THE SEASONS OF LIFE

LATE WINTER – THROUGH THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW

Scripture: Psalm 23; Luke 23:32-49

INTRODUCTION

During the days of Lent, we have been talking together about “The Seasons of Life.” Finally, on this Good Friday, we have come to the Late Winter, as we focus our attention on the reality of dying and death.

Now it may seem strange, out of sync, and somewhat paradoxical to think about winter on such a beautiful spring day. Yet, that is exactly the way it was for Jesus a long time ago. He was still a young man, probably around 33, when the winter came suddenly and He was crucified on the cross by His enemies.

We know that someday it will happen to all of us – that our lives on this earth will end. And we, most of us, anticipate that won’t happen until we are old, because that is when the winter is supposed to settle in. But the harsh truth is that death can come in any season of life, even when we don’t expect it.

It happened tragically just last week as Sherri Lyons-Williams, a 39-year-old Atlanta police officer was shot and killed in the line of duty. And on Tuesday, as her body was laid to rest, all of Atlanta mourned the death of a beautiful young woman

So we are here today to talk about it, about how and why Jesus died and about what it will be like when you and I and those whom we love must walk through the valley of the shadow of death.

A young woman in her mid-fifties woke up one morning to read her own obituary notice in the newspaper. It was obviously a mistake, as she explained to the editor when she called him on the phone. He was silent for a moment, and then replied, “Don’t worry. We can fix it. Tomorrow we’ll put your name in the birth column and give you a brand new start!”

Well, I don’t know if that story is true. But I do know that it did happen to Alfred Nobel back in 1888. He was the inventor of dynamite and he had spent his life amassing a fortune from the manufacture and sale of weapons. Then one day he discovered his own name in the paper, announcing that “The Dynamite King” was dead. The obituary notice was a careless mistake, for the paper had printed the wrong name – it was Nobel’s brother who had died and this was a careless journalistic error.

But that mistake, which painfully revealed to Alfred Nobel the way the world looked at him – as a merchant of death who became rich by making explosives – that obituary notice led him to a decision. He resolved to write a new last will and testament, leaving his entire fortune to establish an award which would reflect his deepest convictions about the real purpose of life’s ideals. And so it was, when he died, that the Nobel Prize was created, to honor the citizens of this world who have devoted their lives to peace and to reconciliation.

It was that same message which Jesus brought to all of humanity. On the day He was born, the angels sang about peace on earth (Luke 2:14). He taught others to be peacemakers (Matthew 5:9), and when He told His disciples that He was going to die, Jesus promised that He would pass His peace on to them. My peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you, He said as they shared their last supper together in the upper room in Jerusalem (John 14:27)

Finally, after He had been betrayed and arrested, falsely accused of heresy, condemned to execution by Pilate, stripped, beaten and nailed to the cross by the Roman soldiers and humiliated by the taunting shouts of the crowd, as He hung there dying with the last breaths of life left in Him, Jesus looked down at the people and cried out to heaven, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do! (Luke 23:24)

Such was the love of the Savior, who came in peace, who died with reconciliation on His lips and who has forgiven the sins of the world. And we who believe in Him, we who by faith have received His gifts of peace, reconciliation and forgiveness, we have all been called to live by Christ’s example.

If you have come here today with bitterness or resentment in your heart, with revenge or retaliation in your mind, or with a heavy burden of guilt deep down in your soul, then bring all of that to the foot of the cross today and ask Jesus Christ to help you leave it behind. Don’t wait until it is too late and your own obituary notice is printed in the paper. Receive the gifts of peace, reconciliation and forgiveness which the Lord offers to you here and now, and you can walk out those doors with the hope of a new beginning in your life.

II.

But before we leave, there is something more that needs to be said on Good Friday, and it is this: as Christians, we believe that death is not an adversary which we desperately try to reject, but rather a reality which we can finally come to accept.

This past week, while reading the obituary pages of the paper each day, I have observed there are two distinctly different ways that deaths are reported. On the one hand, some of the obituary notices say that “Mr. Jones died on Tuesday, April 10” or that “Mrs. Smith died on Thursday, April 12,” followed by a brief description of their life, the important details about the service and where memorial contributions should be sent.

On the other hand, there are obituary notices which say that “Mrs. Wilson went home on Monday, April 9,” or that “Mr. Foster passed away on Wednesday, April 11,” or in one case, that “John Brown was funeralized on Sunday, April 8.” (From The Atlanta Journal Constitution, Obituary Section, Friday, April 13, 2001 – names changed out of respect).

You see, some of the people and family members who wrote those obituaries were willing to use the word “died,” while others preferred to choose different words to describe death. With a sense of deep respect for all of those individuals and loved ones during their time of grief, it seems to me that some of us, many of us, do not want to face the reality of dying and the inevitability of death.

So we try to avoid those words, thinking that they will offend or upset others. We attend funeral and memorial services with a resolve not to show our tears, for fear that we or those around us might be embarrassed. And sometimes we simply pretend that dying and death won’t happen to us or to people we love.

But that is not how God intends for it to be. Because just as He created us to embrace life with all of its joy for today and hope for tomorrow, God has also made us with the spiritual capacity to face our dying and death by faith, as we experience sadness and sorrow and the peace which comes at the end of the journey.

That is what the 23^rd Psalm promises to each of us and all of us if we will trust our living and our dying to the Lord. Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me…so surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever!

Jesus believed beyond the shadow of a doubt that promise was true. It sustained Him in His time of trial, it strengthened Him to face the cross, it enabled Him to embrace the reality of death and empowered Him to shout out at the end of His life on earth, Father, into Thy hands I commit my spirit! (Luke 23:46)

And so it can be for all of us who seek to follow and to trust in Jesus Christ. As Christians, we can believe that death is not an adversary which we desperately try to reject, but rather a reality which we can finally come to accept.

CONCLUSION

And that leads us to this one last affirmation about the Winter of Life. In our dying and in our death, we can begin to see the signs of spring which point toward the rest of eternity.

Parker Palmer, who is a Quaker and an author living up in Wisconsin, wrote a book last year entitled “Let Your Life Speak.” In the final chapter, he explores each of the seasons of life, and toward the conclusion, this is what he says about the winter:

“The little deaths of autumn are mild precursors to the rigor mortis of winter. The southern humorist Roy Blount has opined that in the upper Midwest where I live, what we get in the winter is not weather, but divine retribution. He believes that someone here once did something very, very bad, and we are still paying the price for that transgression!”

But Parker Palmer doesn’t believe that. Just the opposite. He goes on to write about the grace of God and the hope of springtime. Listen:

“One of the gifts of winter is beauty…I am not sure that any sight or sound on earth is as exquisite as the hushed descent of a sky full of snow. But another gift is the reminder that the times of dormancy and deep rest are essential to all living things. Despite all appearances, nature is not dead in winter – it has instead gone underground to renew itself for the spring. And winter is a time when we are admonished and even inclined to do the same for ourselves…Our inward winters take many forms – failure, betrayal, depression, death. But every one of them, in my experience, yields to the same advice: ‘The winter will drive you crazy until you learn to lean into it.’ Until we enter boldly into the fears we want to avoid, those fears will dominate our lives. But when we walk directly into the winter, protected from the cold by the warmth of love and the grace of God, we can learn what the winter has to teach us. And then we will discover…that the cycle of the seasons is trustworthy and life giving, as the winter leads into the spring.” (Paraphrased from “Let Your Life Speak” by Parker Palmer, Jossey-Bass, Inc. Publishers, 2000, pages 100-103)

Jesus was condemned to the cross when He was just a young man, but as He cried out toward heaven, Father, into Thy hands I commit my spirit, God had already begun to turn the winter of dying and death into the springtime of eternal life. That is what we believe as Christians, that death is not the end of our journey, but rather a glorious new beginning, and that someday, when our time comes, we will be reunited with those whom we have loved and lost a while. And so I invite you to join us here on Easter Day as we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who is the Savior and The Man for All Seasons of Our Lives!

In the name of the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.