Daily Devotion - 2/13/09

Christ is in our Midst!

Today and tomorrow it is my sad duty to help serve the funeral services of the Orthodox Church for a newcomer to my parish, an older man who has died rather suddenly after an accident.  I do not know this man, Charles, very well.  I do know that his wife has borne her grief with stoic and comforting courage, seeking to put at ease all around her who try so inadequately to help her bear the unendurable.

Because I do not know this man---we’ve spoken the “polite, meaningless words” that T.S. Eliot talks about; I’ve seen him at Liturgy, laboring with halting steps to come forward to the Chalice for the Holy Communion---my thoughts on his death center not on the man I shall sadly never know, but on the entity I certainly shall know, death itself.  After all, as St. Paul reminds us in Hebrews (9:27)---as if we scarcely need reminding---that it is appointed for each man once to die.  So inevitably as I read over the Service books and try to prepare to help this man into eternity and offer some comfort to his bereaved family, I am also led to ponder the utter mystery of it all:  death, “the undiscovered country from whose bourne no traveler returns,” if I remember my Shakespeare correctly.

It is a timely meditation.  Yesterday I turned sixty.  However long or short the rest of my life may be, it is undeniable that most of it has already run its course.  In thinking about Charles’ death, I am forced to ponder my own.  

As usual, and is so comforting, I can find hope and consolation as close as the Psalter.  Today’s psalm, Psalm 98, offers both perspective and hope as I read it.  For in this song the psalmist reminds that our God has indeed performed wonders, that He has “made known his saving power.” (v. 2)  If I am to meditate on death, it must be from a Christian perspective, and that outlook insists that God is in charge of all the earth; that he has again and again demonstrated His power.  All creation He holds in His hands; life and death are His to utilize.  

Most important, all creation proclaims “Yahweh’s approach, for He is coming to judge the earth.” (v. 9)  Ultimately God will mend his marred creation:  wrongs will be put right; His kingdom established; his “saving justice” proclaimed.  

What’s all this have to do with death you might ask?  How does this help me deal with my own mortality?  Psalm 98 should remind me that death became a part of God’s plan with the Fall, and that as usual God takes something that is inherently evil---there’s nothing good or comforting or hopeful in death, the Fathers insist---and uses it for His glory, which is synonymous with His will.  By His own death Christ took something awful and transformed it; the Easter hymn proclaims that Christ “trampled down death by death”:  that by His death and Resurrection He restored fallen humanity.  While death is sadness and separation for those left behind, it is a door to the kingdom for those who believe:  those who once saw through a glass darkly, now see as it were face-to-face.      

The reason that the early Christian martyrs could accept their sufferings with such resolution---and yes, even joy---is because they knew this and believed this and lived this.  It is a mark, I suspect, of how far we have fallen from the Way that such ideas seem strange to us now.  Too often for too many death has resumed its ancient hold, a taboo subject that we shut out of our lives and try not to think about; yet all the while we know that with each tick of my watch’s second hand, the hour of my own death draws nearer.  

There is a Christian way to “handle” this, of course.  And it is simple:  the Fathers say we should live every day in death’s shadow; that we should understand that at any moment our earthly existence can be transformed into eternity.  Instead of shutting out such thoughts, we ought to embrace them; we ought to prepare each day for death.   

The world of course sees this as morbid, mad.  But remember the words of St. Anthony the Great:  the time is coming when the world itself will be mad, and mad men will accuse the sane of madness:  you are not like us; you are mad.  Christians certainly don’t need to judge the world, but they do need to keep their own values and beliefs.  

All around us are people, great and small, determined to avoid thinking about death---as if it can somehow be banished from our lives.  But Psalm 98 tells me that the Lord is coming to set all this right, to “judge the world with saving justice.”  I need to prepare for that judgment, and for the life to come.  

Remember us O Lord in Thy Kingdom.

Gary
Week of the Prodigal Son; feast of our Venerable Father Martinian

Psalm 98

A psalm.

Sing to the LORD a new song, 
      for He has done marvelous things; 
      His right hand and His holy arm 
      have worked salvation for Him.
The LORD has made His salvation known 
      and revealed His righteousness to the nations.

He has remembered His love 
      and His faithfulness to the house of Israel; 
      all the ends of the earth have seen 
      the salvation of our God.

Shout for joy to the LORD, all the earth, 
      burst into jubilant song with music;

make music to the LORD with the harp, 
      with the harp and the sound of singing,

with trumpets and the blast of the ram's horn— 
      shout for joy before the LORD, the King.

Let the sea resound, and everything in it, 
      the world, and all who live in it.

Let the rivers clap their hands, 
     Let the mountains sing together for joy; let them sing before the LORD, 
      for He comes to judge the earth. 
      He will judge the world in righteousness 
      and the peoples with equity.