Past Sermon

Sermon Title: "Rest in Peace"
Date: November 4, 2007
Minister: Rev. Charles E. Ensley, Jr.

Lesson:  Revelation 21:1-8

Sermon requests:  “When we die, do we immediately go to Heaven (hopefully!) or Hell?  

Or, do we stay in limbo until the Resurrection?  Is there Purgatory?  (Or only for Catholics?)” 

“I would like a topic to be John 3:16, or what happens when a loved one dies.”

Two weeks ago today, on one of my sabbatical Sundays, we worshipped at St. Margaret’s Episcopal Church in Palm Desert.  Arriving early, as I’m wont to do, I looked over the worship program.  (In an effort to be more user friendly, more liturgical churches like the Episcopal and Lutheran churches now print out the entire service, instead of expecting newcomers to be flipping back and forth between prayer book and hymnal.)  I noticed we were to recite the Nicene Creed from the fourth century of the church.  I glanced down quickly through it, looking for the word “hell.”  “Aha!”  It wasn’t there.  It is in the Apostle’s Creed that it says “Jesus descended into hell.  On the third day he rose again.”

I have always had trouble with the concept of Jesus descending into hell.  How did some creed writers in the early centuries of the church know that for sure?  That he believed in the devil, I have no doubt.  Jesus was tempted by him for forty days in the wilderness.  And the concept of hell was well established in Hebrew scriptures.  Several Psalms refer to residing in the depths of Sheol, considered the underworld, the place of departed souls.

Even in New Testament writings, there is the concept of good rewards in a heavenly place for those who are faithful, and a less than desirable outcome for those who do not follow God’s commandments.  In Jesus’ own dialogue on the Last Judgment, found in Matthew (25:31-46), he promises eternal life to the righteous who acted out of charity and kindness to the least of his brothers and sisters, but eternal punishment to those who did not.  In today’s passage from Revelation, we hear about a heavenly existence for those who died believing in the Lord.  Yet for “the faithless, the polluted, murderers, fornicators, sorcerers, idolaters and all liars, their place will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.” (21:8)

Perhaps I have already put too much emphasis, or caused undue fear, with these biblical concepts of a hellish outcome for “bad” people.  I am, quite frankly, not too concerned with them, for the people I know, am acquainted with, minister to, are the ones I believe are destined for heaven.

My very simple, quick and easy answer to the question, do we go immediately to heaven, I believe, is yes.  When I am called to pray at the bedside of someone who has just died, whether at home, hospital or nursing home, I believe they have already been transported into God’s presence.  We are left behind with only the body your loved one used in this life.  One family member told me recently that at the moment of his wife’ death, he could see her spirit leave her body. 

A church member told me just Friday that when the choir sang John Rutter’s Requiem last March, he could feel a person being transported from this life to the next.  I told him he would be interested to know that not long after that cantata, I suggested Julie use the Lux Aeterna portion after the memorial prayer today, because I had exactly that same sense.

In the liturgy of Thanksgiving for One Who Has Died in the United Church of Christ Book of Worship, one of the prayers acknowledges that “death itself is past and that she/he has entered the home where all your people gather in peace.”

Where is that place?  I am fond of saying that even Jesus, who was dead for three days before he was resurrected, did not detail heaven to his disciples.  He only assured them that he went ahead ‘to prepare of place for them, so that where he is, there they may be also.’ (John 14:1-3)  People’s concepts of heaven are as varied as there are people.  Mormons believe they have a pre-earthly existence and, after death, will be reunited with their family members in heaven for eternity.  Jesus specifically seems to deny this, saying “those who are considered worthy of a place in that age and in the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage.  Indeed, they cannot die anymore, because the are like angels and are children of God, being children of the resurrection.”  (Luke 20:34-36) 

In a sermon I delivered in August 2006, “If There’s Eternal Life, Where’s Heaven,” I discussed the differing descriptions of heaven used in their novels by three different authors, Anne Sebold, Mitch Albom and Fannie Flagg.  (Sermon available on website www.bayshorechurch.org if you would like to revisit those descriptions.)  And in his true story of coming back to life, the Rev. Don Piper in his book, 90 Minutes in Heaven, tells of his own very vivid image of what heaven was like in the 90 minutes he was dead after a horrific car crash.  In my sermon on his experiences earlier this year, I focused not on heaven but on his personal faith and doubts as he struggled to heal from massive injuries.

How many times have you heard someone say, “They’ve gone to a better place”?  Haven’t they?  Do we expect our loved ones who died to endure for eternity some of the pain and suffering they experienced here on Earth?  While the Revelation of John is admittedly the most obscure and complicated book in the Bible to understand, I take great assurance—whenever I counsel someone approaching death, or speak at their funeral or memorial service—from those words you just heard from Revelation:  “God himself will be with them; he will wipe 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.”  (21:3-4) 

Jesus’ words of comfort to his disciples, the words found in the great hymns of our Christian faith, all combine to assure us that there is a heaven, there is a place prepared for you and for me, and on that day when you life ends here on this Earth, a new and eternal life will begin there.  This I believe.