AGAINST DEATH

MANKIND AGAINST DEATH

Hebrews 2:5-15

Preached by Aaron Youngren

September 25, 2011

I had nightmares as a child.

When I was five, every night I would dream I was in my aunt Laura’s car, looking out the windows. We were driving downtown. The trouble would start with a kind of vague trepidation:

Wait. This isn’t right. The bridge. Why is it going down into the water? It’s broken. It’s broken! Hey, look at the bridge. It’s broken! Stop! It’s going down into the water!

But my Aunt wouldn’t stop. Instead she would just grin and drive faster.

Stop! Stop! Don’t you see?

I couldn’t scream. I couldn’t get out. I could only writhe in my seatbelt, trapped, as the car plunged into the icy water and the windows burst and the water gushed in filling my mouth and my lungs as my last breath passed from my body.

One night I woke screaming from this dream, clawing out of my bed to run to my parents. In the dark, I stepped down hard on glass bottle, which shattered and sliced open my left foot.

I spent the next ten years in mortal fear of the dark.

The dreams escalated as I got older. Always they headed toward some gruesome death. Sometimes I was the victim. Sometimes I was the murderer.

The nightmares became focused on the event of death itself: the sharp, alien cold of a knife as it cut into my stomach again and again. The twisting feeling of betrayal as I died at the hands of a loved one, my father, or mother, watching the demonic grin spread across their faces as they stabbed my chest over and over.

I began to have dreams in which my soul rose from my body. I would fall from some high place, and actually experience the sensation of all my bones shattering as I hit the ground, and the horror of seeing my soul detach from my body. I would be forced to watch as my parents grieved my mangled corpse.

It’s a remarkable thing for a ten year old to travel through all the emotions of a finished life:

This is it.

I’m done.

It’s over.

There’s nothing more I can do now.

Looking back, I have no doubt that this significantly affected my outlook in the waking world. Yes, there was the nightly terror of falling asleep to face. But more than that, the dreams forced me to consider questions seldom dared by those many times my age:

How will it happen?

When will it come?

Tomorrow?

In two years?

In ten?

These things were constantly on my young mind, the dread sometimes forming a thick ball of anxiety in my stomach.

Would I get married?

Doubtful. I was certain I wouldn’t last till twenty. At twelve, I developed a bad rash that I was sure was cancer. At fifteen, I thought a sore nodule on my neck would kill me. Always the thought was:

It’s finally happening.

It didn’t really matter what anyone said. In fact, I was confused and angered when people assured me things weren’t that bad. They were.

Talk about Saturdays and Summer vacations all you like, I thought. I know the trick — every nightmare starts out with things seeming okay.

And aren’t we all going to die?

Won’t the time come for us all, that awful finality, that gathering dark, the final revelation of a perception fatally flawed, that instant when all latent horrors and suspicions coalesce into one irrevocable truth?

The nightmares functioned like visions to my adolescent mind, alerting me to the true nature of the waking world. I could not look away.

Now I am older. I walk straight through dark rooms without so much as a thought. Yet still the vision I was given as a child remains, muted, but present, somewhere just beneath the surface.

It’s a kind of awareness. A feeling. Subtle, sad. At times, enraged. It is, I think, a feeling somewhere present in the heart of every human. We are a race holding bedside vigil for the world. At all times entropy lurks at the corners of our vision, and we carry within ourselves certainty that one day we will be subsumed.

All grown up, my stomach knots less frequently. I spend fewer hours in such dire contemplations. And I sometimes wonder, why?

The world is no less a nightmare. My feelings as a child were correct.

• • •

The book of Hebrews tells us:

Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.

The “he himself” in these verses in Jesus, who “through death” “destroyed the one who has the power of death.” So far, so good. This is Christian orthodoxy. But observe how the author of Hebrews describes those who Jesus delivers:

Those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.

I remember those nights lying awake on my bed, fearing to drift into the gruesome horrors of sleep, instead fixating on the form those horrors would take in the waking world. There was that cold panic, that shiver. My bed made of ice.

Do you feel this way about death? According to scripture, we all do:

He himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.

It’s not just that we’re afraid of death. Our fear makes us slaves.

But you are not like the thirteen-year-old me. I am not like the thirteen-year-old me, awake late into the night, seeing shadows in every corner. I still dream those horrific dreams, but I seldom feel they have anything to do with everyday life.

What do these scriptures mean?

• • •

About a year ago, my family took a trip out to western Illinois. Along the way, we noticed a curious phenomenon: certain portions of land were actually higher than others. And the land in the low places rose up a bit to meet the land in the high places, so that a kind of grade was formed.

A dim recollection began to surface from some distant time before we had moved to Chicago, and we remembered that these curious phenomena had names, that they were called “hills,” and that at one time, we had appreciated their beauty.

Hills! Yes. Land that rose and fell! The joy of it filled our hearts. And, what was this? The road curved, and inclined! We were going up! The road climbed further and further into the rise, then all at once was surrounded by trees, and the vastness of the surrounding land was hidden from sight. Finally, all at once, the trees fell away, and, bracing ourselves for the glorious panorama that would inevitably greet us, we saw —

A large, square, day-glo orange sign that read,

CAUTION!

SHARP TURNS AHEAD

KEEP SPEED TO 20 MPH

There was our panorama. But — there also was the sign. Large. Too large. Day-glo orange. Like a fly fallen into our glass of champagne.

We drove on.

• • •

More recently, my wife and I took another road trip to a pastor’s conference in Vail, Colorado. I noticed on the drive home that my teeth were really bothering me.

I’ve had toothaches before, but this was different. It felt at times like my whole jaw was going to fall off. It was getting so bad that I had to make sides of my mouth take turns chewing, like tag-team wrestlers that can’t be in the ring too long without getting brain damage.

I felt it. The old, familiar dread rise up in my stomach:

It’s finally happening.

Tooth decay is a serious risk for me. I had cancer in my upper right saliva gland. The gland had to be removed surgically, and my chin and mouth nuked with radiation therapy. As a result, I get a bit dry. None of this, I am told, aids one in actually keeping teeth.

So, the dread that set in as the date for my appointment with the dentist loomed was fairly rational.

I’ve had the experience of losing all my teeth over and over again. It was a constant fixture in my dream life. The teeth would fall out in front of lots of people. There would always be a lot of blood.

The feeling of losing teeth is loss. The thought process goes

Teeth never come back. I look hideous. This is forever.

On the other hand, oral hygiene is no picnic. Not that I don’t love sticking ribbons of plastic up into my gums every night, or the smell of fingers covered in saliva. (Recently we bought for our children electric toothbrushes, which sound somthing like tiny lawnmowers in their mouth. What is that brown stuff gets stuck in the little spaces in between the brush and the handle? How do you actually ever get those things clean?)

It takes me about three minutes to brush every morning, and five minutes to brush and floss every night. So eight minutes, seven days per week, fifty-two weeks per year, for seventy years. It comes out to be around 3400 hours, roughly the equivalent of brushing your teeth being your day job for the last year and a half of your life. All to ensure that your teeth don’t fall out. (But they do anyway.)

More about the cancer treatment: My doctors gave me something called “artificial saliva” to help with the dry mouth. Pot smokers — don’t try this at home. It was every bit as unnatural as it sounds.

I would wake up every night for a month unable to breathe, coughing up blood. Again, at times I’d think:

Is it finally here?

The treatment was painful, so I spent a month or so home from work using Percocet. If you haven’t ever been on Percocet, just imagine that your body’s pain, sadness and self-analysis “On/Off” switches are switched “Off,” and that all five of your senses are dialed down to about seven and a half. It’s truly remarkable the amount of daily pain and anxiety that you and I don’t even notice. I’ll go on record as saying that I believe recreational use of such drugs to be sinful, but also add that, for me, the allure is no longer a mystery.

• • •

The cancer treatment itself consisted of daily trips for into the Oncology center for radiation. Every day I was greeted by those sad aquariums so ubiquitous to waiting rooms. I’d walk down the hall past rooms where those in circumstances far more dire waited, often hairless, head in hands, gaunt, many of them ready for it all to end.

Some days I would feel fortunate walking down those halls, (my cancer was what they call, “good cancer,” i.e. treatable, caught early), but on other days I would think: What separated me truly from the people in those awful little rooms awaiting the end? Perhaps a year. Perhaps thirty. Fifty at most. Fifty years, and then I would be just like them.

• • •

Isn’t this is the nature of our lives?

Surrounded by death. Our own inevitable. Yet we, seeing in plain view the specter behind every door, still allow ourselves to think, “It’s really not that bad. Look how fortunate I am. I have good cancer. I will live a long life.”

Will you? When was the last time you considered your end? How will it happen for you? When will it come? Tomorrow? In two years? In ten?

Our fear of death is so much a part of our being and culture we don’t even realize it exists anymore. All our days are spent in its unnatural rhythms: brushing, flossing, vitamins, workout routines, annual checkups, casts, crutches, more sleep, less sleep, dieting, insurance, all the while thinking, “What a wonderfully healthy life!”

But it isn’t. We are dying. The whole world is dying. Our lives are stretched to breaking with death. Somewhere deep, we all know it.

It’s that panicked feeling you get when you write down the date: (Where did this year go?) It’s the reason you stop being excited about birthdays after thirty. (What have I even done so far? What if I’m halfway there?) It’s the reason we sequester our elderly in Retirement Communities, for who wants to be constantly reminded, “It goes by so fast”?

The whole of mankind spends all its days warring against death. And every last man, woman, and child have failed but one.

• • •

In the next nine weeks, we will find that our fear of death is everywhere. Nowhere will be this be more evident than in our efforts to ignore it.

But we cannot ignore it.

Is not death itself our oppressor? Is not our race “subject to lifelong slavery”? The streets of our cities are lined with those who protest war, protest pollution, demand aid for impoverished countries.

But who protests death? Stop the wars, stop the pollution, fill the impoverished with bread to the full, and what have you done? If none can stop enemy death, you have but added forty or fifty years to their life.

All die. All are dying. Everywhere the world crumbles at the corners of our vision. At this moment, ten percent of the population faces the end, full of regret and bitterness and rage.

Who will dream on behalf of our race? Who will rise up and shout, “Eighty years are not enough!” Who will look with compassion on this confused and wretched people, who every day move closer to the grave, deceived, thinking,

“Death is just a part of life,”

“Soon I will be at rest,”

“Death is natural.”

It is not natural.

Who will dare to imagine a humanity without death? A humanity with no Day-Glo orange signs marring the landscape, no funerals, no anodynes, no chemotherapy, no dental floss?

A world with no decay?

This is what Christ has done.

Now in putting everything in subjection to him, he left nothing outside his control. At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him. But we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.

• • •

Christianity began as news. Good news. The gospel. What was that good news? What is it today?

First, that mankind in their sin can be reconciled to God and made new. Second, that the enemies of mankind have been defeated. Evil, the Devil, and yes, even death.

How did he do it? As a triumphant hero: by coming to battle, by coming to our world diseased and dying, and dying himself to make war with death on our behalf.

But we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.

How did he find us when he came? Enslaved. “Through fear of death…subject to lifelong slavery.”

How did he free us? By living our nightmare. By joining himself to us, our broken bodies, our universe of decay.

So closely did Jesus align himself to us, scripture tells us we became his family, his brothers:

For it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering. For he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one origin. That is why he is not ashamed to call them brothers, saying,

“I will tell of your name to my brothers;

in the midst of the congregation I will sing your praise.”

And again,

“I will put my trust in him.”

And again,

“Behold, I and the children God has given me.”

Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things,

What is the good news? What is the gospel? Forgiveness, reconciliation, and the triumph of Jesus Christ over the enemies of mankind: sin, the devil, and death.

And if we suppress our fear of death, if we pretend that it is peace, if we spend our waking hours seeing but never acknowledging each moment that passes into the void and forever out of reach, if we refuse to dream on behalf of our harried race, to wonder at the possibility of life eternal, if we cannot and do not long for and weep for the day when we shall see enemy death meet its final end at the hand of the glorious one who is crowned with glory and honor, who by the grace of God tasted death for the whole world, we have not yet understood Christianity, we have not yet understood Christ.

Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.

• • •

Let all cancer wards number their days. Let all asphalt embankments and guardrails and roadsigns painted in the colors of panic prepare themselves to perish in flame. The glorious one, the defender of mankind approaches! Very soon the nightmare will end. Very soon the oppression will cease.

And let all slaves prepare to throw off their master. Let them turn and be saved with raised fist and lifted voice, praising him who delivered a tormented race to life eternal and free.

• • •

QUESTIONS FOR GOSPEL COMMUNITIES

All Gospel Communities currently discussing basic Christian doctrine through Two Cities.

QUESTIONS FOR CORDS

1. Which of your actions reveal your fear death?

2. What might it look like to live in the freedom of the gospel with regards to the limitations death places on your dreams and ambitions?

3. What scriptures might you use to remind yourselves of these things?

4. Spend some time praying together that God would teach you to live in light of Christ’s triumph over death.