Sermon for Easter Day evening
Sunday 16th April 2017
Song of Solomon 3.2-5; 8.6,7
Revelation 1.12-18
Revd Preb Maureen Hobbs
Love and death.
Some years ago the pop-star, Madonna, sung of being a material girl, living in a material world.
Well, there are those in this world who claim to be atheists on the grounds that you cannot prove anything exists unless you can weigh and/or measure it in some way. They are materialists: they think nothing exists beyond the material world.
That all falls down of course when you consider the strange phenomenon we call ‘love’.
Of course you can measure hormone levels and the pheromones – the smells which even if we are not consciously aware of them, attract us to particular people. And undoubtedly there is a strong desire in human beings, as well as in all other organisms to reproduce. But that comes down to lust, not love.
There is nothing materialistic about the human emotion of being deeply in love with somebody, so that your deepest desire is to make them happy, even at the cost of sacrificing your own wishes. And this suggests that there may be many other things which we feel, do or say which do not have a material origin. One of these may be the strong conviction that many people have that there is life after death.
Recently there was a survey published that even suggested that even though some people claim to have no belief in God, they still think there is some existence beyond the grave…
But if there is an afterlife – and I firmly believe that there is – it is not material as we understand it. The days have long gone when people believed that heaven was a place above the clouds. But if we enter an immeasurably splendid non-material spiritual existence when we die, you could never prove by scientific means whether or not that is true. Yet there are those who claim to have evidence that the spiritual world really does exist. One scientist described it as the fifth dimension. You can see and measure space and time, but there is a real probability that there are other dimensions, just as real as the ones we live in now, the truth of which we can deduce but never see, any more than we can see dark matter.
The existence of heaven is exactly parallel to the existence of love; and the Song of Songs/Solomon in the Bible says that ‘Love is stronger than death.’ Something which many of us can attest as true. And for evidence we have the teaching of Jesus
The experience that bereaved people have of the nearness of their loved ones, and the reports that many people give of having been on the brink of death; almost dying; and yet somehow have survived and come back to life.
The Son of God came to earth, to share our human lot, then died and rose again to show us that it is love for God and love for our fellow humans that enables us to inherit eternal life; for love is stronger than death.
Many bereaved people describe feelings of closeness to those who have died – feelings that transform and strengthen them to go on living.
Finally we have the common tales of those experiencing near-death states – often described as travelling down a dark tunnel towards a bright light. An awareness of a great sense of peace and the love of God – often accompanied by a voice telling them that now is not the time and they are to go back to the World. It truly seems that the material world is not every thing, and truly love is stronger than death.
Happy Easter!