I want to talk about death. No, the flowers haven’t confused me. I’m aware that this is a wedding and not a funeral, but still: I intend to talk about death. What I want to talk about is real death. I’m not using the word metaphorically. I want to talk about the end of life on earth, which each of us will sooner or later suffer. I want to talk about death.
Death is an enemy, the “last enemy,” Paul says. Death is an intruder in God’s good creation. We’re created for glory, yet we decay into a putrid mess. We were created to live, yet we all die. Death slipped into the world through Adam’s sin, and as soon as it got a foothold, it seized the throne: “Death spread to all men; death reigned from Adam to Moses.” Great as he was, Moses couldn’t deliver anyone from Death; instead Death twisted the law into an instrument of torture, eliciting Paul’s anguished cry, “Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death?”
Death is no metaphor, and Death’s reign is no metaphor. It’s not a colorful illustration. It’s a simple fact: The last thing each of us will do on earth will be to take a last breath. Death will have us each in its grip, and no amount of medical ingenuity, not even an infinity of prosthetic implants, will be able to rip us away. Death reigns, and each of us is subject to its tyranny.
Even before it comes, Death reigns through fear. Death enslaves us because it keeps us in terror. As Hebrews says, we are slaves to the fear of death all our lives. Slavery to death is also slavery to Satan, because fear of death gives birth to the works of the devil. We’re “flesh,” that is, we’re mortal, and fear for our flesh produces Satan’s work in us.
It’s easiest to see this when times are bad, when resources are scarce, when there is little to go around. We want to live. So we grab and hoard and scrape. When we’ve gathered enough to survive, we protect it, viciously, violently if necessary. Our fleshliness, our fragility, our fear of our mortality produces greed, enmity, strife, jealousy, anger, dissensions.
Death shadows us even when there’s plenty of food, sufficient shelter, when everyone has a closet full of clothes and more stuff than we know what to do with. Even then, there are precious, scarce goods we want to accumulate and protect. We long for recognition, purpose, significance. Like hunter-gatherers in the bush, we scrounge for trinkets that will enhance our status. We’re like the ancient heroes who strive to accomplish something so big that bards will sing about us around campfires to the end of time. And all of this is just another expression of our slavery to the fear of Death. We grasp for something, anything, that escapes Death’s notice, something that slips through Death’s fingers, something we can take along or leave behind. Our ambitions are pathetic, desperate bids for immortality.
We have our defenses, of course. Culture springs up from the ground where we bury our dead. Our culture, every culture, is a “hero system” (Ernest Becker) that offers us a toolkit of tricks to outwit Death. For ancient Greeks, you became an immortal hero, maybe even a god, by war, sexual conquest, skill in debate. We have our own hero systems. We call it “the American dream” or “fame” or “reaching the big time.” Its sacraments are shiny cars and absurdly big houses, the influential contacts listed on our cell phones, titles and credentials, artistic or literary achievement, momentary brushes with the rich and famous.
Fear of death goes deep, deep down. Death isn’t only outside or ahead of us. We internalize our culture’s methods of repression to such a degree that fear of Death makes us who we are and turns us into little factories producing the works of the flesh. We don’t fight for food because we don’t have to. But when someone lays a finger on that tender spot where I get my sense of worth, if someone tries to take from me the thing that gives me value, I can be as vicious as a tiger protecting prey.
Long before we face the end, Death busily kills us. If we are going to be delivered from the body of this death, we’re going to have radical surgery. We’re going to have to find some way to die to Death, something that tames death and make it an entry to new life. If ever we find such a thing, it will be good news indeed.
All this is awfully theoretical, and you both asked for a practical homily. I didn’t ignore you, not exactly, but I wanted to remind you that you need to dig below the surface if you’re going to get to the heart of Christian practice, including Christian practice in marriage. Exhortations to “love” and “submit,” to “speak kindly” and “be patient” are absolutely necessary, but they’ll glance off you, and do little more than frustrate you, unless you’ve identified what’s driving your hatred and rebellion, your impatience and cruelty.
What’s driving it is fear of death, expressed as fear of being diminished, of losing worth, of not living up, a horror of failure, a dread of pain. One of you makes a remark that causes pain. You don’t like pain. Pain is a reminder of death, itself a little death, and you don’t like to be reminded of death. So you withdraw to a safe place, or you lash out in self-protection. One of you is insecure about your relationship, and you feel as if you’re standing at a cliff side watching your life slip into the darkness. You don’t want your love to die, and you’re frantic to resuscitate it.
This is self-defeating, because fear can’t save love. Fear cripples love. If you’re afraid to have your need brought to light, you’ll recoil from the other who exposes your abject weakness, and so recoil from love. If you fear failure and rejection, if you’re anxious for approval and acceptance, you scramble and fight to keep yourself together, and so beat down love. You hold back because you’re afraid that if you give too much, you’ll end up empty. But love is self-giving, and you can’t love when you’re intent on keeping the tank full. As long as you fear exposure, need, loss, as long as you fear these small deaths, you cannot love.
Perfect love casts out fear, John says. It’s equally true that love is only possible when fear has been conquered. If your marriage is going to be luminous with love, you have to find a way to overcome the fear of Death. Death is still there, and it will come, so you have to find a way to live in your mortal flesh without fearing for your mortal flesh. Paul tells us it can be done, but, paradoxically, we have to die to overcome Death: “I died, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who died and gave Himself for me.”
In the flesh, in the midst of need and weakness and daily dying, we are called practice resurrection, to live in newness of life now. Above all, you live resurrection when you are drenched, saturated, infused, inundated, overwhelmed by good news. In Jesus, God has defeated Death. Death is no longer life’s end, but life’s beginning: Those who believe have already passed from death into life. You practice resurrection when you leave it to God to defend your life and your self, your significance and reputation, when you’re convinced that your life cannot be touched by Death, by the disapproval of others, or by your own failures: You died, and your life is now hid with Christ in God. In baptism, you died to the reign of Death, the death-self that Death produces in you, and in that baptismal death you died to the works of the flesh, which are the works of the devil. The gospel breaks all the chains of Death-anxiety, and opens up to the possibility of love.
You practice resurrection when you thank God for your very self, when you remember that your life is not an achievement but a gift. You practice resurrection by a life of prayer, trusting your good Father to supply all our needs according to His riches in glory. You practice resurrection when you make music in your hearts, inspired by the Spirit, because “Singing is the exorcism of fear” (Richard Beck).
You wanted practical, so here’s practical: Begin each day of your marriage with thanksgiving, acknowledging that your life is a gift from your heavenly Father and thanking God that He has given you to one another. Pray without ceasing. Sing. Keep reminding yourself of the gospel. Remind each other every day that you died to Death through the death of Jesus, that Death no longer rules you, and that you walk, even now in the flesh, in the newness of endless life.
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
(Much of this was drawn from Richard Beck’s Slavery of Death.)