Easter 5, The Tragedy of Death

Sunday 24th April 2016

1 Corinthians 15: 51-58
John 15: 12-17

Where, O death is your victory? Where O death is your sting?”

As St Paul concluded his convictions about the Resurrection of Christ he  knew the threats of death very well.

Death was the great reality stalking the ancient world. Old age was rare, many women died in childbirth, children often didn’t live beyond a handful of years. A man was old in his 40’s and average life expectancy was roughly 25 – 30 years.

That’s unimaginable today in our Western world with extended adolescence stretching well in the the 20’s for some. No antibiotics; medicines were known, but relatively crude; disease could become rampant. It’s not that people didn’t enjoy life, but death was never far away, somewhere.

Perhaps a parallel is when we watch the TV news it is often dominated by tragedy, disaster, suffering, terrorism – somewhere in the world, for someone else.

Death is real, painful, and 100% guaranteed. The ancient world, like much of the modern world believed in diverse ways that death was not the end, there was an afterlife – of some kind.

So, as he closed this letter ( perhaps Paul wrote more extensively on another occasion, but there is no record) he sang in the light of the promise of Christ’s resurrection:

“Death has been swallowed up in victory.
Where, O death is your victory? Where O death is your sting?”

 And then Paul briefly links the sting of death to sin. Such a little word with such consequences: greed, abuse of power, self-centredness, adulation of possessions, militarism, war just to name a few expressions of death-dealing sin.

Tomorrow is Anzac Day. Much of Australia stops to remember those who served, and died in war – and God knows there have been many wars where men have fought, suffered, been maimed, acted courageously and died.

Back in 1970 matriculation English students had to study. “The One Day of the Year”. The play script revolves around a university student writing an article criticising Anzac Day. His action deeply upset his dad, an ex-servicemen , and so the conflict unfolds.

It was written before the Vietnam War, but the warriors of World War 1 and 2 ( who had survived) were very much alive. The play was originally rejected for performance by the Adelaide Festival. The Vietnam War began in the 1962 and by 1970 ( when I read it) moratorium marches and protests were in full swing pressuring Government and public opinion to exit from death and destruction.

As a seventeen year old the possibility of conscription barely touched me. My grandfather had served in the Second World War – but he never spoke about it. My father was a teenager during those war years, and living in England. The Labour Government decision to stop conscription in 1972 meant that itconscription never touched me – and since then most Australians have never felt the cold breath of death serving in a war zone.

But, as a seventeen year old English student, I not only read that play, I also was required to read poetry. The First World War poets grabbed my imagination, especially Wilfred Owen (1893-1918), who died on the Western Front shortly before the Armistice aged 26 years.

A young man, who was older than anyone in their 20’s today, experienced the tragedy of war, its devastation and death. He wrote:

“ My subject is War, and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity.”

 Since then I have never quite stopped reading war poets. They left an indelible mark on me. One of his best known poems ends with a latin tag Dulce et Decorum est pro patria mori – in translation – it is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country. Its a very ironic, bitter ending.

The Great War was known as the war to end all wars …. but as we know it didn’t and as television became all-seeing it changed the practices of war in many ways.

War equals death. War involves self-sacrifice. War creates heroes and cowards.

Keen viewers of Downton Abbey may recall how in season 2 – which occurs during the First World War – has a couple of episodes set in the appalling trenches of France. Death is all around, and Thomas – a footman at Downton volunteers to become an ambulance officer on the Western Front.

Eventually, he surrenders to his fears and decides the way out is to be wounded by choice in order to be sent back to England. Thomas is not a hero, but the appalling devastation men witnessed must have wounded hundreds of thousands for life in their inner being.

John chapter 15 contains a famous saying often cited on war memorials:  “No one has greater love than this, than to lay down his life for his friends”.

 This verse is part of the Johannine Jesus’ farewell to his disciples. He is preparing for his fate, although his friends do not seem to have a glimmering. It is not a reference to war, but Jesus effectively gives his last will and testament.

It’s not written on a document and placed in the hands of a solicitor. It’s part of his mystical teaching about the Vine and the gardener, union with him and God “the Father” . The glory of disciples bearing much fruit. Love, friendship, self-giving are the undergirding theme of participating in this friendship.

There is no thought of war, but the shadow of another battle, the cross is behind these words for as we know the heart of the story is Jesus’ willingness to give up his life on a cross.

Christianity was born in a militaristic world. The pax Romani ruled the Empire and did so for hundreds of years. Most of that time Christianity was not born, and when for a couple of hundred years only  a tiny movement in a world which was controlled by the maxim ( think George Orwell’s “1984”) War equals Peace.

The early Christian movement was pacifist. Disciples did not participate in the military. “From the end of the New Testament period to the decade AD 170-180 there is no evidence whatever of Christians in the army.”  (RH Bainton, Christian Attitudes to War & Peace). Taking up arms was not considered a badge of honour for a disciple of Christ.

It was not until the Emperor Constantine declared Christianity to be the state religion in the mid-300’s that Christian soldiers became normal. Then over centuries the idea of a just war developed as Emperor, kings and Church became increasingly entwined.

Christians serving as needed became the norm of Christendom for well over a thousand years, leading to those  English  war posters a century ago. Lord Kitchener with his luxuriant moustache, and pointing finger declaring “ every man should do his duty” as England entered into that war which changed the 20th century.

Siegfried Sassoon (1886-1967) was another of the war poets. He won a Military Cross during the war. His short poem “Base Details” that we heard earlier pictures the gulf between the “scarlet majors” making decisions at the base, and the young men who died in battle.

 “ when the war is done and youth stone dead;
I’d toddle safely home and die – in bed.”

*       *           *           *

Death is a full stop to life.

Paul called death the enemy transformed by the Resurrection of Christ.

A young adult told me she didn’t like thinking about death.

St Francis of Assisi called death, kind and gentle.

There are many who embrace death in ways that transcends fear.  In the midst of this reality comes the story of Christ risen.  As we walk by faith, and not sight nor proofs, we may join in the response: he is risen indeed …..  trusting in God, the creative power of life, revealed through Jesus  the Christ who can transform our deepest fears and darkness.

David Carter