Born That Man No More May Die

 Born That Man No More May Die

Hebrews 2:10-18[1]

On Christmas Eve, we talked about how the light of God’s love shines in the darkness. And, as Henri Nouwen reminded us, “a little bit of light can dispel a lot of darkness.” For many of us, there’s no darkness we fear more than death. It’s the ultimate unknown. I realize that when we are young, death may seem remote and almost unreal. Until someone your age passes away. I had that happen to me when I was in college. Or perhaps a close family member whom you loved. Then the stark reality hits you. And when it does, most of us are unprepared for the fear that grips us. In response to that fear, we in this culture seem obsessed with keeping death as far away from us as possible. In days of old, people would die at home, and the family would care for their body. Now all of that is removed from our presence. And perhaps for good reason—there seems to be no logic, no rhyme or reason to the way the “grim reaper” takes its victims. Our inability to make any sense out of death only increases our fear.

But our New Testament lesson for today presents us with the good news that, because we bear this burden of mortality, Jesus also came as one of us, made of flesh and blood. He came not only to God’s unfailing love and continual presence with us, but he also came specifically bearing our mortality so that he could die as one of us. And the purpose of his death was to “free those who all their lives were held in slavery by the fear of death” (Heb. 2:15). Though the Scripture text doesn’t spell out precisely how it is that he sets us free from the fear of death, the New Testament elsewhere reminds us that Jesus didn’t just come to die, but also to be raised from the dead, and by doing so to triumph over all the powers of darkness in this world, most importantly death. 

Part of the purpose of his coming in the vulnerability of our flesh and blood was to demonstrate that our God is not so high and exalted as to be unconcerned with or unmoved by our burdens. There have been many who have believed that throughout the ages. Some of our “founding fathers” in this country believed God was like a clockmaker who made the clock, wound it up and let it go. It’s a belief system called “Deism.” They believed that God created the world, stood back, and lets it go on its way, but doesn’t get involved. On the contrary, the “gospel of Christmas” is that, by entering our broken and confusing existence as Immanuel, “God-who-is-with-us,” Jesus took all the burdens that we bear on himself. And so he made it clear that God is not the cold and distant deity whom some people have cringed before, and at times even hated. Rather, God is the one who loves us so much that, as we say in one of our confessions of faith, Jesus died to show us God’s love as “a love that is ready to suffer for our sakes.”[2]   

That may seem like a strange thing to say about God. It was the conclusion Dietrich Bonhoeffer came to as he sat in his cell in a Nazi prison camp. He said, “God lets himself be pushed out of the world on to the cross. He is weak and powerless in the world, and that is precisely the way, the only way, in which he is with us and helps us. … only the suffering God can help.” I think Bonhoeffer knew whereof he spoke. It would not be long before he would lose his life at the hands of the Nazis. Our lesson for today puts it this way: “Because Jesus himself was tested by what he suffered, he is able to help those who are being tested” (Heb. 2:18).

But that really is the question, isn’t it? Can a God who is vulnerable enough to enter our brokenness really be powerful enough to do something about it?  Wouldn’t it seem that a God who is able to suffer with us is a God who is just as impotent as we are in the face of our suffering and ultimately our experience of death? In fact, that has been what some have concluded: God loves us, and God suffers with us, but at the end of the day, that’s about all God can do for us. If that’s the case, I’m not sure many would conclude that a “suffering God” is “able to help” us at all. 

Others are unwilling to relegate God (and us) to such a helpless state in which our experience with death leaves us with a mystery of suffering that we cannot solve by any means. So they insist that though our experience of suffering and death may be burdensome to us now, God will ultimately bring good from it. The same confession I cited earlier says, “nothing evil is permitted to occur that God does not bend finally to the good.”[3] And there is some comfort to that. But “finally” or “ultimately” can seem like a very long time. It can seem like a very long time. So what are we to do in the meantime? How does the suffering love of our vulnerable God help us here and now?

Well, for one thing, I think we must not underestimate the power of that love that was poured out at the cross. It may look like the Jesus who dies on the cross was just as weak as any other human being. It may look like God is unable to do anything except suffer the pain of watching his son die. And yet, if we were to conclude that, we would be vastly underestimating the power of God’s love. One of my schoolmates offered a clarification of Bonhoeffer’s famous phrase by saying, “Only the suffering God can help, but it is only the suffering of the God who has greater power than we do over suffering that is able to help.”[4] And God does have greater power than we do over suffering, and so he is able to help.

Yes, love can be vulnerable. It does not retaliate, it does not lash out at those who may in fact take the life of the one who is loved or even the one who offers love. But love always breaks the power of evil. As we say in that same confession of faith, “An abyss of suffering” has been “swallowed up by the suffering of divine love.”[5] All the death, all the pain, all the fear that we can experience in this life, God has swallowed up into the suffering of his own love for us. Love always wins the day, no matter how long it takes to get to “ultimately.” And that is all the more certain with God’s love! God’s love most certainly wins the day.

But there is more to it than that. Although our lesson doesn’t mention it, surely the implication is there: Jesus did not remain in the grave. Death was not powerful enough to hold him. God raised him from the dead, and by so doing he not only vindicated the power of suffering love, but also demonstrated that God does more than “just” suffer with us when we suffer. Rather, as Henri Nouwen reminds us, the resurrection is the demonstration that “God’s light is more real than all the darkness, that God’s truth is more powerful than all human lies, that God’s love is stronger than death.”[6] And so in the vulnerability of Jesus taking on flesh and blood and dying for us all, and in the astonishing power of God raising him to life, we see God’s light overcoming all the darkness, even the darkness of death. And, as the Scripture says, “The light keeps shining in the dark, and darkness has never put it out” (Jn. 1:5, CEV)!

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[1] © 2025 Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm PhD on 12/28/2025 for Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE. The title, "Born that Man No More May Die" is taken from a verse of the Hymn/Christmas Carol "Hark, the Herald Angels Sing," by Charles Wesley.

[2] The Study Catechism (1998), question 8.

[3] The Study Catechism (1998), question 22.

[4] Steven R. Harmon, “Hebrews 2:10-18,”Interpretation 59 (Oct 2005): 406.

[5] The Study Catechism (1998) question 45.

[6] Henri Nouwen, Here and Now: Living in the Spirit, 32

Not In Vain

 Not in Vain

1 Corinthians 15:25-28, 35-58[1]

I mentioned last week that hope is something we all need to thrive in this life. But hope can be tricky, because it can be hard to know what to place your hope in. Especially in times when it feels like everything you thought you could count on in life has dropped out from under you. Those of us who practice faith in Jesus Christ have a hope for something more, beyond this life. But that hope has resulted all too often in an attitude that what happens now doesn’t really matter. That was why Karl Marx criticized religion as a kind of drug that made people passive in the face of the wrongs that were being perpetrated against them. I think that’s why we need the full version of the Christian hope: not just that we’ll go to heaven when we die, but also that God is working to restore all our lives and everything he created in the same way that Jesus was raised to new life. The miracle of the resurrection on that first Easter Sunday points us to the promise that God is working to change this world, and everyone and everything in it.

Even with that hope, there are still some pitfalls to avoid.[2] For some of us, it becomes all too easy to take an overly optimistic view. Because we have the hope of being with Jesus at our death, we can treat death like it’s no “big deal.” It’s just “passing on” to another stage of our journey. That’s not the biblical view. As Paul puts it in our lesson for today, death is an “enemy” (1 Cor 15:26). Death has a “sting” that is real and harmful (1 Cor 15:55). Paul’s not just talking about physical death, although as many of us have experienced, that can be truly harmful to those of us who have lost loved ones. Paul is also talking about the destructive power that “death” exerts in our lives and in our world to this day through the powers and persons who align themselves with evil.[3] Our hope is not that somehow death is no “big deal.” Our hope is that in Jesus’ very real death on the cross, and especially by raising Jesus to new life, God has overcome the power of death.

The other pitfall goes to the opposite extreme. For some of us, it becomes all too easy to take an overly pessimistic view. Because of the harm that death continues to inflict in our lives and in our world, we can decide that God must not be able to do anything about it.[4] But that’s also not a biblical view! Not by a long stretch! The God to whom the Apostle Paul points us is the God who not only worked in the lives of the people of Israel and in the lives of believers in the early church all those centuries ago. This God is the God who continues to work in and through us to bring life out of all the harm that death can inflict on us. We have this faith, this confidence, this hope, because Jesus died a very real death on the cross. But we also have this faith, this confidence, this hope, because God raised Jesus to a new life that is just as real. That means death will not have the last word for anyone.

The hope of the Gospel is the promise of Jesus’ resurrection. It’s the promise that the life God revealed in Jesus’ resurrection is a new kind of life that is stronger than the worst that death and all its powers and those who align themselves with them can throw at us. Paul points to this hope when he insists that “Death is swallowed up in victory” (1 Cor 15:54), the victory Jesus won when God raised him from death. Paul can go so far as to “taunt” death like one might do to a defeated and humiliated bully: “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” (1 Cor 15:55, NLT). The reason he can act so confidently in the face of the harm that death still can and does inflict on us is because he knows that God has given us “victory” over all of it “through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Cor 15:57). The life that God has injected into this world through Jesus’ resurrection has already defeated death and all the powers and persons aligned with it. And the promise of our faith is that this new life will finally and fully define all creation. For everyone and everything!

Our faith and our hope exist in a balance. We don’t naively water down the power of death or the very real harm those who align themselves with evil can do in our world. Rather, with Paul we take all of that seriously as an “enemy.” But on the other hand, we don’t just give up in the face of the sometimes overwhelming discouragement we feel over the influence of those powers and persons. That’s because we’ve seen the light of new life that dawned on that first Easter morning, and with Paul and the hosts of believers throughout the ages we put our faith and our hope in the power of that new life.[5] We hold our faith and our hope in the power of God to overcome evil in this world in a balance. But the scale is tipped in favor of hope, because Jesus’ resurrection points us to the day when the final victory will come.

We don’t place our hope in some idealistic vision that attributes to humanity a goodness that can prevail against all evil. There is much goodness to be found in the human family, to be sure. But it’s not equal to the task of overcoming the powers of evil and those who align themselves with it. Neither do we place our hope in sheer determination and willpower to resist in the face of all the wrongs that are so blatantly perpetrated in our day, every day. Human willpower isn’t sufficient to the task either. We place our hope in the confidence that, as the great Swiss theologian Karl Barth said, “God is not God in vain.”[6] Or as Paul puts it in our lesson for today, ultimately God will be “utterly supreme over everything everywhere” (1 Cor 15:28, NLT).[7] And so we place our hope in God, and in the victory he has won in Jesus Christ. And that hope leads us to the confidence that God will fulfill all that he has promised to do. One day, we will share in the new life that Jesus now enjoys.

So how then shall we live in these times of turmoil? Do we retreat behind the walls of our homes and churches and sit back, waiting for God to work a miracle? Or do we “plunge into the present struggle” as our affirmation of faith last week called us to do, putting the courage and energy our faith and hope give us to good use here and now?[8] I think St. Paul would have us do the latter. After all that he had to say about the reality of Jesus’ resurrection and the hope it gives us, Paul concluded this chapter by saying, “So, my dear brothers and sisters, be strong and immovable. Always work enthusiastically for the Lord, for you know that nothing you do for the Lord is ever useless” (1 Cor 15:58, NLT). That last phrase is often translated more literally “in the Lord your labor is not in vain.” We may or may not see tangible results from our work. But I believe that every act of integrity, every act of kindness, every act motivated by faith and hope and love can and does make a difference.[9] Not just because of our sincerity, or our determination, but because the new life of our resurrected lord Jesus means that what we do here and now is “not in vain”!

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[1] © Alan Brehm 2025. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm PhD on 2/23/2025 for Hickman Presbyterian Church.

[2] Cf. Shirley C. Guthrie, Christian Doctrine, rev. ed, 378.

[3] Paul speaks of this especially in Romans 5, where he contrasts the effects of death’s “reign” with the effects of God’s grace that lead to the “victory” that we have through Jesus Christ (cf. esp. Rom 5:17). See especially The Message translation: “If death got the upper hand through one man’s wrongdoing, can you imagine the breathtaking recovery life makes, absolute life, in those who grasp with both hands this wildly extravagant life-gift, this grand setting-everything-right, that the one man Jesus Christ provides?” Cf. also Anthony C. Thiselton, The First Epistle to the Corinthians: a commentary on the Greek text, p.1302.

[4] This was Harold Kushner’s view in Why Bad Things Happen to Good People. He and his wife had experienced the loss of a child, so while I may disagree with his view, I would not want to criticize him personally.

[5] Cf. Guthrie, Christian Doctrine, 283. See also ibid., 285, where he says that Christians “know of a power at work here and now greater than the power of evil, a power that keeps breaking into our godless and godforsaken world to heal old wounds, make new beginnings, and (if only now and then, here and there) give us a glimpse of the final victory of God’s compassion and justice that are on the way.” See further, ibid., 375: “The God in whom we hope is a God who not only will be but is the powerful and compassionate Creator and Ruler of the world. The crucified and risen Christ who will come to overthrow all the powers of darkness and evil that spoil God’s good creation and human life in it has already triumphed over them and even now is at work to complete the work he has begun.”

[6] Cf. Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, 3.4.1:196. While he concedes that work of reconciliation that Jesus has accomplished through the cross and resurrection (elsewhere he calls it “the accomplished alteration of the whole world situation”; ibid., p. 191) still faces opposition in this world, he insists that we must see this “battle” as resulting in the victory of God.

[7] Cf. Jürgen Moltmann, Theology of Hope, 163, where he points to the final victory of Jesus’ resurrection as serving “the sole and all-embracing lordship of God.”

[8] Cf. “A Declaration of Faith,” 10.5 (Presbyterian Church in the United States, 117th General Assembly 1977, reissued by Presbyterian Church [U.S.A.], 1991).

[9] Cf. Guthrie, Christian Doctrine, 280-81: “we can and must confidently throw ourselves into the fight against evil in our own lives and in the world around us, knowing that we do not fight alone but with the one who is stronger than all the forces of evil.”

The Promise of Life

 The Promise of Life

John 11:1-45[1]

Last week we talked about the challenge that evil and suffering presents to our faith. One of the hardest things we may be called to do is to trust that God can and will bring good out of the worst things that can happen to us in this life. But there’s another specter that can undermine our faith. It’s the fact that we are all dust and to dust we will all return. Our mortality can haunt us just as much as any of the hardships we may have to suffer. At times, death can seem like a mercy. Especially when someone we love is suffering. But when it comes suddenly, and especially when death takes someone “before their time,” it can be difficult if not impossible to hold onto our faith. And this isn’t just a modern problem. The human family has wrestled with death as long as we’ve been around.

Part of the reason for this is that when we realize that one day every one of us will die, it threatens to erase any meaning we may find in our lives. Again, this isn’t a problem that has come up only recently. The “preacher” of Ecclesiastes said it centuries ago: “Everyone will die someday. Death comes to godly and sinful people alike. It comes to good and bad people alike” (Eccl 9:1, NIrV). And so he concluded that everything in this life is “vanity” or “nonsense” or “useless” or “meaningless,” depending on how you translate it. I’d have to admit that if death really is the end of all hope, then those who despair of finding any meaning in our lives are right. If all there is to life is that “you pay your taxes and then you die,” it doesn’t matter much what you do or how you live.

Our gospel lesson for this week addresses the problem of death and how it affects not only our faith but also our outlook on life. It’s the story about how Jesus raised his friend Lazarus to life after he had died. The heart of the story is found in Jesus’ dialogue with Lazarus’ sister, Martha. When she learned that Jesus was approaching their village, she went out to meet him. And she said what may sound like a complaint, but I think was simply an expression of her grief: “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died” (Jn 11:21). In response, Jesus promised her “Your brother will rise again,” which she thought meant that Lazarus would rise “in the resurrection on the last day” (Jn 11:23-24). But Jesus had something more immediate in mind!

We should recall again that in John’s Gospel, the basic premise of the promise of life is that Jesus is God in human flesh. That means that “just as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself” (Jn 5:26). So it is that Jesus tells Martha, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live” (Jn 11:25). And he proceeds to demonstrate the truth of that promise by raising Lazarus from death! Just to be clear, this was no ordinary “near death” experience where someone was “clinically dead” for a while but was somehow “brought back.” Lazarus was dead and buried. He’d been in the tomb for four days. I’d say that makes the fact that Jesus brought him back to life even more dramatic a demonstration of the promise that Jesus is “the resurrection and the life.”

There’s another aspect of this story we need to understand in order to grasp the impact of Jesus’ promise. Their view of death was different from ours. Faithful people like Martha didn’t have a hope that those who died would “go to heaven” where they would be comforted in the presence of God. Their understanding of death was summed up in the concept of Sheol, which some English Bibles sometimes translate as “hell.” But the idea of Sheol was really something more like “the grave.” It was a kind of prolonged waiting for something else. And they didn’t even have much of a concept of what the dead might be waiting for in the grave. They were just dead. Some of them, like Martha, believed that “at the last day” those who had died would be raised to life. But in the meanwhile, they were still just dead.

But Jesus clears away that uncertainty about death. He showed that God’s promise to the family of that dead man on that day was life. And that promise not only applied to Lazarus, it applies to all who trust in God’s promise, whether in this life or the next! Because he was and is God who became human, Jesus has the power to give life that can only come from God: new life, eternal life, everlasting life. More than that, because he was lifted up on the cross, lifted up to new life in his resurrection, and lifted up to reign at God’s right hand, nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Not. Even. Death!

One of the challenges to our faith is how we live in the face of our mortality. We don’t resign ourselves to a fatalism that allows death to determine when it’s “your time to go.” And we don’t give in to despair that lets death have the last word and therefore makes whatever we may do in this life meaningless. Rather, our faith in Jesus as the “resurrection and the life” calls us to live in the hope and trust that God’s promise of life has the last word for all of us. Living from this promise of life in Jesus gives the lie to fatalism and breaks the spell of despair. The promise of life in Jesus enables us to live with hope even in the face of death. This choice between despair and hope determines just about every aspect of your life, from whether it matters how you live, to what you plan to do with your life, to how you relate to other people. It all boils down to the choice between despair and hope. It all boils down to whether you believe that the last word is God’s promise of life.

I’m not talking about living in denial of death and the heartbreak it can cause. The sorrow and grief that attends death are very real. Most of us have some experience with that. What I’m talking about is that we have nothing to fear from death, because Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior overcame death on that hill outside Jerusalem so long ago. We have nothing to fear from death because Jesus reigns as Lord over life and death even now, and will always. We have nothing to fear from death because we know that the one whom we will face is our God who has loved us from before the foundation of the world. Our God is the one who has chosen to be “God-who-is-with-us” and therefore also has chosen us to be with him for all eternity.[2] Our God is the one who from before all time and to time without ending has determined to be true to his character, which is “God-who-is-for-us,” even and especially in death. Our God who claimed us before we were ever born, as we demonstrated by baptizing this boy today, claims us as “his own” even in death, especially in death.[3] It’s this promise of life that Jesus demonstrated on that day in Judea by raising Lazarus from the dead. And it is this promise of life that we can hold fast even and especially when we come face-to-face with our own mortality.

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[1] © 2023 Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm PhD on 3/26/2023 for Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.

[3] Cf. Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics 2.1, 274: God “does not will to be without us, and He does not will that we should be without Him.” Cf. also, “The Study Catechism: Full Version with Biblical References,” Approved by the 210th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, USA (1998), question 27, where the affirmation of “life everlasting” means that “God does not will to be God without us.”

[3] Cf. Barth, Church Dogmatics 3.4, 593: “The real reason why we need not and cannot and must not far death any longer is that, at the point where we shall cease to be, God the Lord intervenes for us and awaits us and comes to meet us and summons us to secure and recognize and grasp our opportunity. This means, however, that He, the eternal God, lays claim to us … as his own chosen possession.

Unfading Hope

Unfading Hope

Acts 2:25-28; Ps. 16[1]

  One of the great obstacles to joy in our world today is the prevalence of death. Of course, death has always been around, but I think we see so much more of it. With instant global communications, we see the death and destruction of wars being waged all over the world. We experience the grief of those who have lost loved ones to an unexpected mudslide, or a lost airliner, or a capsized ferry. Even locally, it seems that the first ten minutes of the news is filled with violence and death. It’s enough to drain from even the most stalwart believer the hope that life has meaning and purpose. And that is only what we see reported on the news!

  All of us have or will have our lives interrupted by death. Whether it is a beloved spouse, a sister or brother, or even a treasured child, at one point or another in life, we come face to face with the reality of death. It is a powerful reality. It can take the wind out of our sails, knock us completely off course, and leave us empty of faith, or hope, or joy. For many people in our world, death is the ultimate obstacle to faith. Because of the stark reality of death, they simply cannot muster the faith to believe that there is anything beyond this life to look forward to.

  As difficult a challenge death can pose for us, the Scripture lessons during this Easter season point us to a different “ultimate reality.”  The experience the Apostles had of the risen Lord Jesus Christ completely redefined for them what “ultimate reality” looked like.[2] For some of them, prior to that experience, they may very well have agreed with Ben Franklin’s famous sentiment that “In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.”[3] But after seeing and hearing and touching and eating with the risen Christ, they could no longer surrender their hearts to death as the ultimate reality. In the presence of the one who had overcome death, they were possessed of a hope that Peter said “cannot decay or spoil or fade away” (1 Pet. 1:4, TEV).

  This is the message of our Scripture lesson from the book of Acts for today. Peter, in his sermon at Pentecost, quotes Psalm 16 to make the point that it was God’s intention to raise Jesus from the dead all along. And yet, originally, Psalm 16 was a declaration of hope for anyone who trusted that their life was in God’s hands, and that nothing, not even death, could snatch them from the safety and refuge and joy they had in God’s presence.[4] Although the words of the original Psalm are inspiring, I particularly like the way Peter recites them. He quotes from the Greek version of the Hebrew Bible, which translates the original in some interesting ways.

  Both texts express the confidence that because we live our lives in God’s abiding presence, we have the assurance that we will not be “shaken” (Acts 2:25; Ps. 16:8). Both also affirm the faith that those who trust in the Lord will not be forsaken in the grip of death (Acts 2:27; Ps. 16:10), but rather even in death there will be life and joy in the presence of God (Acts 2:28; Ps. 16:11). But the version that Peter quotes makes a couple of interpretations that I find interesting. For one thing, the Psalm in the Hebrew Bible says that God’s abiding presence means that “my body also rests secure” (Ps. 16:9).  But in the Greek translation Peter quotes, it says, “my flesh will live in hope” (Acts 2:26). It seems to me that while the original Psalm affirms confidence in God as a present reality, the Greek translation that Peter quotes points us to a future hope, the hope that death will not be the end for us.[5]

  I think this gives us some insight into Peter’s experience of Easter faith: because of Jesus’ resurrection from the dead Peter has a hope that goes beyond death. This hope includes the confidence that he too will experience new life on the other side of the grave. And so Peter can point also to joy, saying “you will make me full of gladness with your presence” (Acts 2:28). I think this was the reason why Peter’s sermon in the book of Acts quotes Psalm 16 in this unique way. For the Apostles, indeed for all believers, the realization that Jesus had truly overcome even the power of death changed their whole outlook on life.[6] From now on faith, not fatalism, would define their lives. From now on a “living hope” (1 Pet 1:3) would determine their attitude about the meaning and purpose of life.[7] Their lives were profoundly changed by their joyful experience of the risen Lord.

  The reason we look to these texts is not for the sake of some history lesson. We too can embrace the faith and hope and joy that those first believers did. It may be more of a challenge for us, because we are among those who “have not seen and yet have come to believe” (Jn. 20:29). But that doesn’t mean that we are prevented from knowing the hope and the joy that come from experiencing the abiding presence of the living Lord Jesus Christ. This is the good news that we celebrate throughout the Easter season. This good news reinforces for us the faith that nothing, not even death, can separate us from the ultimate hope and joy of God’s life-giving presence.

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[1] © 2014 Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Dr. Alan Brehm on 4/27/2014 at First Presbyterian Church of Dickinson, TX.

[2] Cf. James L. Mays, Psalms, 86: Psalm 16 “teaches that trust is not merely a warm feeling or a passing impulse in a time of trouble; it is a structure of acts and experiences that open one’s consciousness to the LORD as the supreme reality of life.”  Cf. also H.-J. Kraus, Psalms 1-59, 242: “the life that has come to light in Christ Jesus is the power that now and today embraces human life.”

[3] Benjamin Franklin, Letter to Jean-Baptiste Leroy (13 November 1789); accessed at http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Benjamin_Franklin.

[4] Cf. Mays, Psalms, 87: “Trust is confidence in the face of death. ... Death in the thought world of the Psalms is not only the polar opposition of life, the loss of one’s vital existence. It is also the loss of the presence of God and the pleasures of that presence.”

[5] While some would argue that Peter was just using the Psalm as a “prooftext” (cf. Richard I. Pervo, Acts: A commentary on the Book of Acts, 75), I think it is more accurate to say that the Psalm provided him with the language to express his conviction that Jesus had been raised from the dead (cf. Kraus, Psalms 1-59, 242).

[6] Cf. Mays, Psalms, 88: “Life and joy go together. Life is consummated in joy. Where death is removed as a threat, life is finally free for complete joy in the presence of God.”  It is significant to call attention to the fact, as Mays does, that the Psalmist expressed this trust without a developed “doctrine of resurrection or eternal life.”

[7] Cf. Jürgen Moltmann, The Source of Life: The Holy Spirit and the Theology of Life, 29: “New life begins in us through the power of hope: that is an Easter experience.”  Cf. also Jürgen Moltmann, Experiences of God, 28: “Anyone who has grasped what Easter means has found an enduring hope.”

Light Overcoming Darkness

Light Overcoming Darkness

Heb. 2:10-18[1]

  For many of us, there is no darkness we fear more than death.  It is the ultimate unknown.    I realize that when we are young, death may seem remote and almost unreal.  Until someone your age passes away.  Someone you knew and perhaps even loved.  Then the stark reality of death hits you.  And when it does, most of us are unprepared for the fear that grips us.  In response to that fear, we seem obsessed in this culture with keeping death as far away from us as possible.  And perhaps for good reason--there seems to be no logic, no rhyme or reason to the way the “grim reaper” takes its victims.  Our inability to make any sense out of death only increases our fear.[2] But our New Testament lesson for today presents us with the good news that, because we bear this burden of mortality, Jesus also came as one of us, made of flesh and blood.  He came not only to show us God’s unfailing love and abiding presence with us, but he also came specifically bearing our mortality so that he could die.  And the purpose of his death was to “free those who all their lives were held in slavery by the fear of death” (Heb. 2:15).  Though the text doesn’t spell out precisely how it is that he sets us free from the fear of death, the gospel message elsewhere reminds us that Jesus didn’t just come to die, but also to be raised from the dead, and to triumph over all the powers of darkness in this world, most importantly death. 

  Part of the purpose of his coming in the vulnerability of our flesh and blood was to demonstrate that our God is not so high and exalted as to be unconcerned with and unmoved by our burdens.[3]  Rather, by entering our broken and confusing existence as Immanuel, “God with us,” Jesus took upon all the burdens that we bear.[4]  And so he made it clear that God is not the cold and distant deity whom people have cringed before, and at times even hated.  Rather, God is the one who loves us so much that, as we say in one of our statements of faith, Jesus died to show us God’s love as “a love that is ready to suffer for our sakes.”[5]  

  That was the conclusion Dietrich Bonhoeffer came to as he sat in his cell in a Gestapo prison camp.  He said, “God lets himself be pushed out of the world on to the cross.  He is weak and powerless in the world, and that is precisely the way, the only way, in which he is with us and helps us. … only the suffering God can help.”[6]  And our lesson for today says it this way: “Because he himself was tested by what he suffered, he is able to help those who are being tested” (Heb. 2:18).

  But that really is the question, isn’t it?  Can a God who is vulnerable enough to enter our brokenness really be powerful enough to do something about it?  It would seem that a God who is able to suffer with us is a God who is just as impotent as we are in the face of our suffering and ultimately our experience of death.  In fact, that has been what some have concluded: God loves us, and God suffers with us, but at the end of the day, that’s about all God can do for us.[7] If that’s the case, I’m not sure many would conclude that God is “able to help” us at all. 

  Others are unwilling to relegate God (and us) to such a helpless state in which our experience with death leaves us with a mystery of suffering that we cannot solve.  So they insist that though our experience of suffering and death may be burdensome to us now, God will ultimately bring good from it.[8] Once again, while there is some comfort to that, “ultimately” can seem like a very long time.  Sometimes it can be a very long time.  So what are we to do in the meanwhile?  How does the suffering love of our vulnerable God help us then?

  Well, for one thing, I think we must not underestimate the power of that love that was poured out at the cross.  It may look like the Jesus who dies on that cross was just as weak as any other man.  It may look like God is unable to do anything except suffer the pain of watching his son die.  And yet, if we were to conclude that, we would be vastly underestimating the power of God’s love.[9]  Yes, love can be vulnerable.  It does not retaliate, it does not lash out at those who may in fact take the life of the one who loves.  But love always breaks the power of evil.  As we say in that same confession, “An abyss of suffering” has been “swallowed up by the suffering of divine love.”[10] Love always wins the day, no matter how long it takes.

  But there is more to it than that.  Although our lesson doesn’t mention it, surely the implication is there: Jesus did not remain in the grave.  Death was not powerful enough to hold him.  God raised him from the dead, and by so doing not only vindicated the power of suffering love, but also demonstrated that God does more than “just” suffer with us when we suffer.  Rather, the resurrection is the demonstration that “God’s light is more real than all the darkness, that God’s truth is more powerful than all human lies, that God’s love is stronger than death.”[11] And so in the vulnerability of Jesus taking on flesh and blood and dying for us all, and in the astonishing power of God raising him to life, we see God’s light overcoming all the darkness, even the darkness of death. And, as the Scripture says, “The light keeps shining in the dark, and darkness has never put it out” (Jn. 1:5, CEV)![12]

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[1] ©2013 Alan Brehm.  A sermon delivered by Rev. Dr. Alan Brehm on 12/29/2013 at First Presbyterian Church of Dickinson, TX.

[2] Cf. especially Paul Tillich, “The Destruction of Death,” in The Shaking of the Foundations, 170: “fear is, above all, fear of the unknown; and the darkness of the unknown is filled with the images created by fear. ... this is true to an absolute degree with respect to death -- the absolutely unknown.”  Cf. also Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics 3.2:601:  “Death is the great mark of the unnatural state in which we exist.”

[3] Cf. Jürgen Moltmann, The Spirit of Life: A Universal Affirmation, 130-31: “the messianic Son of God unreservedly takes on himself the conditions of our vulnerable and mortal existence, and becomes a human being like us. ... In this sense ‘the sufferings of Christ’ are not just Jesus’ sufferings; they are the sufferings of the poor and weak, which Jesus shares in his own body and his own soul, in solidarity with them.”

[4] Cf. Barth, Church Dogmatics 1.2:152: “That the Word became ‘flesh’ in this definite sense, this consummation of God’s condescension, ...: this is the revelation of the Word of God.”  Cf. also ibid. 4.1:165: “the ancient creeds were also right when under the concepts passus, crucifixus, mortuus, sepultus [suffered, crucified, died, buried], they believed that they were saying everything that is decisive about the man Jesus.”

[5] The Study Catechism (1998), question 8.

[6] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison, 219-220.  Cf. also Moltmann, Spirit of Life 131, where he echoes Bonhoeffer, and adds, “it is true that a God who cannot suffer, and suffer with us, could not even understand us.”

[7] Cf. especially, Harold Kushner, When Bad Things Happen to Good People.  Kushner and his wife endured the loss of their young son, and in the face of such intense suffering, he concluded that God loves us and wants the best for us but is basically powerless to do anything about it.

[8] Cf., for example Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking, 24: “Christianity … ultimately offers no theoretical solution [to the problem of evil].  It merely points to the cross and says that, practically speaking, there is no evil so dark and so obscene—not even this—but that God can turn it to good.”  Cf. similarly, Charles Poole, Is Life Fair? 68: “Ultimately, finally, God will have the last word, and the goodness and grace of God will triumph and prevail over all that is evil and hurtful and destructive and wrong.”  I do not wish to dispute these statements. I find them meaningful.  I only wish to comment on the very human difficulty of placing all one’s hopes on “ultimately.”

[9] To this end, Steven R. Harmon, “Hebrews 2:10-18,”Interpretation 59 (Oct 2005), wisely reminds us that neither an “unnuanced” theopassianism (God suffers with us) nor an “unnuanced” affirmation of divine impassibility (God is incapable of suffering) will do.  He presents the balance in perhaps the clearest way I have ever seen (pp. 405-6): “To affirm that God suffers when God's creatures suffer rightly maintains God's sympathy and solidarity with those who suffer. To affirm this without further qualification, however, overlooks the dissimilarity between God's relationship to suffering and the human sufferer's relationship to suffering. Much human suffering is against our will; God's suffering is always voluntary.”  He adds (p. 406): “Only the suffering God can help, but it is only the suffering of the God who has greater power than we do over suffering that is able to help.”

[10] The Study Catechism (1998) question 45.

[11] Henri Nouwen, Here and Now, 32.

[12] Cf. G. C. Berkouwer, The Work of Christ, 337-39, where he emphasizes that “The light that emanates from Christ’s victory is consequently a bright light” by pointing out how affirmations of Christ’s victory over death and the powers that suppress humanity echo throughout the New Testament.

“Nothing to Fear”

Hebrews 2:5-15[1]

Fear is a powerful force in our world. It affects just about every area of our lives. Politicians use fear to get people to vote for them and not their opponents. We use fear of punishment in our schools and our homes to keep our kids “in line”—i.e., acting like we want them to act. I dare say many people would say that they pay their taxes only for fear of getting caught! It should come as no surprise that fear takes root in religion as well. For many in our world, the only reason they practice their faith is the fear that if they don’t they will suffer eternal punishment.

One of the best illustrations of fear can be found in the “Lord of the Rings” films. From the very beginning until the end, fear casts a tangible shadow over much of “Middle Earth.”

Of course, the very source of fear in this tale is Sauron the dark Lord. Sauron is at least twice as tall as any tall man. The power of his one ring enables him to brush the fiercest warriors aside as if they were so many toy soldiers. Then there is Sauron’s army of Orcs, a race of tortured and mangled Elves. They inspire fear just by their very appearance—they embody violence itself. They are brutal and vicious and they destroy everything in their path. Sauron’s commanders are the Ring Wraiths, men who fell under his spell and became half-dead, half-living. They utter a scream that renders even the bravest leaders of men helpless, scurrying for cover like frightened insects.

I think the widespread and seemingly indestructible power of fear in Middle Earth makes the significance of what the heroes of the Lord of the Rings accomplish stand out all the more. As Sauron’s army is defeated, the cloud of fear begins to roll back so that the light of day can shine through again. After the ring is destroyed, all Middle Earth is finally freed from the terror that Sauron had imposed on them. As they gather to crown Aragorn king of all the free men of Middle Earth, the sun is shining brightly, his people standing tall and free in the fresh air, not a hint of fear on their faces.

That’s what the writer of the letter to the Hebrews says Jesus did for us. By taking on our sufferings and by his death, he set us free from fear. The Scriptures say he set us free from the “fear of death” (Heb. 2:15). In the biblical world-view, the fear of death is the most potent of all fears. In a very real sense, the Bible views death as a kind of cosmic power that holds us all in its grip—just as it does sin or evil. Most of us probably don’t view death in that way. There are some of us who fear a lot of things more than they fear death. But point of the promise that Jesus set us free from the “fear of death” is that he set us free from all fear.

This is what the incarnation of Jesus was all about. He came as one of us; he took on flesh and blood and all that goes with them and shared our humanity. He did not hesitate to relinquish his claims, rights and position to become like us. Jesus took on the burdens of our existence in order to set us free from the chains that bind us—to break the power of fear over us.

Because of Jesus’ life and death, sin holds no more power. There is nothing you can do to make God love you any less; there is no sin you can commit that can separate you from God’s love. And because of Jesus’ death, death itself holds no more power. Where once death meant being cursed to a kind of non-existence and brought only despair and grief, Jesus’ life now inspires us with hope and joy.

Because of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, we get a taste of God’s new world right now! And this not only means that we get to experience a new kind of life. The fact that Jesus breaks the power of fear and death means that God’s new world is already breaking into this world.[2] There is a sense in which Jesus’ life and death rolls back the cloud of fear and death and sin not just for us but for all creation. All the powers of evil that have held humanity enslaved are broken. Because of Jesus, we have nothing left to fear!

Unfortunately, for many that good news falls on deaf ears. Fear has become so ingrained in our religion that they simply cannot accept the idea that we have nothing to fear! They acknowledge that God loves us and that Jesus died to save us. But they still live in fear that they if they somehow fall short in their Christian living they will fall into the hands of an angry God!

That is not the good news of the Gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus the Christ! The good news is that we have nothing to fear! The good news is that there is nothing we can do to make God love us any less! We can live our lives in the light of a new day, breathing the fresh air and standing tall as we follow the steps of our Savior and Lord, doing justice and loving kindness and walking humbly with our God!

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[1] A Sermon preached 10/08/06 at First Presbyterian Church, Dickinson TX.

[2] Moltmann, The Way of Jesus Christ, 182.

“In Remembrance of a Shroud”[1]

Isaiah 25:6-9; Mark 16:1-8

We think of Easter as a time for joy. It’s a time for sunshine and freshly blooming flowers, pretty new dresses and colorful baskets full of goodies. But there is a troublesome reality behind it all. It is the reality of death. Death is the “shroud” that is “cast over all peoples,” as the prophet says. I don’t think he’s referring to the fact that we all at some point die, though that is hard enough. He’s talking about the way death is like a plague that infects everything about this life.

We can see it all around us, if we have eyes to see. A motel where addicts smoke crack. A park where homeless people try to sleep. A bar where women take their clothes off for the men who pay them. A chemical company that pours “acceptable” amounts of poison into our air and water all for the sake of more profits. And beyond our corner of the world, there are even more—war, starvation, disease. There are a lot of reminders of the shroud of death that is cast over us all.[2]

The Shroud Lifted. I think one of the best modern-day illustrations of that shroud is the story of Jean Valjean (“Johnny Johnson”) in Victor Hugo’s “Les Miserables.” In the movie version of the story, after stealing food as a starving young man, Jean Valjean does 19 years’ hard labor in prison. There, predictably, he becomes hardened and corrupted by the shroud of death cast over the whole place.

When Jean Valjean is paroled, he meets a kind bishop who invites him to a meal and a comfortable nights’ sleep. In the middle of the night, he decides to steal the bishop’s silver. The police catch him and bring him back to the bishop, who insists that the silver was not stolen after all, but in fact it was a gift! The police are no more surprised than Jean Valjean, but the bishop tells him, “Never forget! You no longer belong to evil. I have ransomed your soul from fear and hatred. I give you back to God.”

And in fact, the Bishop’s kindness transforms Jean Valjean into a good and compassionate man. He becomes the mayor of a small town and runs a factory that is a model of economic justice for its workers.

The Shroud Embraced. One day, a figure from his past comes to town: Jauvert. Jauvert had been a guard in the prison where Jean Valjean served time. Eventually, Jauvert recognizes him and threatens to denounce him. Jean Valjean flees to Paris, where he once again becomes a model of compassion and grace.

Jauvert is exactly the opposite of Jean Valjean—while he has found redemption from the shroud of death and violence that was cast about him, Jauvert has lived as one who wrapped himself in that very shroud! Jauvert at one point says that he had spent his entire life trying not to break a single law—that was what gave him meaning! From this rigid perspective, Jauvert proclaims that all people are either law-breakers or law-abiders, and that a law-breaker can never change.

The Shroud Removed. After 10 years, Jauvert finally catches up with Jean Valjean. In his customary fashion, Jean Valjean sacrifices himself for those he loves and surrenders to Jauvert. But over time, Jauvert has seen first-hand Jean Valjean’s compassion. In fact, at one point, Jean Valjean has the power to kill Jauvert and instead sets him free. This creates a quandary for Jauvert. In the final scene of the movie, Jauvert takes his own life and sets Jean Valjean free—not only free from custody, but also free from his own past and from the shroud that had plagued him all his life. He walks away with a look of joy and relief—for the first time in his life he is truly free!

The Shroud Destroyed. That is the point of the resurrection. Not that we can look at life through rose-colored glasses, as if we don’t notice or don’t care about the reminders of the shroud all around us! If we do, we haven’t paid sufficient attention to the one who hung on the cross. That’s why we have the discipline of Lent.

The message of Easter is that in Jesus the Christ, God has “destroyed the shroud that is cast over all peoples, the sheet that is spread over all nations.” In the resurrection, God has “swallowed up death forever.”

If that’s true, how can it be that we still see the reminders of death all around us? It is because the resurrection is a sign that points us to a reality that has potentially changed everything, but has not yet fully worked its way through all creation. It is a pointer to a new creation that is coming, and indeed in hidden and mysterious ways is already here among us.[3]

The resurrection is like a promise—a promise that just as God did not leave Jesus in the grave, so he will not leave creation in the shroud of death. It is a promise that, just as God has restored Jesus to life, so also God will restore all creation to life.[4] In a very real sense, we are all like Jean Valjean—because of the resurrection, we are all free from the shroud that still plagues so much of this world.

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[1] A sermon preached on 4/16/06 at First Presbyterian Church of Dickinson. The title is a reference to a phrase from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, act 5, sc. 1, l. 376-8.

[2] William Willimon, “A Waiting Church (Isa.25:9),” Christian Century (April 7, 1982), 397.

[3] Jurgen Moltmann, The Church in the Power of the Spirit, 98-99.

[4] Jurgen Moltmann, The Way of Jesus Christ, 223.