2 August 2006

Douglas John Hall again leads us into today's devotional reflection.

The great objection of the Bible is in fact not to death in itself and as such; it is to the power of death over life - a power given it not by God but by us, human beings, who in their state of "finitude in anxious self-awareness" are fixed upon death. This anxious preoccupation with mortality detracts from our capacity fully and joyfully to enter into life. If you like, God's problem with death is not death itself but our human fascination with and temptation to and anxiety concerning death. Not death but our death wish or...our nervously deliberate avoidance of the thought of death: that is the thing that the gospel of the crucified one want to eradicate. And we do not learn this only from the resurrection accounts; it is there all the way through the biblical witness.

The power we give to death is the death of us! Our lives are shortened for fear of death...our relationships suffer over our anxiety about death...our ability to rise up against injustice is sacrificed because of our insecurity in the face of death...our potential to be loving of others is cut short because of the notion that giving ourselves away to another just may be the death of us. That is where the water of our baptism is so vital for our living. In that water and the promise made to all of us, even that which can be the death of us is not given the power to do so and therefore, we are open to a future filled with new life where death cannot direct us. Our God brings such life and our God always has. I like the fact that Hall make sure that this message about death and life is not merely something from the story of the resurrection. In reading segments of the Hebrew scriptures with a small Bible study group at church, I am always profoundly struck by how we, human beings, make such wild life choices because we do not trust what God says about us and for us and to us. Rather, we try to defeat or run from death all on our own. It never works and it usually brings about more of the consequences of life run by death's power.

Connection: In the ordinary moments of the day we are called to do battle with the power of death - the power we give death - power to make us less alive. In the ordinary moments of this day, we can live courageously in some very everyday kind of ways.

Grant us courage, O God, that we will not fall prey to the power of death and let our lives be drained of the fullness of life into which you are always leading us. And then, grant us wisdom to discern the powers of life and death that visit us this day. Amen.