Death is Weird

Revelation 20:4-6

Death is a weird thing. Death is weird because it means that you cannot speak to or see a person that you previously were able to see and speak to. Death is weird. Just a few weeks ago, one of our members, Rose Waller, went home to heaven. She was an elderly woman and she had been experiencing a decline in her health. And then finally the Lord took her home. And for a little over a year, as part as my work as a vicar, I would visit her to give her the Word of God and to give her the Holy Sacrament of Communion at her assisted living home. We call this type of ministry “shut-in visits.” It’s when the clergy goes to people who cannot come to church on their own. And so, as was my custom, I would visit her every month and I would bring her the Word of God and I would give her the sacrament. And because I was so used to doing this, because it was so routine for me, that I recently had this thought, “Oh, it’s time to go visit Rose again.” But then after five seconds, I remembered, “Oh yeah, she won’t be there, will she?” Even though I had been visiting her in her last days of life at the hospital and then in hospice care, even though I was at her funeral, just for a moment, I forgot that I would not be able to see and talk to my fellow sister in Christ. Death is weird. Have you ever experienced something like this? This type of cognitive dissonance around death is not uncommon. It can be especially frequent with people who have lost someone that they were very close to. It’s this struggle to reconcile the finality of a person’s death and what it really means for them. And it might affect people with different levels of intensity. It’s this feeling that that your loved one is only a phone call away, yet consciously you know that you can’t speak to them. Death is weird. But death for the Christian is not what it seems. Death for the believer in Jesus is described in the Bible as sleep. And the implication is that you will wake up again. This is how Jesus described the death of his friend Lazarus in John chapter 11. And so Jesus goes to wake up his friend. But before he does that, he says, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live even though they die.” This is why we celebrate All Saints Day. We celebrate the people who have gone into heaven before us, who are enjoying the paradise of heaven and who are with God. And they are also waiting for the 1,000 years to be completed. In the book of Revelation, the 1,000 years refers to a certain time frame. It begins when a person comes to faith in Jesus and the 1,000 years ends on the last day, on Judgment Day. Now, normally this this 1,000 years is referred to as the New Testament era. And we are in that era right now. In the Bible, the number 10 is used to convey this idea of wholeness. And so the bigger number of 1,000 has a bigger idea of completion and wholeness. The 1,000 number is a figurative number. The way that we know that is by context. In the book of Revelation, the Apostle John is relating to us in picture language the visions that God allowed him to see. These visions are dreamlike sequences in which he sees fantastic creatures and things that symbolize reality. Our interpretation of these visions is informed by other parts of Scripture that speak similar and similarly in which there is a clearer explanation. To give you a further example of this figurative type of language, let us consider the earlier part of Revelation chapter 20. In the earlier part of Revelation chapter 20, it talks about the dragon being bound up with the chain. We are told that this dragon is identified as Satan. But Satan does not have a physical body. Satan is a spirit. And so you would not use a physical chain to bind something that is immaterial and spiritual. Likewise, Satan is not a literal dragon and the chain is not a literal chain. Rather, what this is describing is the amount of authority that Jesus is allowing Satan to have in the New Testament era. The amount of freedom that Jesus is allowing Satan to have in the New Testament era. You see, Jesus is in charge. Jesus is the victor. Jesus wins. This is the message of the book of Revelation. Jesus wins. And because he wins, you too will win. How do we know? Well, it says, “Blessed and holy are they who take part in the first resurrection. The second death has no power over them.” Well, in order to understand what the second death and the second resurrection is, we first need to understand what the first death and the first resurrection is talking about. The first death is something that we all experience. The first death is talking about all of us being conceived dead in sin in transgression. We all come into this world spiritually dead. We all come into this world unable to fear God and love him. As it says in the book of Romans, “The sinful mind is governed by the flesh and is hostile to God, does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so.” It is in this state of spiritual death in which we are bound to hell. And so we need something or someone to fix this massive problem. And this is where God comes in. God is the only one who can bring dead Fred to life. God is the only one who can bring us from spiritual death through to spiritual life. And he does that through his word and through his sacrament. He resurrects us through the good news of Jesus Christ his son. This is the first resurrection and this is the beginning of the 1,000 years. Now, the second death refers to our physical death, the separation of body and soul. The second resurrection is the reuniting of body and soul on the last day. Now some will resurrect to eternal life in the new heavens and the new earth and some will resurrect to be tormented in hell forever. But you and me brothers and sisters, we have partaken in the first resurrection. And so the second death has no power over us, meaning that we are not afraid of it and that we know that its effects are only temporary. You see, celebrating All Saints Day, it’s not just celebrating the saints who are in heaven right now. It’s not just remembering them, but it’s also celebrating the fact that we are believers in Jesus right now. The fact that Jesus rules in our heart through faith right now. In 1 Peter, he calls us his royal priesthood. We are his royal priests even now. But if I’m being honest, sometimes I forget that I am a royal priest. Sometimes I forget what it means to be a royal priest. Instead, sometimes I think because I have this great status from God, that life should be easy, that everything should go my way, that I shouldn’t have any problems. But that’s not what it means. Being a royal priest of God means declaring the praises of him who called us out of darkness into his wonderful light. It’s about sharing the good news of Jesus with others. It’s about telling them that they don’t have to be afraid of the second death and that its effects are only temporary because of what Jesus did for us at Calvary. Death is weird, but death for the Christian is not what it seems. Death for the saints is but a temporary separation of body and soul. Death for the saints is but a temporary separation from the people that you love so much. But you will be reunited with them and you will see the face of God. That is why the last verse of our sermon text says, “Blessed and holy are you, brothers and sisters, for you have taken part of the first resurrection and the second death has no power over you.” Amen.