hope in a Kingdom filled with Justice, peace, righteousness and new bodies to house our renewed souls.....
and none of it is because you are a worthy opponent of death…but because death itself could not contain Him!
Here is the invitation: Be resurrected. Leave behind the death of this world. Set aside your war with God, and live fearlessly because death has no power.
So you see, just as death came into the world through a man, now the resurrection from the dead has begun through another man.
How do we make sure that we are a part of this resurrection? it’s simple.
Follow the King:
Die To Sin-REpent
Turn your allegiance to God-Believe the good news
Live like Resurrected people as a part of God’s family.-Discipleship/formation
I will exalt you, Lord, for you rescued me.
You refused to let my enemies triumph over me.
O Lord my God, I cried to you for help,
and you restored my health.
You brought me up from the grave, O Lord.
You kept me from falling into the pit of death.
Sing to the Lord, all you godly ones!
Praise his holy name.