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Grace, mercy and peace be to you from
God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.
For to me to live is Christ, and to die
is gain. If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labour for me. Yet
which I shall choose I cannot tell. I am hard pressed between the two. My
desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better.
Prayer:
Lord God, heavenly Father, send down your Holy Spirit to all of us, to me that
I may preach well, and to all of us that we may hear well. Amen.
Today as we gather here for Elma’s funeral we have the
wonderful privilege of being able to stop for a while, and to breathe in for a
while some heavenly comfort, which comes straight out of heaven, and comes
straight from God’s own mouth, because this is his word we have come to
hear. I say it is a privilege because not every funeral has God’s word anymore,
and so let us pray that it may happen in this wonderful country of ours that
from now on the number of funerals that have God’s word in them may increase,
and not decline. God’s word is so important, because with his word, God created
the world, and with his word he raises the dead. And if that’s the kind of
thing that God can do when he speaks, how much more do you think that God can
comfort us with his heavenly peace with just a little drop of his word in our
time of grief?
Just recently, I was talking to an old pastor on the phone
when I was in a time of sadness, and the pastor told me a couple of bible
verses that immediately drew me up and set me right again. He didn’t notice
because we were on the phone. So he said, “Listen, I know it’s easy for me to
talk…” I realise it is easy for a friend to talk, and it’s just as easy—in
fact, it’s easier—for Jesus, our Good Shepherd, to comfort.
So let’s have a look at what Jesus has to say to us today.
Our sermon text comes from Philippians, chapter 1, St Paul’s letter to the
Philippians. St Paul was one of Jesus’ apostles, whom Jesus had called in a
very special way, as he was walking to Damascus to go and kill some Christians.
In fact, St Paul had killed a lot of Christians, and the first Christian to be
killed for his faith was Stephen. Paul was actually there on that occasion
looking on. And after Stephen had prayed for Jesus to receive his spirit, as
his murderers kept hurling one stone after another at him, he also prayed for
them, and said, “Lord do not hold this sin against them.” Well—Jesus answered
this prayer in a marvellous way, and didn’t hold Paul’s against him, but called
him, converted him, and forgave him. And then Paul went out and gave to
the church of all times and places some of the richest, most powerful teaching
about how we are saved by faith, and how God doesn’t hold our sins against us,
just as Stephen prayed.
We should keep this in mind today as we gather here in this
little church in Australia, remembering that an old Catholic priest in France
was brutally put to death while saying mass. Let’s pray that these persecutors
of our Christian faith may have their sins not held against them, but may be
converted and forgiven and be sent out like Paul to be apostles to theirs
brothers and sisters in the Islamic world.
In our reading today, Paul is writing a letter to some
Christians in Philippi, a Roman city in Greece. He writes: For to me to live
is Christ, and to die is gain. If I am to live in the flesh, that means
fruitful labour for me. Yet which I shall choose I cannot tell. I am hard
pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is
far better.
Can you believe it? that Paul is writing these words from
prison. He has been the persecutor, now he is being persecuted. He is
writing these words from a cold, dark cell, with his hands in chains.
He is at a tremendous crossroads in his life. Where is he to
go from here? What is he to do? What could God possibly do with him now? But
being at a crossroads, and being completely unable to move in life is a great
place to be – it’s a glorious place to be, because it means that God is about
to act. Maybe Paul is about to die, maybe he is about to be brought out of
prison. Either which way – God is going to act, he will perform a wonderful
rescue operation. Either he will take Paul out of prison, or he will take him
out of this life. Either he will take him out of his cess-pit, his cell, or he
will take him out of the whole valley of tears, this whole earthly life,
altogether. Take your pick! Either which way, he will perform a miracle,
he will deliver, he will rescue.
This is actually the kind of place Paul finds himself in;
and Jesus actually describes this, and our whole life as Christians, which we
read in John chapter 3: The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its
sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with
everyone who is born of the Spirit.
Where will God send us next in life? How long will he use us
in one place, before he sends us to another? How long can we be useful in a
place like Heywood, before he moves us to Hamilton, before he moves us to
Ballan, before he moves us to Quantong, before he moves us to Traralgon, before
he moves us to heaven?
And so, St Paul says: For me to live is Christ, and to
die is gain.
Even though I am in the darkest dungeon, even though I have
no friends but a brick wall with some mould and rats – for me to live is not
hell, to live is not despair, to live is not darkness. For me to live is
Christ. For me to live is Jesus Christ – he has won the victory over the
world and all its muck, and he sits at God’s right hand reminding us each day
just how wonderful that victory is. We are reminded of Jesus as he suffered and
bled on the cross. To the world, all is over – Jesus is a failure. But it’s not
a failure – it is his most wonderful sacrifice for each and every single sin of
the whole world, it is his greatest achievement, his victory, all
of which he demonstrated with power that moment on Easter Sunday when he stood
up and walked out of the tomb, risen from the dead.
So St Paul says: For me to live is Christ. Every day
is a day filled with Him, and his word, and his peace, and his comfort. Every
day, whether I’m on top of the world or rotting away in a prison cell, is a day
with him; and if it’s a day with him, then all the darkness is nothing but
light. Psalm 139 says: Even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is
bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you.
So living is not simply duty, but it is pure joy!
Paul writes: Yes, and I will rejoice, for I know that through your prayers
and the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ this will turn out for my
deliverance, as it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be ashamed,
but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honoured in my body,
whether by life or by death. For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.
To die is gain? Really? Many people could agree that death is a release, a
relief…People say, “Now she’s at peace.” “Now he’s not suffering.” People can
agree that there’s something to lose when you die, but what is there
actually to be gained? St Paul doesn’t say: To die is good, to die is a relief,
but to die is gain.
To die is gain because to die means an end of faith. We don’t
need faith once we’re dead, because we will see Christ face to face. We gain a
clear vision, clear sight of our Saviour’s face. We also gain the joy of always
being with him in such a way that it is never moved or shaken by doubts. We
will have no need to pray for our comfort, because everything will be comfort.
As it says in the prophet Isaiah: Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.
Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that her warfare is ended, that her
iniquity is pardoned, that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all
her sins.
Wouldn’t you want to gain the end of your warfare? Wouldn’t
you want to gain the pardon of your iniquity, as the text says? Wouldn’t you
want God to give you double instead of punishing your sins? St Paul is so
right: to die is gain. Surely, our loss of Elma is Elma’s gain.
For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.
Which would you choose? Paul wrestles with this question.
His life is filled with troubles. But wouldn’t you rather have Jesus and his
forgiveness and all the troubles in the world, than have no Jesus, no
forgiveness, no peace, no heaven, and an easy life? What does is profit a
man, Jesus says, if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?
Paul has no guarantee that he will get out of prison in this
life. But he knows he will get out – either through a miracle, where God sets
him back on his path, or through death. Which would you choose?
St Paul writes: If I am to live in the flesh, that means
fruitful labour for me. Yet which I shall choose I cannot tell. I am hard
pressed between the two.
To live, Paul says, means fruitful labour. Fruitful labour.
It means working in the orchard and enjoying all the juicy peaches and oranges
and grapes, and all the fruit. Christ is so faithful, he is such a wonderful
friend, that Paul can talk about prison life in this way: fruitful labour. Not
hard-grind, not depressing drudgery – but fruitful labour. And yet the
alternative is so much better. It is one thing to lick the juice off your
fingers while you traipse around picking grapes, but it is another thing to
then enjoy the rich wines in all their fullness. It’s one thing to be safe in
Jesus as he leads us through life – what a joy! But what a different thing it
will be to see him, to behold him in all his majesty, and simply to enjoy him!
Or as the hymn says:
Jesus, the very thought of Thee
With sweetness fills the breast.
With sweetness fills the breast.
But sweeter far Thy face to see
And in Thy presence rest.
So St
Paul tells us what this sweet, precious alternative to this life is. He says: My
desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better.
St
Paul speaks of death as departing. My desire is to depart, to set
sail, to head off across the wide open sea with my Saviour. My desire is to
haul up the anchor, and to let the angels carry my soul to Abraham’s bosom, and
to lower the anchor down again in my Saviour’s loving arms.
Hebrews
says: We have [this hope] as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul. It
is just as when Peter and the disciples were fishing on their boat after Jesus rose
from the dead. When Peter recognised his risen Saviour standing on the seashore,
he threw himself in the lake and swam to meet him, without any hesitation or
fear.
When
we Christians depart, St Paul says that we go to be with Christ. Now
ever since we were baptised with water and God’s word, we have always been with
Christ. But when we die, our soul is separated from the body and is in Christ
in a completely new way.
This
is just as when the thief said to Jesus on the cross: Jesus, remember me when
you come into your kingdom, and Jesus responds: Truly, truly, I say to
you, today you will be with me in Paradise.
We don’t
just depart to be with Christ, but we depart to be with Christ in Paradise. But
the story is not finished there – because Jesus has not finished with us yet.
But on the last day, he will raise the dead, and reunite soul and body again;
but not to a dead, decaying, rotting body, but our bodies which have been
completely transformed, transfigured and glorified by the power of Jesus and
his word.
St
Paul tells about this wonderful mystery: Behold! I tell you a mystery: We
shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling
of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will
be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed.
Then
God will look at his wonderful creation, not rotten away and useless, but
resurrected and glorious; He will look at everything just as he looked on his
creation at the beginning of the world, before the fall, and saw that it was
very good.
This
is what we confess in the Apostles’ Creed: I believe in the Holy Spirit, the
holy Christian Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the
resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.
We
die, and the Holy Spirit keeps on working. We wither and fade, and yet the Word
of God endures forever. We breathe our last breath, but Jesus is faithful, and
he has something much better in store.
And so
we can say with St Paul: My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that
is much better.
Blessed
are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Amen.
And the
peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds safe in Christ
Jesus. Amen.
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