Every minister in the Presbyterian Church is provided with a wonderful opportunity each year: every minister, from the newest to the most experienced, is required to take at least two weeks of study leave each year. This is time separate and apart from vacation; it is a time for study, for reading, for learning, and for reflection.
Over the years I have used my study leave time in a variety of ways: I’ve taken quite a few two- or three-day seminars on a variety of topics. I spent time with other pastors learning about church growth, stewardship, and governance at the Presbyterian Church’s Stony Point Center in upstate New York. I spent a week as a Fellow at the Engle Institute for Preaching at Princeton Seminary. And, from September 2004 through last May I worked on my doctorate at Princeton.
Last month I spent a week taking a fresh look at the theology and practices we have developed over the centuries within the Reformed tradition and the Presbyterian church on how we look at death and all the issues that come with the end of life. The combination of the excellent workshops our Christian Education Team offered on Finding Hope in the Chaos of Aging, along with the promises that are ours in the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ made my study particularly compelling.
In John’s gospel Jesus says, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.” This is the very foundation of our hope in eternal life. Paul reinforces this in his letter to the Romans: “If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.”
We capture our belief concisely in the Apostles Creed when we say: “I believe in the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting.” What this means for us as followers of Jesus Christ is, as Paul has taught us, nothing in life or death can separate us from the love of God given us through Christ.
This is a glorious promise that allows us to live our mortal lives filled with hope. Yes, we will all die, all of us returning to the dust. But we will live this life knowing the love of God in Christ, and we will continue to live in that love in the life to come.
Death is still very much a subject that most of us prefer neither to think about nor discuss. But in Christ’s resurrection, death has been defeated; death has no power over us, because death cannot separate us from God’s love. For us, this makes every Lord’s Day a “Happy Easter”.
Grace & peace,
Pastor Skip
