My self, my Sepulcher, a moving Grave,
Buried, yet not exempt
By priviledge of death and burial
From worst of other evils, pains and wrongs…

-Samson Agonistes, John Milton

We are, as we have found out this Sunday, an Easter people, a people of the Resurrection.  Being raised to newness of life is to be our identity, sealed by the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper.  But it seems strange then that the ceremony which best encapsulates what we believe (better, who we are) should be such a morbid proceeding.  The elements we partake of symbolize the broken body and spilled blood of Jesus Christ crucified, by which we proclaim his death until he comes.  Not only do we proclaim this death, but we also embody it in our faith.  Paul speaks of being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies.  Hebrews teaches that it is through death that the one who has the power of death, that is the devil, is destroyed.  Psalms describes the death of God’s saints as precious in his sight.

At this point my mind recoils in revulsion.  This is ridiculous!  Why do we have to be so prepossessed with death?  Can’t we just focus on the positive?  In Jeremiah 21 God gave his people a choice that seems at first to be vastly preferable to the tension we have described above.  He said, “Behold, I set before you the way of life and the way of death.”  That seems like a much easier way to go about things.  I will simply choose the way of life and all will be well.

My naiveté is too hastily availed, however.  Continuing on in Jeremiah’s oracle I hear God speaking in the context of the siege of Jerusalem by the Chaldeans: “He who stays in this city shall die by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence, but he who goes out and surrenders to the Chaldeans who are besieging you shall live and shall have his life as a prize of war.”  Obviously things are not as simple as I had hoped.  You would have to be a fool to go out and surrender to the Babylonian soldiers when you still had a place of refuge in the city.  But God goes on: “For I have set my face against this city for harm and not for good, declares the LORD: it shall be given into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall burn it with fire.”

The tables have turned completely now.  The place I thought was safe is no longer so.  God has set his face against the city of his people, the place he raised up to be the seat of his chosen nation, and the choice he lays before them is fraught with danger.  Choosing our destiny in the simple, Boolean clarity of the Garden of Eden is no longer permitted for us, for an angel with a flaming sword guards that path forever.  The way to eternal life now leads us through the Valley of Death; the only way out is through.

What does this mean for us?  To begin with we need to overcome our natural aversion to the acknowledgement of death that permeates our Christian lives.  It is well to sing along with the worship team when Jesus, I My Cross have Taken is up on the projector screen; it is well to take of the body and blood of Christ and to remind ourselves “Blessed are those who have not seen”; it is well to pass each other the Peace which was bought at the price of the very life of God.  But these actions are meant to be indicative of the Spirit’s work in our lives throughout the rest of the week.  I sing that song because the cross was heavy last week and I need rejuvenation for the week to come.  I participate in the death of Christ because something unholy in me died last week and I need to know that I am not alone.  The blessing I give and receive is the reminder that my meager efforts to study the peace of the Church have not gone without notice.

For this creation God is now speaking into existence is far removed from the first one.  It is no longer creation ex nihilo, but rather it is now creation out of something already in existence, and that something fundamentally flawed.  Gone is the sparkling, metaphysically hygienic glory of the moment when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy, as the cornerstone of the new universe was laid.  We have now a view of glory that is dimmed by tears, a gospel that is enshrouded in death, a violence raging all around the peace that is within us, treasures hidden in jars of clay, a night of Tenebrae that precedes the sunrise service.  God is building that universe anew with cracked stones and crumbling mortar, and though this time it will last forever, the construction project is not looking very glamorous yet.  He is constructing a hierarchy where the responsibility of those who would be great in the kingdom is not to dominate (we’ve proved ourselves extraordinarily untrustworthy already in our first capacity as vice-regents of God) but, as we saw this Sunday, to reconcile.

But the sunrise always comes.  If Jesus truly came in the flesh, I can love that person God has brought me into contact with (you know who I mean: not the person you are merely bored with, but the person you simply cannot stand) by laying aside my own priorities and entering into their world – and inviting them into mine.  If Jesus has truly triumphed over the grave, I can see that brother not as fundamentally worth less than I am, but as a very real part of my life that would be diminished if he were not around.  If Jesus has truly taken his seat at the right hand of God, I can lay down my life for that sister every day, preferring her feelings over mine, rejoicing in her triumphs, weeping in her sorrows, admonishing her out of love, repenting to her out of sincere grief for my own arrogance and sin, walking side by side with her along the Way of Life into the Kingdom of God.  Here John in his first epistle gives us the truest test of any we will ever find for whether our Christianity is working: For we know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers.

Blessed and holy is the one who shares in that resurrection!  Over such the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ, and they will reign with him for a thousand years.  And the joy we find along the way together is worth this cruciform life, this baptism into the death of Christ with which we are now being sprinkled.

Author: Jeremy Vogan

My name is Jeremy Vogan. I live in Staunton, VA with my wife and four kids. I love to write, and seek to honestly explore the intellectual and emotional implications of following Jesus as a deeply broken person in a twisted, cruel world that is full of veiled beauty and meaning. Writing is part of how I faithfully look for Jesus Christ to someday make all things new. I'd enjoy hearing your feedback! JV