“Do Not Speak of It”
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy
Spirit. Amen. On the Saturday evening before Pentecost Sunday in 1988 I was up late
going over my sermon for the next day, a sermon I would never preach. For,
just after midnight the telephone rang; it was my brother Ralph. Even
before he told me, I knew what had happened. After many years battling
cancer, my father had died in his sleep. I was completely overwhelmed with
grief and sorrow, grief and sorrow like I had never felt before. In today’s Old Testament Reading, Elisha loses his spiritual father,
Elijah. We see that Elisha also is overwhelmed with grief and sorrow, for
the Bible reports that after Elijah was taken to heaven, Elisha “took his
clothes and tore them apart.” People show their grief in different ways.
In Old Testament times, the customary way to show extreme grief and sorrow was
to tear apart your clothes, or as the King James Version puts it, to rend your
garments. By rending his garments, Elisha shows that he is completely
overwhelmed with grief and sorrow at the loss of Elijah. My father’s death was not at all unexpected. Just that morning I
had bathed and fed him. We all knew his struggle would soon be over.
And yet, even though it was not unexpected, when my father did die, it was still
a complete and total SHOCK. In the same way in today’s Old Testament Reading, two times the
companies of the prophets say to Elisha, “Do you know that the Lord is going to
take your master from you today?” It seems the Lord revealed this fact to
Elijah, to the companies of the prophets, and to Elisha. “Yes, I know,”
Elisha replied, “but do not speak of it.” Even though it was not
unexpected, when Elijah was taken from Elisha it was still a complete and total
shock. Elijah was one of two people in the Old Testament taken by the Lord
directly to heaven without experiencing death, the other being Enoch in the book
of Genesis. Hebrews says, “Enoch was taken from this life, so that he did
not experience death.” Unlike Enoch and Elijah, unless the Second Coming
of Christ occurs in our lifetimes, all of us will experience physical death. But, through faith in Jesus Christ, death is no longer a punishment to
be feared, for it has become for us the very gate of heaven. Death seems to us
like the sunset of our lives, but it is really the sunrise; not the end, but the
beginning, the beginning of eternal life. Jesus promises, “I am the
resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, even though he dies, yet
shall he live.” All your sins are forgiven on his account, because of his life, his
death, his resurrection. “For my Father’s will,” Jesus says, “is that
everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I
will raise him up at the last day.” Trust in Jesus Christ as your Savior;
you shall have eternal life, and he will raise you up at the last day. At the moment of death, your soul will depart your body and go
immediately to be with Jesus in paradise. As St. Paul says in Philippians,
“I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far.” And Jesus
promises the thief on the cross, “Today you will be with me in paradise.” At the Second Coming of Christ, on the last day, your body will be
raised up, as the Lord declares in Ezekiel, “O my people, I am going to open
your graves and bring you up from them.” “Do not be amazed at this,” Jesus
says, “for a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice
and come out.” The same bodies we have now will be raised up and restored to life, as
St. Paul says in Romans, “He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life
to your mortal bodies.” Our resurrected bodies will glorified and transformed into perfect,
heavenly bodies, as St. Paul says in 1st Corinthians, “We will all be
changed—in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet,” and in
Philippians, “He will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his
glorious body.” Despite our very great advances in medicine, so often in this life we
and our loved ones still suffer and struggle, like my father, with illness and
infirmity that is beyond the help of medical science. But, in that
glorious moment when we are all changed, “in a flash, in the twinkling of an
eye, at the last trumpet,” when Christ transforms “our lowly bodies so that they
will be like his glorious body,” you and your loved ones will finally be
completely healed, of every illness and infirmity; all your suffering and
struggles will be over, forever. In the very last verses of the Old Testament, in the book of Malachi,
the Lord gives us a beautiful picture of the end of all illness and infirmity.
“‘Surely the day is coming . . .’ says the Lord Almighty. . . ‘And you will go
out and leap like calves released from the stall.’” In this life you may
be brought low by suffering and struggles, illness and infirmity, for which this
life has no cure. But, just as Christ himself was glorified in his
Transfiguration, in the resurrection he will transform and renew your weak, and
battered, and lowly body to be like his glorious body, “And you will go out and
leap like calves released from the stall.” Psalm 30 says, “Weeping may remain for the night, but joy comes in the
morning.” When the weeping and mourning of this life is over, you will
have eternal joy, in paradise. Describing heaven, Isaiah says, “They will
enter Zion with singing; everlasting joy will crown their heads. Gladness and
joy will overtake them, and sorrow and sighing will flee away.” Psalm 126
says, “Then will our mouths be filled with laughter, and our tongues with songs
of joy.” Revelation says, “He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There
will be no more death, or mourning, or crying, or pain.” On my father’s tombstone are the words “Forever with the Lord,” taken
from 1st Thessalonians: “We would not have you be ignorant about those who fall
asleep . . . We believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that
God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. . . And so
we shall be forever with the Lord.” Your loved ones who trusted in Jesus are asleep in Jesus, forever with
the Lord, and you will be reunited with them in paradise. Return to Top | Return to Sermons | Home | Email Church Office
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