Are You Afraid of the Dark, Cinderella?
A Sermon Preached by Rob Lee
Psalm 23
1 Corinthians 15:50-55
It was Emily Dickenson, the great
poet who once penned these words, “Because I could not stop for death, he
kindly stopped for me.” We hate talking about death, but I hope that we can
face this sermon with a strong immortal hope that bears our souls to the cross
and the empty tomb.
Will you pray with me?
Changed
from glory into glory, till in Heaven we take our place, till we cast our
crowns before thee lost in wonder, love, and praise. Lord hide your preacher
behind the cross so that it is you that they may see and not me. Amen.
Cinderella.
The name evokes fond memories of childhood joys and dreams as we all watched
the Disney classic with awe as Cinderella fit her foot into the glass slipper.
Well Disney has done it again as they often do with the 2015 soon-to-be classic
remake of the animated film. Only this time, it’s not animated. We see the
beauty of the blue dress, the pumpkin carriage, and fairy godmother. But this
movie pointed out something I had forgotten until this past Friday night when
sermon inspiration struck during the middle of the movie. I forgotten how
Cinderella got her name, you see they explain it in the movie, much like French
writer Charles Perrault intended way back in 1657 when he wrote what would
inspire Walt Disney to make the movie.
You see as
the original tale goes, “After the girl's chores were done for the day, she would retire
to the barren and cold room given to her, and would curl up near the fireplace
in an effort to stay warm. She would often arise covered in cinders, giving
rise to the mocking nickname ‘Cinder-ella.’”
Now you may wonder what in the world this has to do with the text we just heard
read in our epistle lesson, I promise we’ll get back to this.
Today we hear a text best meant for
a funeral. However, we are in Lent so it might be more appropriate than we
think. You see we’re well on our way to the cross. Next week is the triumphant
entry into Jerusalem and just around the bend is Holy Week and Good Friday. But
today we have a reprise from all the darkness with three simple lines in the
New Revised Standard Version… yes I counted them. “Death has been swallowed up in
victory. Where, O death is your victory? Where, O death is your sting?”
Are you afraid of the dark? Are you
afraid of death? Now you don’t have to answer that out loud because maybe it’s
something you like to sweep under the rug. Maybe it’s something that plagues
your very soul. Don’t worry, I’m preaching to the choir. Fear of death can be
crippling, right? We have no empirical evidence as my religion professor would
say that there is an afterlife. We have nothing but the promise of two
millennia of promises about this person, this Nazarene named Jesus.
But today dear people of God, in
spite of that bleak reality I would like to remind us all today that Jesus is
enough. Jesus is enough. It was Marcus Borg who said when speaking of death, “So, is there an afterlife,
and if so, what will it be like? I don't have a clue. But I am confident that
the one who has buoyed us up in life will also buoy us up through death. We die
into God. What more that means, I do not know. But that is all I need to know.”
We are a Lenten people in this
season of darkness. We are people who are scared of the coming darkness, and
for good reason. You see death thinks it has the victory during this season. I
don’t know if you’ve noticed but in our worship planning Patricia, Caroline,
Michael and I have been very intentional with choosing hymns and prayers. We
haven’t used the word alleluia once in any of our liturgy or hymn-singing.
That’s an old tradition of burying the alleluia until Easter morning. We do
this to remind ourselves that as we are dressed in black, as we have purple draped
around us we are meant to die. But we take hope. We will sing alleluias once
more. We take hope that Easter is coming for each and every one of us. You see
that’s the promise of Easter: We all get one. We all will have our resurrection
day. Rachel
Held Evans puts it best, "Death
is something empires worry about, and not something resurrection people worry
about."
You see even in Lent, even in the
darkness of our own mortality we have immortality and resurrection to clothe
ourselves with. We have the eternal hope that Jesus is Lord, and that we can
take Jesus for his word. For Jesus himself is the Word become flesh, and even
when you crucify the Word you cannot keep the Word dead for long.
We spend our entire lives trying to
prolong life, or find a way to make ourselves memorable. Whether it’s medical
advancements we seek or some elixir of life or sorcerer’s stone we yearn for
eternity here. But I think it was Professor Albus Dumbledore from the Harry
Potter series who said it this way, “Don’t pity the dead, Harry, pity the
living, most of all those who live without love.”
If there is anything we can do in
the face of death it is celebrate. For God through the cross gives us
permission to celebrate death’s very own death. For death has been swallowed
up, not just swallowed but digested and sent out to hell where it belongs.
The complexities of the 1 Corinthians text are combatted today by what
Michael read earlier in the service. “Even though I walk through the valley of
the shadow of death I will feel no evil, for thou art with me.” The reality of
the Gospel is this: Christ walks alongside us in the glory of our youth, in the
joy of our middle years, in the happiness of our golden years, and yes in the
grips of the death we all experience. That’s why Christianity is unique in this
world that peddles religion, God became human so that we might become like God.
But deeper than that we realize that God in Christ Jesus experienced everything
we could ever experience. So we, perishable creatures can put on
imperishability. We mortal people can be clothed in eternal life.
Now don’t hear me wrong, the point
of our faith isn’t to be afraid of death, afraid to a point of hysterical
seeking out of heaven and avoidance of hell. The point of faith is to celebrate
life, a life well lived, so that when we reach that heavenly shore we will hear
the words, “Beloved, you are my servant, in whom I am well pleased.”
You see that Emily Dickenson poem I
read earlier is a reminder of death, but the one we know in Jesus is a reminder
that behold he is alive forevermore. So take heart dear people of God, because
ultimately where o death is thy victory, where o death is thy sting?
Stephanie and I have a favorite
spiritual that we sing all the time in the car when it comes on the CD player.
Mary D. Williams sings in a deep and booming voice, “There
will be singin', there will be singin', there will be singin' over me! And
before I'd be a slave I'll be buried in my grave and go home to my Lord and be
free. There will be glory, there will be glory, there will be glory over me. And
before I'd be a slave I'll be buried in my grave and go home to my Lord and be
free.” You see the hope of that song is that we are no longer slaves to
the grave. We are no longer bound by death’s dark hand.
In the new Cinderella movie I was talking about earlier, one of the
greatest lines in the entire film is said when Cinderella is about to reveal
she is a lowly servant girl to the prince she had fallen in love with. The
narrator states, “That is the greatest risk any of us take, to be seen as we
really are. You see the greatest risk we take as
human beings is show who we really are, that we are mortal, to admit that we
will die. But the risk is met with peace because we know we too like Cinderella
will rise with the ashes and cinders of our deaths into something beautiful and
resurrected. Not through some fairy godmother but through the living and
resurrected Christ who meets us in the place. So rise from the cinders dear
people of God, rise and be free.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and
of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
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