Death and Life Eternal

By your perseverance, you will secure your life.

Our culture is increasingly conflicted on how to deal with death.

In fact, it tries to avoid it in any way.

It is interesting how we have almost become allergic

to talking about death. 

We avoid it.

We sanitize it.

We use different euphemisms for it.

We even try to avoid the word funeral.

We say “a celebration of life” as if the use of our words

can escape the certainty of dying.

In this view, time is a scarcity.

It is an asset that is a diminishing,

that we are going to lose some day. 

In this cultural view of time,

time is running out.

We have this sense of

everything must produce something. 

A view of productivity. 

You are running out of time,

so therefore you need to use your time well,

and you need to stop wasting your time.

And we see all these different ways

as if the only value that we have is

somehow producing something for somebody.

In this view, spending time with each other is wasting time.

Spending time resting and taking a vacation,

going to church is a waste of time.

See, in this world view, time is a scarcity.

In this way, we want to be the most productive as possible. 

But in the Christian view, time is a gift.

And our call is to use this gift fruitfully, not productively.

Fruitfully being that we are called to recognize

that we have a gift and

we are not called to accumulate it, but circulate it onto others.

That we have this gift and

the first part of this gift is when we are children.

When we are children, everything is gift.

We cannot do anything for ourselves,

and we recognize that the Christian view.

But that in the culture view,

death is a punctuation mark.

It is the end.

There is no more.

In the Christian view, it is a comma or a dash.

It is the beginning of something very new. 

The beginning of eternal life as we know it.

So in a sense, it is a transition of one to another. 

But in the culture view, this is not to be heard.

They do not want to hear it about the end

because you are getting measured.

And in the culture view then,

growing old is a failure,

because you cannot produce as much.

Therefore, you are to be put to the side

because you are not productive. 

In the Christian view, growing old is

getting closer to your fullness of life.

You are becoming closer to the place

where you will have the fullness of all life

with eternity with God in Heaven.

Now, in Christian view,

we do not want to say we are passing on,

but we pass on to eternal life.

We do not avoid the idea.

We do not glamorize death or dying

as a wonderful thing but it is a reality.

And the elderly are there as a reminder for us of the gift of life.

And we tend to them, reminding ourselves how precious life is,

and that we are called to be fruitful in this time. 

The wisdom that we get from the elderly is profound,

if we are willing to sit and to listen

and to be with them, to be present to them.

Time in the Christian view is a precious commodity, for sure.

But a precious commodity to do something,

not in productivity, but in love.

Because as Saint John of the Cross says,

"In the evening of our life,

we will be not judged on how well we have lived,

we will be judged on how well we have loved."

Because the whole enterprise of life is about loving.

And so when someone dies,

what we are celebrating tonight,

we are celebrating the reality of that death of those people.

We celebrate the love shared.

We celebrate this gift of love shared.

And yes, it will bring a tear to our eyes

as those people who were very close to us

or maybe only recently died, and it is painful in some ways.

But also a reminder of that the gift of life that still keeps giving.

The love still keeps giving

because that is the sanctity of divine gift.

It keeps giving dividends.

And it will always keep giving.

And that is why it is so important tonight

that we remember our loved ones

with all these photos and all the candles

we will bring forward in a couple moments.

Why? Because we want to remember.

As painful as it might be for a moment or two,

we celebrate the gift of love shared,

the gift of a life well lived,

a gift of what is and what will become forever.

Now, in today's readings, we hear, 

the, the prediction of the end times

and it is shocking to hear for sure.

This is the last prophet of the Old Testament, Malachi.

And it is echoed in the gospel reading.

This the end times and it sounds frightening.

There is going to be earthquakes and fires and wars.

Well, it is not meant to frighten us.

But it is meant to shock us and

to wake up because we get so busy.

In our time, we run to one thing to the next.

And I am no better at this than you. I understand it.

Our call is to use our time not for more productivity,

but for more peacefulness,

more rest, and more love,

which is why our relationship plays a critical component.

We cannot love in the distance, in a sense.

We love up close with our loved ones.

That is the love that we share with all our loved ones,

was a love up close.

It was those who had drawn close to our hearts

and that is what hurts, the distance seems so far.

But we need to remember, that is not what we say as Christians.

We say as Christians that love remains close

because it is now part of the eternal love,

it is now part of the divine equation of love.

So today, we come around this table,

to keep the pictures of those of our loved ones

and we will show them up on the screen.

And we are going to ask you in a couple moments

to come forward to bring a candle forward

and to pray for those loved ones.

If a tear comes, so let it come.

Also remember the love shared is what we celebrate

and that makes the time timeless.

Because the love will never die.

And so that is what we celebrate

and that is why we remember.

Because one day we too will go that journey.

We hope that we go on that journey home that,

those who are left behind will also gather like this

and share a memory of us.

Together, they will remember our love that we have shared.

That is the circle of love.

The circle of life that you've heard me speak about before.

So whether we are, are young and vibrant

and have a lot of time ahead of us,

or whether we are elderly and

we have maybe a little less time,

remember that time is eternal after this place.

There is no punctuation mark.

This is not the end.

It is the beginning of eternal life.

And today we remember the love shared

and the love still being shared tonight.

May they rest in peace

but may we continue to remember their love.

Let it fill our heart and let us not be afraid to use their names,

not be afraid to remember,

not be afraid to tell their stories,

not to be afraid to do anything.

Why? Because love lives forever.

Tonight, we remember that Christ is

at the center of that love and

he draws us to the table,

helping us to remember that love eternal

and to share with one another again tonight

and to remember our loved ones are still with us.

The great clouds of witnesses,

the great communion of saints,

they come to be with us to celebrate in love tonight.