God's Aloha - 2006

TURNING DARKNESS INTO LIGHT
By Dr. Carlo C. DiClemente

My father died just over 2 years ago. He was 88 and mild mannered unlike his namesake, Alberto, roaring onto the gulf coast today and bringing tornadoes and tidal waves. He was sincere and steadfast in his faith. He lived a long life and even saw his grandchildren’s children. But I still miss him. Losses come in many shapes and sizes. As I prepared for tonight’s remarks, I thought of the high school senior who lost her life, a life filled with promise and potential, right around the corner from my house on Route 99. I thought of my cousin’s wife, a mother of two, who lost her battle with breast cancer, my Aunt who died just over a week ago after her courageous five year battle with cancer, and Dale Dudley, one of our Stephen Ministers who we remember tonight. Loses come in all shapes and sizes. Death takes away our loved ones, some after many years of life and some after only a few.

Death is often linked with Darkness and Doubt. There is an ominous sound to these words that begin with D. I was surprised to find so many of them linked to the experience of loss. Our loved ones are dead or deceased. We are surrounded by a somber sense of Darkness and black has become the color of our mourning. People who helped give light and color and brightness to our lives are gone. Their lives are like candles that are blown out leaving the rooms of our lives dark. With death sometimes comes depression and despair. More D words. How can we go on with our lives? How can we act as though nothing happened? Can we forget the many events large and small, which are part of our daily lives that trigger memories that remind us of the lost presence of our loved ones? Loss is at the heart of sadness and depression. I know we are supposed to celebrate the lives of those who have died. I know we are supposed to see their memories as our continuing connection with the deceased. I know that we should gain comfort from the sympathy of others. But in the end we are alone without the presence of the one we loved and shared life with.

Death also breeds doubt for those of faith. Pastor Ludwig on Sunday talked about Nicodemus and his questions and disbelief about being reborn and going through our mother’s womb again. In the past few weeks we have heard of the doubt that Thomas had when the other disciples told him of the resurrection. Death often pushes us to question why. Why him or her? Why now? Why such suffering? Why did God take away someone who was needed, cherished, and vital to the lives of others? We also question whether our long held beliefs are really true? Can we trust that they are in a “better place”? Can we really believe that we will see them again? The darkness of death sometimes challenges our faith in God, our belief in the afterlife, and our trust in the love of Jesus Christ.

There is a game that most of us play with very young children called Peek a Boo. It is an interesting game that is developmentally important. Children have a very concrete understanding of the world. What is not there, is gone, does not exist. That is why they cry when parents leave their sight. They appear to be gone forever. The game teaches them that there is permanence even without presence. That people who are hidden and gone are able to come back, that away is not the same as disappeared forever. We can trust that we will see them again. Death undermines what we learned from the game of Peek a Boo. Our loved ones are not just temporarily out of sight. They are gone and we will never see them in their physical presence again.

This is where the readings today especially the reading from the gospel of John shed some light (no pun intended). Jesus is the light that can help dispel the darkness if we are open to him. He replaces all the D words with L words, Light, Life, and Love. Through him we are born of the spirit and the light. We become children of the light. This is the real light that can lead us out of the darkness of death, depression, and despair and make sense of our loss. It is the birthright of our baptism that gives us new life and makes us children of the light. In the Old Testament the hope for the Israelites was in the triumph of the chosen people, a communal rather than a personal covenant. By becoming man and entering into our darkness, Jesus offers each of us and our departed loved ones a personal participation in the light. Each of us becomes reborn and is guaranteed eternal life with him.

Mark Oraison, a French psychiatrist and priest wrote in his book called “The Wound of Mortality” that Jesus “was clearly not trying to found a civilization that would fill man’s radical emptiness. The emphasis was altogether different. It was in the emptiness of death that he wanted to overcome (signify) and make real the inverse, a plenitude of love. There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for those he loves. This phrase tells us a lot about the man named Jesus, especially when we recall that his love excluded no one. Neither bandits nor prostitutes, neither thieves nor even those imbecilic priests and ministers who “did not know what they were doing”.

It was a love as strong as death because it has the last word – "even over death.”

This is what helps us through the loss and the mourning. His love is like the rising sun that slowly but surely brings a new day and brings us out of our grief. However, it is not always easy to feel that love. Elizabeth Kubler Ross wrote about the five stages of death and dying that most of us have heard about: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and then Acceptance. There similar stages to the mourning process. It is okay to feel all of these emotions in our mourning. Most of us here are somewhere in this process of mourning, in one or more of these stages with respect to our loss. It is important to realize, however, that sometimes these feelings can make it hard to access the experience of being children of the light and to feel Jesus’ personal love. It is okay to doubt, be angry, struggle to understand, feel depressed and sad. If fact we should take time to mourn and question. The wonderful thing about the light that John talks about in the opening of his Gospel is that it stays on burning brightly waiting for us to look up from our doubt, our anger, and our disbelief. Just like the early disciples who went to the grave of Jesus on Easter morning one day we may go to the grave and see a bright light and hear the words of the angel, “Do not be afraid”. He is not here. He has conquered darkness and has built a bridge from death to life everlasting. “In him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it.”

The message is one of hope. The message is one of trust that Jesus is no longer among the dead but has become the light of the world and through him we all have become children of the light. This message comforts me. Still I try for specificity. I try to picture what the after life would be like. I try to picture my Dad in heaven. I try to see him as a spirit. I try to imagine being together again with other relatives and friends in some celestial space. Some of you may be better at it than I but I have a very difficult time trying to be specific about what life after death would look like and even how it could be conceived. Once again I question. What is life all about and what is faith all about if all we are going to do is die? Then I remembered reading a story by one of the POWs in Vietnam who survived the ordeal. He was asked after his release how he made it and others did not. Did they just give up hope? His answer was interesting. Some did abandon hope but most had hope that they would be released. The ones who did not make it had very specific hopes – we will be freed by Christmas, it will only be a few short months until we are rescued. The ones, like him, who endured year after year of captivity and torture were those who were convinced that they would survive but did not include any specifics as to when and how. Maybe that is what I, or maybe we, need to do. Not try to figure out the specifics but simply believe that we are all children of the light and that Jesus came into the world to bring all of us out of the darkness of our sorrow and grief and into the light of his love. Our loved ones know rather than believe at this point. It is left to those of us left behind to hope, trust, and continue to love surrounded by this wonderful light. May each of us be able to open our eyes and see the light of Christ shining through the clouds of our sorrow and sense of loss! May this celebration and communion with each other sharing the body and blood of Christ bring his love and light into our hearts.