Seven Myths about Death

[00:00:00] Hey, what? Not the podcasters. Pastor Wolfmuller here. Oh, early Tuesday morning. What is today? July 8th? You know, my podcast plan, by the way, is to try to send out a long format podcast every Tuesday. [00:00:18] That's the, that's the idea. So I'm gonna try to record that on Tuesday, post it up for you guys on Tuesday. It'll probably mostly be Q and A stuff, although every now and again we'll throw something in there like I've been thinking about. [00:00:30] What is the big div? [00:00:32] The Lutheran Church Missouri Synod. I'm working that out. I'll probably make some kind of essays and things like that for you all to consider. [00:00:41] But today I'm on my way to St. Louis. In fact, it's. What, it's seven. Oh, no. It is 3:57am And I'm sitting in the airport at the sushi restaurant that's closed down. I've got my comfort coffee and I've got about 35 minutes before my plane boards. So I thought I'm heading up there for the death conference that meets today and tomorrow and yesterday, I suppose. And I'm gonna present this morning, Lord willing, in a few hours when I arrive on the seven myths about death and dying, and then tomorrow about death and spiritual warfare. So I thought I'd use this occasion. [00:01:24] I've got my robot made coffee, I've got my nice little spot in the corner here of the not yet open sushi restaurant. [00:01:35] So I thought I'd use the mystical over my notes with you. All the seven myths about death and dying and maybe five things about grief, if that sounds all right with you. Okay, so this here, maybe here's a little funny backstory too. I remember when I was a baby baby pastor, they do this thing called pals post seminary Applied learning and support. It's basically like, hey, are you got out of seminary now? We want to make sure you don't destroy your congregation. And I remember my first Pals meeting. I mean, I was a baby pastor, probably three week old pastor, and we were talking about funerals and one of the pastors said, well, he was talking about something that he did at a funeral, which was kind of ridiculous or something. Maybe it wasn't him. Something he saw at a funeral that was kind of ridiculous. And one of the guys there excused it and he said, well, you know, that's all right because funerals are for the living, not for the dead. [00:02:32] And that got me thinking a lot about funerals. And I suppose over my. And that's, by the way, one of the myths that we're going to get to in just a little bit. [00:02:42] But I got to thinking about how to do funerals, what funerals should look like, how we are serving the Lord and the deceased in the funeral service. [00:02:54] And it served me well because I been able to do a bunch of funerals. I think 150 in my or so in my first call and I don't think I've doubled it since, but just a lot of funerals and been able to walk through the valley of the shadow of death with a lot of people now. So we started thinking about that as a myth. [00:03:17] Funerals are for the living, not for the dead. I remember I sat down with my friend Pastor Melius and we said we should make a list of these myths. [00:03:25] And so we came up with a list of 7 myths about death and dying. And then he wrote an article for the Lutheran Witness audit. [00:03:34] Charles. Charles, please return to checkpoint. Two weeks of question gate 18 for lost property. Excuse that guy. [00:03:42] And so that's cool. So if you look up on the Lutheran Witness, why Easter? [00:03:47] 7 Myths About Death and dying, you're going to find a list that's awfully close to this list attributed to Pastor Melius. [00:03:55] Myth number one. [00:03:58] I don't know how to do this on a podcast. I want to kind of do a fill in the blank, but there's. I can't give you the handout, but I'll maybe pause. Death is blank. [00:04:08] How do you think that goes? Death is bad, death is good. Death is. [00:04:15] What do you think? Here's this first myth. Death is natural. [00:04:21] If you're listening with someone else and you guys are guessing, you can look at each other and see who got it right. [00:04:26] This is a myth, but it's a persistent myth because, well, this is our evolutionary idea that we're all part of the circle of life. You have this little kind of Lion King Elton Johnny idea that you live and you die and then you, your body becomes nutrients for someone else to live and then they die and whatever. And whatever. It's all part of the circle of life. This is wrong. [00:04:52] Death is not natural and it's not good. [00:04:55] It's only a materialistic worldview that would think so. The Bible tells us that death is unnatural. This is amazing that we were never meant to die in the garden. [00:05:08] Adam and Eve were created to be immortal. [00:05:13] Now this does bring up a really interesting question about, well then why did they have to eat? And the answer is because they were not like some sort of nuclear powered submarine where they had all this energy to go on and on and on, all by themselves. No, they. They always needed to get life from the outside. But the Lord was providing that life right there in the garden. [00:05:34] In fact, not only life to sustain them day to day, but life to sustain them forever. Because there, in the midst of the garden, was the tree of life, but there was also the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And listen to the threat that the Lord gives. He says, on the day that you eat of it, surely you will die. [00:05:54] So St. Paul doubles down on this and he says, the wages of sin is death. [00:06:01] So that death is what you get. It's the wages you get for doing the action, the activity of sin. [00:06:09] So that because all have sins now, all are dying. Mortality, corruption, and death comes to all people. But we cannot, we have to fight back against this idea that death is natural or good and say, no, death is unnatural and it's the last enemy to be conquered. That's how Paul talks about it in First Corinthians 15. The last enemy to be conquered is death. [00:06:32] All right, myth number one. Myth number two. [00:06:36] After death, I gotta take a sip of my robot produced coffee here. [00:06:41] It's the craziest thing. [00:06:43] This little arm, the little machine, and the robot makes your coffee for you, like living in the future. [00:06:49] Myth number two. After death, a Christian will be judged. [00:06:59] That's an amazing idea. But we have it all. It's all in all the jokes. You know, the idea that you show up at the pearly gates and then there's St. Peter, who's trying to determine if he's going to let you in or not. Now we will all appear before the judgment seat of Christ. Christ. [00:07:15] But listen to what Paul says. This is Romans 8:1, which is the kickoff verse of this most beautiful chapter. Like the summit of the whole Bible. Now, there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. [00:07:34] This is the constant promise of the Scripture that by faith the Christian has already passed through the judgment. I think the clearest verse from this is from Jesus in John 5. I'm flipping over there. Now, this whole section is beautiful, but I'll start at verse 22. For the Father judges no one, but has committed all judgment to the Son, that all should honor the Son just as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him. [00:08:19] Most assuredly I say to you, he who hears my word and believes in him who sent me has everlasting life and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life. [00:08:40] This was the verse for the first funeral sermon I ever preached. I still remember it. [00:08:47] There's a man named Jackie. This was 30 years ago or something, or 23 years ago. Said to Jackie's family who was gathered there, jackie is not dead. He is finally alive. [00:09:02] He's passed, according to the word of Jesus, from death to life. [00:09:08] So beautiful. [00:09:09] But our concern is this first part of. Or the middle part of the text. He shall not come into judgment. [00:09:16] Now, we will all go to the judgment day. That's not what it's saying here. We'll all go to the judgment day, but on that day, the. The thing that will be pronounced to us is the thing that you've been hearing every single Sunday. I forgive you all your sins. [00:09:32] That's like the verdict of the last day. Sneaking out now so that we don't fear that day or worry about that day, but we long for that day. It's a day of vindication, a day of comfort, a day of joy. Your redemption draws nigh. Jesus on the cross was judged for us already. In our place. All the wrath that we deserve was on him. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? So we need not fear. [00:10:04] We need not fear the judgment day. There's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Okay, myth number three. Here's a big one. [00:10:13] Oh, I know what I should do. I should take a sip of coffee during the fill in the blank. Be a natural pause. That's some good podcasting idea right there. Okay, myth number three. When you die, you become, sip, sip, sip, an angel. Wrong. [00:10:33] Wrong. [00:10:34] You know, this is one of the reasons why it's nice to think about the myths about death and dying. Because when you're at a funeral or when you're at the funeral home, or when you see people who are mourning and they say things like this, it's probably not the best time to say, no, no, no, no. Angels and people have a completely different being. Your ontology is all mixed up. People are people. Angels are angels. No, but it's good to think about it now. [00:11:00] You know, this idea that we have wings and Auntie Josephine is looking over us and etcetera, we want to have this clear, that angels are angels and people are people. Now, angels are pure spirit. That's how God created them to be. We are body and soul created together. [00:11:20] And it's true that death is the separation of our body and soul, the unnatural unraveling of these two things that belong together so that our body now accelerates. I Suppose its decomposition and our soul awaits the resurrection on the last day when the Lord will put our bodies and our souls back together. [00:11:47] And this is maybe another myth that goes in here. [00:11:54] Oh, myth number four. [00:11:56] Oh, here it is. I don't have to add it. It's already on the list. [00:12:00] When you die, you're through with body. False, false. [00:12:08] But we hear this all the time. Just, you know, when I die, just throw me in the lake or whatever. I'm done with my body. [00:12:14] I remember I was at a funeral one time. [00:12:19] It was a viewing at a funeral home. And I was standing next to the daughter of the deceased. [00:12:25] And we were, we were standing over the casket and looking into the casket. [00:12:31] And they said, that's not Mom. [00:12:36] And I thought, but did not say, you'll be glad that I didn't say it. But I thought, well, who's that? [00:12:47] The Bible will refer to Jesus. [00:12:51] The Bible will refer to the body of Jesus after he died and is being buried as Jesus. [00:12:59] That you are your body and soul. And it's true, they're not supposed to be separated. And I understand this idea that when someone dies and they breathe their last and you look at the lifeless body, all the things, the personality and the conversation and all of the things that made that person the person that they were, those things are gone. The soul is gone. But that body is still the body of your beloved. Those are still the hands that held you. [00:13:34] Those are still the lips that kissed you and comforted you. That's still the arms that embraced you. [00:13:42] That body is still the person's body. Which is why we have actually the funeral service. [00:13:52] Because this body that's there, the Lord has taken the soul to himself in heaven. [00:14:00] According to the story of Lazarus and the rich man, the Lord sends his holy angels to gather up the soul of those who died to themselves. It's beautiful. [00:14:09] So the souls are gathered up into heaven, but the bodies are left down here for us to take care of. [00:14:15] And so we take care of the body as a Christian loving act. [00:14:22] And that's what the funeral service is. [00:14:26] So we lay the body to rest in the hope of the resurrection. [00:14:30] And that body that we lay to rest is the body that will be raised. [00:14:34] I think people sometimes think that, look, the resurrection, I'll get a totally new body. And it's true that we are sown in mortality, raised in immortality. Sown a natural body, raised a spiritual body. [00:14:47] This beautiful First Corinthians 15 promise that we will be transformed on the day of the resurrection, when the Lord comes back and he calls out of the grave the souls of all people. It's a transformed body, but it is this body that is transformed. And I'll prove it to you. [00:15:04] I mean, you guys might be moaning like I am ready for an upgrade. I want to trade this body in for a new one. But okay, look, the body that the Lord will give you in the resurrection will not disappoint you. There will be nothing achy about it. Promise you. [00:15:21] But here's my proof that there's this continuity. If it was a different body, then the old body of Jesus would still be in the grave. But your grave will be as empty as the grave of Jesus. [00:15:33] That's the doctrine of the resurrection. [00:15:37] So that we treat our bodies with care. [00:15:40] We lay them to rest in this beautiful way that the Lord calls death asleep, because we know that they are going to wake up. [00:15:50] Now, this idea that we're done with our body is a Gnostic idea. And it's very few. You know, almost everybody thinks it. [00:15:58] We might be. I mean, there's very few who confess the resurrection. [00:16:04] The Pharisee half of Judaism confesses the resurrection. Islam confesses the resurrection. Resurrection, Christianity confesses the resurrection. Which is why all three of those religions and confessions bury the body. It's a confession that we're not done with the body. [00:16:20] Everybody else thinks that we are body. Once you. You're moving on. You know, that's the Gnostic idea. Remember that famous little Gnostic Gospel of Judas that came out 25 years ago or whatever. It's really. We know it's Gnostic. I mean, all of it is Gnostic, but especially because there's this conversation, this fake conversation between Jesus and Judas and Judas in the Gospel of Judas is the hero. Kind of amazing twist on things like all these YouTube videos that are like, the joker is the good guy or Voldemort is the hero. It's this kind of reversal reading of things. That's how the Gospel of Judas is. [00:17:04] And Jesus, in that little Gnostic gospel, Jesus says to Judas, you are the one who will set me free. [00:17:13] And that's this Gnostic idea that we're imprisoned in our bodies and that death being set free from the body is being set free from. [00:17:23] I don't know, it's salvation because you're getting free from this prison. You are not imprisoned in your body. You are your body. [00:17:31] You are not. It's not. This is not your. Your body is not like a meat suit. [00:17:37] Your body is you. [00:17:39] And it'll be raised on the last day. And this Body will be glorified. Oh, can't wait to see it. [00:17:46] That's why we treat the body with respect even after death. [00:17:51] But that leads to verse. Wait, to myth five. [00:17:54] And this is a myth. I'll say it here. Cremation is a sip, sip, sip, robot coffee. Cremation is a sin. [00:18:04] I'd like to say this is a myth. Cremation does not. [00:18:08] Can you guys hear those announcements? Or maybe I'll wait for a little bit here, spend some time, stall for airport ambiance. Is that what makes a good podcast? He's like, hey, I want to be like Al Mohler and say, I'm coming to you today from Budapest or whatever. [00:18:28] Cremation is a sin. Not necessarily. Now, cremation can be a sin. [00:18:35] Cremation can be a sin if we think that we're avoiding the resurrection or denying the resurrection. That's why, like the Greeks and all, they would burn the body because they would say, I'm done with the body. And if you're. If you're burning a body because you think that that body is trapped trash and you're dishonoring the body and that's what you do with the trash, is you put it on the burn heap, then that could be a sin. But I think the reason why most people go to be cremated is because they think it's cheaper or they think there's not enough space or, I don't know, they. They think it's a cleaner way to decompose. [00:19:11] I don't know. Don't think about it too much. I mean, it's. It's not. You know, they got. Your bones don't burn, so they got to crush them, and they dye them brown to make them look like ashes. I mean, look, death is a brutal thing. No matter what happens to your body after you die, it's going to be brutal. [00:19:29] And in fact, in the Bible, every time that someone is burned to death or after death, it's understood as a curse. [00:19:38] That's why burial has been the historic Christian practice. [00:19:43] And I think that the Christian church ought to give profound, profound leaning or advantage to burial. [00:19:57] If we should. I mean, I think that our argument probably should be something like, if it was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for me. [00:20:05] And we treat the body with as much respect and as we possibly can. There's a part of the commendation of the dying or after death occurs where the body itself is blessed. [00:20:20] It's one of the things, I think, as a pastor that I'm privileged to do is to come into the room where someone has died and to put my hand on the body and to say, may God the Father who created this body, and God the Son who redeemed this body, together with the soul of our beloved brother or sister. And may God the Holy Spirit who filled this body as his temple, bless and keep these mortal remains to the day of the resurrection of all flesh. [00:20:49] So part of our honoring of the body is that this is the place where Jesus was pleased to dwell in this heart, this body claimed by the Holy Spirit as God's temple. [00:21:01] I remember one time I went to the hospital. [00:21:05] It was a few hours after a birth and death. A child that lived just for a few minutes and was baptized and then died. And I got there and the family was holding the baby and asked me, brian, what are we going to do now? [00:21:24] I said, we will give little baby Noah a Christian burial. And that'll be the last good work that you, his parents, will do for him until the resurrection. [00:21:38] And so we do this honoring work as a confession of the resurrection. And that leads to the sixth myth. [00:21:47] This has two fill in the blanks, which would be nice for two sips of coffee. Myth number six. [00:21:53] Funerals are for the and not for the. [00:21:59] We talked about this at the beginning. You know already, funerals are for the living, not for the dead. Wrong. [00:22:05] If someone says that, hey, funerals for the living, not for the dead, you say, well, what are we? Why are we here then? You're here because somebody died and you're honoring them. [00:22:15] Now, it's true that funerals are also for the living, most especially to remind us that we're not going to be the living for that much longer. [00:22:23] But we should have this idea as Christians that when we go to funerals, this is an act of love for God and for our neighbor who died. We're treating the body with care. We're giving it the dignity that baptism and the resurrection of the flesh call for. [00:22:41] So the sermon, the scripture, these bring comfort to the people who are on earth. We don't, you know, the person who died doesn't need that. They get to see the face of Jesus, which is so much better, and sing with the angels, which is so much better. [00:22:54] But when we go to the funeral, we are honoring that person and serving them, even by caring for their body. This is why the old time, the old theologians used to call funerals the rite of Christian burial. [00:23:10] You're doing this good work of putting the person to rest in the faith. [00:23:16] Which leads to our seventh myth. Do I say more about that. I think this is good. We can talk about the seventh myth. Christians should not mourn. Oh, sorry, I gotta fill in the blank here. Christians should not sip, sip. There's three on this one. [00:23:31] Christian should not blank or be blank. [00:23:34] Funerals are a plank of blank. [00:23:38] Take four sips. [00:23:41] You know this one. Christians should not mourn or be sad. Funerals are a celebration of life. That's what the funeral industry is selling everybody now. Celebrations of life, which is fine, but it's just not enough. [00:23:57] It's not enough. [00:23:59] There's two major problems with the idea that funerals are a celebration of life. The first is that it is a good work to mourn. [00:24:09] More on that later. [00:24:12] The second is that the celebration of life only looks back. [00:24:18] And we don't just look back. We do. We look back. But we have a just like Jesus, who is and was and is to come. [00:24:31] So all those who are in Christ are and were and will be. [00:24:38] So while the funeral service does look back at the gifts that God gave in life, especially remembering the gift of holy baptism and all the other gifts of vocation and family and work and joy and peace in life and all the gifts of God, we. We look at all those and we rejoice in all those. It's true. But we also could say, now, how is it now that right now the beloved dead are rejoicing in the face of Jesus and resting in him? Like Paul says, I desire to be. To depart and be with Christ. It's far better. [00:25:16] And we think that on the last day, we confess that on the last day they will be raised from the dead and live forever in glory in the resurrection. [00:25:27] So that we have a celebration of life and death and life eternal and the resurrection. [00:25:36] We can't just look back. We have to think how it is now and how will it be. [00:25:42] If you want to, I think funeral sermons. This is the outline of a funeral sermon. How was it? How is it? How will it be with the person who died and with us now? This idea of Christians shouldn't mourn and be sad. I've seen this. I remember one time I was with a lady who was dying, and she told her family, she said, look, I'm going to a better place. Don't weep for me. And then we had the funeral and I saw the kids in the front pew of the church and they were like, squeezing their faces to try to prevent the tears from falling. [00:26:13] We want to say that this is not. [00:26:17] It is okay to grieve. In fact, it is Good to grieve. Remember the shortest verse in The Bible, John 11:35, says Jesus wept. [00:26:27] That means because Jesus did everything right, he never sinned. He was holy and perfect in every way. That if Jesus wept, that means that weeping is a good work. [00:26:41] Not only is it not a sin, it's a good thing. And let's name it. [00:26:47] Let's give a definition to grief. Grief is the shape of love when the object of our love is absent. [00:26:58] So when someone you love is not here, you grieve them. And when they die, you grieve them. [00:27:06] You weep for them. Remember how all the Jews were gathered for Lazarus funeral and they saw Jesus weeping, and it's not like he was. Tears were dripping out. [00:27:15] There's a couple of different words for cry in Greek. And this is the fountain one. This is the tears like fountains business. [00:27:23] Tears were flowing freely, and they said, see how he loved him. This is what love looks like when the object of our love is gone. [00:27:33] So we grieve as a Christian good work and weep as a Christian good work. [00:27:41] Now it's important when we think about grief that we recognize that grief does not come in stages. [00:27:48] You know, that idea, the stages of grief comes out of an evolutionary idea. It was. Some psychologists were trying to. [00:27:55] They were trying to figure out why we grieve because it doesn't make sense on an evolutionary standpoint. And they. They came up with the stages of grief. At least I. I think that's what I figured out a couple of years ago when I was working on this book about funerals, because I don't. The stages of grief is. I think we should put it out of our. Our minds and just say instead that it comes in waves and it. And it takes different shapes. Sometimes loneliness, sometimes just plain old sadness, sometimes regret, which is a big one. And, you know, because, look, none of us love like we should. None of us have loved our family and friends likely ought to. [00:28:36] We've sinned against them. And we think to ourselves, you know, I'm gonna. At least I've got time to make it up. But then when someone dies, that's it. You can't. There's no making it up. And the result is the regret. I didn't. I wasn't as good a son as I should have been. I wasn't as good a father as I should have been. I wasn't as good a friend or grandson or whatever as I should have been. [00:28:56] Now that regret comes up as guilt showing up. [00:29:02] It's like locked in guilt because the possibility of Making up for it and doing it different is gone. This is why you have so many people trying to do memorial stuff, do things in someone's name. It's like trying to address the guilt or regret. Now, if it's a good work, it's great. Do the good work and let that. And let the regret motivate you. But here's how we normally talk about regret with people. We say, look, you did all that you could have. You did what you should have done. You were, you know, you were faithful. No, you did not. [00:29:34] You did not do everything that you should have done. [00:29:38] I mean, you can't comfort the conscience by lying to it. [00:29:43] But this is why Jesus died. [00:29:48] This is why he suffered on the cross. Because you and I are sinners and because we don't love like we ought to love. [00:29:55] There's not a single person who dying, we won't regret that. We could have done more, because we could have done more. [00:30:03] We could have said more, we could have loved more, more deeply, we could have spent more time, we could have paid more attention. This is just. It is what it means to be a sinner. So the comfort that we have is not that we did everything we could. The comfort that we have facing our regret is that Christ died. [00:30:26] You're forgiven, and Jesus is not mad at you. And I'll tell you what, your loved one who's in heaven is also not mad at you. You, they love you with the love of Christ, which is a love full of mercy. [00:30:44] There's no anger in heaven for you. [00:30:47] This is an amazing thing to think about, that even the people that you've sinned against, who are now with Jesus, that they are not mad at you. So that when you go to heaven and you're going to see all these people that you should have loved more, even people that you sinned against and hurt in really profound ways, and they are going to be so happy to see you. [00:31:06] You know how this goes. Like if you're angry with someone or you're fighting with someone and you don't really want to see them, and we think, well, now, will they die? No. [00:31:15] That even the person that you've sinned against most profoundly, or to say, if you want to reverse it, you could do it too. The person that has sinned against you most, most profoundly, that you'll be happy to see them in heaven. [00:31:39] When the people that Paul. [00:31:42] How about this? When Stephen. [00:31:45] Can you imagine this? When Paul died, St Stephen was there with open arms to welcome him. [00:31:56] Now here. And maybe this is the Last thing, because I see people getting in line over here, is that when we're talking about grief, what we have to do is measure it in comparison to our other vocations. So here's where grief can get dangerous. Grief is the shape of love for those who are absent. We want to make sure that it doesn't affect the love that we have for those who are present. [00:32:22] In other words, if I'm so busy grieving those who died that I can't carry for those who are still alive now, my grief has gotten a little bit out of hand. [00:32:31] So I can recognize, hey, this is good, that I'm mourning the death of my loved one. But I can't let that get in the way of loving the people that God has given to me. I see this especially when children die. [00:32:44] Oh boy, it's so hard. I mean, just unimaginably difficult. It is like what, what Simeon said to Mary. [00:32:54] A sword will pierce your own heart. That's what it's like when a child dies. And what happens is that that grief takes over so that there's. It's so hard for the parents to love each other and to love the other kids who are alive. [00:33:08] So we have to say, no, grief is a good work, but I can't let it be the only good work that I'm doing. I can't let it stand in the way of these other good works that God has put called me to do. [00:33:21] All right, There you go. [00:33:24] 7 Myths About Death and Dying. [00:33:27] That's what not the podcast. If you have, if you have questions, wolfmuller co contact and you can submit your questions there. And I think normally on this podcast we'll be, we'll be answering those questions. If you have thoughts, etc. Etc. Let me know. I'm coming to you live or 4:30 now, 4:30 in the morning from the airport in Austin, Texas. Hope you guys have a beautiful, wonderful day. If you're in St. Louis, we'll see you soon. [00:33:57] God's peace be with you.