Where does our help come from?

Probably the hardest part of a clergy person’s job is dealing with death. Through the many joys of ministry, we never know when death and its sorrows might force itself into our day. In my own ministry, I have had days when a baptism interview has been filled with joy and laughing children. Then the next meeting is with a family crushed with grief, coming to plan a funeral service.

Most difficult are those times when clergy are called to the bedside of a dying person. Like me, most clergy come into that hospital room filled with a sense of powerlessness. What can we offer that will change anything? Prayers of comfort and words of condolence can bring some relief, but they cannot change the reason why we were summoned. A person lies dying.

Non-clergy may not face these situations as often, but they will face them. We all lose loved ones, and we all proceed through life with the knowledge that we are mortal. We too will face the end of our life, and we too will be powerless to prevent it.

These gloomy truths are the kind of thing we usually prefer to avoid thinking about. Yet Good Friday and Easter ask us to think about them a lot. We are asked to consider Jesus’ betrayal, his arrest, his abandonment, and his death. In Good Friday’s service, we hear once again the whole sordid story of our innocent Lord’s death as a criminal, and we look at the ugliness on display as crowds bay for his blood. These make us think about our own sorrows, our own sins and sins inflicted upon us, and about our own mortality.

So why not avoid looking? Why be reminded of death’s power and humanity’s frailty? We do it because we cannot avoid these things forever. And we look at them without fear because doing so is the only way we can be reminded of the greater power of Christ. At the heart of the Easter story is the proclamation we all need to hear: that through Jesus’ power, death’s claims have been proven false. He has crushed them under his feet.

In a funeral sermon by Rev. James Goodloe, he puts it well:

“Death pretends to be Lord over us. It’s not. God alone is the Lord over our lives. Death tries to have the last word about who we are. It doesn’t. God has plans for our lives that even death cannot destroy. Death struts its seeming great power, but its power is broken. To Christ belongs the victory. Though death will lay claim to all of us, it will not hold us all, for we do not belong to death. We belong to God in life, we belong to God in death, and we continue to belong to God in that new life on the other side of death.”

All this is true because of Jesus’ death and resurrection. Good Friday and Easter reveal that we belong to Jesus. We were bought with a price.

Sin claims power over us, and it mocks us whenever we stray from God’s path. It tells us that we are worthless, guilty, and unwanted. Death claims power over us, and pushes us to despair whenever we feel its approach. It tells us that it will take us, and never let us go. Jesus’ work at Easter shows us that these are lies.

Jesus took the sin of the world upon himself at the cross, even the sins of those who crucified the Son of God. Jesus took the sting of death upon himself at the cross, even the deaths of those who had not yet been born. In bursting from the tomb, he showed that these had no power over him. In welcoming us as his brothers and sisters, he shows us that they can have no power over us as well.

This Easter, don’t be afraid to acknowledge your fears and frailties. Don’t be afraid to acknowledge your sins and mistakes. Jesus knows all about them. Instead, bring them to him. He will bear them on the cross, and he will reassure you that they have no claim on you. You are his, and you always will be. When things go wrong in this life, he still has plans for you. And when this life comes to an end, he will still have plans for you. He will not let you go.

This is the reason we cry out: Alleluia! Christ is risen. It is good news for all who are burdened by the cares of this life, and it is good news for you.