Night of Mourning; Morning of Dancing

Pentecost 4, 2009, Otto, 2 Samuel 1:1, 17-27

“After the death of Saul…David lamented with this lamentation over Saul and Jonathan.”

There was much of death this past week. Ed McMahon, Johnny Carson’s side kick, age 86. Farrah Fawcett, actress, age 62, Michael Jackson, entertainer, age 50. Ed Thomas, Parkersburg, Iowa football coach. The Iranian music student Neda Agha Soltan.

But what sticks in my mind is what Delores Gilhausen said a week ago Saturday. My daughter and I were at a reception for a grade school friend of hers who was finishing her surgical rotations at Wash. U. Some people had come down from Marshfield, Wis. where I had been pastor in the 1980’s. Among them were Delores and her daughter Lynn. It wasn’t long into our conversation when Delores said, “Yes, Roy has been gone for 6 years.” She paused and then said, “It’s always with you.” What happened was that early one early winter morning before the sun had come up; Roy had taken the trash out to the curb. When Stan Backaus, another member of the church, came by he found Roy dead of a heart attack.

Notice how Delores put it. She did not say, “He’s always with me.” No, rather “it” meaning death, his death, is always with me. What a difference from much of our society that tries to find comfort in diminishing death. We find this especially true in the various versions of the poem, “Don’t weep for me. “ That contains the lines, “I’m not here. I’m everywhere.” The person who has died tells the mourner that he or she is in the trees, the birds, the wind, the blossoms and the bees. Somehow comfort is to come in an eternity of oneness with creation. Another version promises that the deceased will now serve as a guide for the one still alive. Here the dead person takes the place of the Holy Spirit.

The other side of our popular attitude toward death is to wallow in it, as we see going on right now in the case of Michael Jackson. And all of it is unhooked from God let alone being discussed in the contest of Jesus death and resurrection. In any case, death, as death is not taken seriously.

Scripture takes death and mourning seriously; along with promises of deliverance from the Lord. Psalm 30 tells us that, “Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes in the morning.” Again, “You have turned for me my mourning into dancing; you have loosed my sackcloth and clothed me with gladness.” The Lord gives the celebration of life in the morning, but not without the night of lamenting.

The author of Ecclesiastes writes, “It is better to go to the house of mourning; than to go to the house of feasting: for that is the end of all men; and the living will lay it to his heart.” The New Testament book of Hebrews connects the problem of sin with an appointment with death that each person must keep. Only because Jesus Christ kept his appointment with death can our sin and the resulting death be overcome.

When David lamented his lament for Saul and Jonathan, he cried out three times, “How the mighty have fallen!” Whether we are mighty, powerful, famous or infamous or just plain ordinary people, death comes to us all. Death is called the great leveler.

In Adam we all die. And who, but God himself brought the pronouncement of death upon Adam and thus upon you and me? Theologian William Stringfellow writes of death. “Death is so great, so aggressive, so pervasive and so militant a power that the only fitting way to speak of death is similar to the way one speaks of God. Death is the living power and presence in this world which pretends to be God.” Death has established its rule over all life and day after day after day shows its power over life.

Thus man and God found that death was the greatest enemy. Death stinks, literally, and figuratively. David says of Jonathan, “I am distressed for you, my brother; very pleasant have you been to me; your love to me was extraordinary.” David’s grief is not alien to us. We become David, lamenting a lament over the death of someone we respected or the dying of a close personal friend.

Let our children become ill and we become Jairus in the gospel lesson, the desperate parent rushing out to fall at Jesus feet, pleading, “My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her, so that she might be made well.”

Death includes losing not only our physical life, but our social life and well-being also. Along the way back to Jairus’ house Jesus is interrupted by a woman who has been suffering for twelve years. Her discharge of blood has led her to be declared continuously unclean and thus to be shunned, even by her husband and family. This affliction was taking away life both physically, spiritually and socially. If we have had some chronic problem we know in what desperation she reached out to touch Jesus clothing.

Now the news came that Jairus’ daughter was dead. But Jesus insists that he put away his fear and continue to believe that Jesus can do something. As they arrive at the home, all the friends and relatives are standing around wondering what to do. After my friend Don Golde’s funeral in Minnesota in May, his widow invited me over to the house. She said they had been given so much food. Every time the doorbell rang there was someone with food. I said, “and how many times did you do the same thing when a person in the congregation died?’” “Yes, I know,” she said. We don’t know what to do.

But now Jesus does something astounding. He contradicts everything I have been saying about taking death seriously. He has already taken the first steps. He has gone with Jairus to his home. Now he says, “Why are you making a commotion and weeping? The child is not dead but sleeping.” this is worse than telling the spouse or parents, “Well, God needed him more than you do.” No wonder they laugh at him.

Jesus shoos everybody away and takes the little girls parents and three disciples into the room where the dead girl lay. He takes her hand and says, “Little girl, I say to you, arise. And she gets up and starts walking around. Everyone is amazed.

Then Jesus says something else that is incredible. He tells them not to tell anyone what he has done. He tells them this because he has a greater battle to wage against the power of death. The little girl will grow up and have a family of her own and then die again. The son of the widow at Nain will live out his life and die. Martha and Mary will have their mourning turned into dancing with Lazarus resurrection, but they too will one day die. So it will be for the woman he healed that day on the way to Jairus’ home

Jesus will one day die himself after his great suffering on the cross. He will be buried. And he will rise again. But in his death and resurrection is the difference. Whereas, before death had been swallowing up life, now in Jesus, life swallows up death. Therefore, Paul writes, “Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

Just as Jesus went with Jairus to the house of the dead, so he goes with us. Just as we have to go through the night of mourning, so in Christ we will emerge in the day of rejoicing. For he goes with us through death and into life.

And we have a preview of that life once again this morning. Jesus told Jairus and his wife to give their daughter something to eat. So this morning Jesus tells us to have something to eat. “The table is set. Come and eat and live.”