Struck down, but not destroyed

 Listen to sermon podcast from Church of the Ascension; text below:

This past week, in Telluride, Colorado, a woman named Charlotte Fox died. She died after an apparent fall at her home. She was 61 years old.

Falling is the leading cause of injury and death among older Americans. Even for younger people, falling is one of the leading causes of injury and death in the home.

But there is more to Charlotte Fox’s story.

The woman who died this past week in Colorado from a fall in her home had once climbed Mount Everest. When she reached the summit of Mount Everest in 1996, Ms. Fox became the first American woman to climb three mountains at altitudes of 8,000 meters or higher. Her ascent of Mount Everest turned tragic when 8 other climbers were killed during the descent. That tragedy was chronicled in Jon Krakauer’s book, Into Thin Air.

How can this be? How can a person who climbs the toughest mountains in the world be shown to be quite mortal while descending a staircase at home? She survived a blizzard while on the edge of Everest. The blizzard could not do what a staircase in Ms. Fox’s own home could do. To climb Everest is to achieve something superhuman. To die because of an accident in your home is to show just how human and frail and finite all of us are, despite our lofty resumes.

When St. Paul is writing to the believers in Corinth, he is not ascending or descending from some lofty vantage point well above them. When St. Paul is writing in defense of his credentials as an apostle, he is writing as one finite and frail person to a community of the finite and frail.

Paul writes to Corinth, not intending to boast of himself. He writes to boast and proclaim of the power of God, the power of the Good News, the power of the Crucified and Raised Jesus. The power that cannot be overcome is a power that comes from the holy work of the Christ. Paul, finite and frail, simply tells the story about such a power.

This story of Jesus is not simply on Paul’s lips but also inside of him. The story of Jesus is the kind of story that is not satisfied simply to be heard. The real power of the story is when the story goes deep into you, lodging in the marrow and the bone, lodging in the heart and the mind. That story of Jesus is inside of Paul.

It is that story that Paul is proclaiming as he travels throughout the world as he knows it. As people encounter Paul, they see a finite and frail man. But the good news which he shares is a story of tremendous power, a power that can change the world, a power that reconcile all things, fill all things and accomplish all things. Paul cannot do that. But the story to which he is called to share can do those things.

When Charlotte Fox ascended Mount Everest and then survived a blizzard at the top of the world while descending, it would have been tempting to say she was something other than human. Surely, she must be made out of something other than flesh and blood. Once you have climbed Everest, once you have survived a blizzard at the top of the world, would you have to ever bother again with the annual checkup? Once you have accomplished all that she did, would you still have to look both ways before crossing the street?

When you and I read the New Testament, so much of what we read comes from the letters that Paul wrote to early Christians, mostly to early Christians dealing with some kind of conflict and disagreement. Imagine that. Imagine your correspondence, your inspired advice and admonitions somehow ending up as Holy Writ.

Wouldn’t that mean St. Paul then possesses some kind of strength or knowledge or ability that separates him from us? You and I are imperfect and we know that all too well. But St. Paul wrote significant portions of the New Testament.

Yet consider what he wrote. He wrote at length about his own interior struggles and battles. He tells us that he does things that he wishes he would not do and does not do things that he wishes he would. St. Paul sounds like the patron saint of AA.

St. Paul gives us powerful images in reflecting on the Church as the Body of Christ and he writes movingly about how the Body of Christ is to function and work, over time growing more graceful and able in its daily life together.

Yet, St. Paul’s own body was afflicted. He writes of his “thorn in the flesh,” what many consider to be some kind of ailment, possibly physical, that harmed Paul regardless of his prayers to God to be healed of the thorn.

This morning, we have heard the ancient wisdom of the 139^th Psalm. It reminds us that God knows us because God has made us, our bodies, and God takes delights in our bodies even though our bodies are imperfect. The Psalmist declares that we are marvelously made and for that the writer of the psalm gives thanks.

Yet, even when we confess a belief that God is the creator of us human creatures, we come to realize that these bodies of ours can be afflicted and perplexed, persecuted and struck down. Yet, Paul keeps declaring that even in these clay jars that we call our bodies, we possess a treasure.

In the Ascension, Christ Jesus, whose body was tortured on the cross and whose body was placed in the tomb, that very body ascends to God and forevermore complete holiness and a tortured and wounded body are in relationship.

Ascension is your name. This is the parish of the Ascension. So, in that story, we know it to be a story of cosmic glory, of a Christ that now belongs to all and has not abandoned us but rather is with all of us through the Spirit that continually renews us.

But that very Jesus possessed a body that was reviled and wounded and crucified, spat upon and humiliated. Yet, it is that very body that ascended. It is that very body that we believe gives our bodies the strength to believe the good news, to receive the grace of God’s love and to proclaim that news and share that grace.

In Paul’s letter to the church in Corinth, he testifies that he has been struck down, but not destroyed. Now, to be honest, struck down and destroyed seem awfully close to each other in my thinking. But Paul makes a distinction.

It is the kind of distinction we make when we consider Jesus on the cross. On the cross, as he died, the Christ knew suffering and humiliation and death. He was struck down.

Yet, we proclaim that the body struck down on the cross has not been destroyed but made alive and new in the Resurrection.

This morning, when we baptize John Gregory Lacy, we will declare the story of Jesus now makes a claim on John, on his very life, on his very body. We will baptize him with water, anoint him with oil and will invite the death of Jesus to touch the very life of this new child.

As John grows, we will learn more about his body. We will find out if he is to be as tall as his parents. Over time, the community of the baptized here at Ascension will come to know John, to recognize him in his body, his gifts, his shortcomings, his triumphs, his losses. We will pray that humility surrounds him always, whether in joyful time or hurt. In ascending and descending, the death of Jesus will remain marked on John’s life.

The story of Jesus is a story that tells us God took up complete residence in the person of Jesus, both human and divine. In his body, we have come to know the fullness of God’s power and grace and mercy and truth and love and forgiveness and reconciliation. We have learned all this through his body.

Like Paul, we too follow Jesus in our bodies, realizing they are both marvelous and imperfect, gifts given to us even as they also fail us. It is in these clay jars that we also possess a treasure.

That treasure is the reconciling story of Christ Jesus. In our bodies, afflicted and perplexed, the death and life of Jesus is found in us, marked on us.

We need each other in order to be the Body of Christ. And we need our own bodies in order to fully understand how we carry the grace of God in us, with us. There is a light that shines in you. That light is the light of Christ, who ascended to God, yet remains in you, in your marvelously made body.

That body is able to receive the grace of God in communion. That body is also able to hurt others, so that body needs to be able to seek forgiveness. That body will, at some point, not simply know the death of Jesus in your life, but will know its own death, its own last day. But even as we descend towards our death, the Church will say again that life has changed, not ended.

So, even in the darkness of death, a light will shine. A light will shine in your body.

May the soul of Ms. Fox rest in peace and rise in glory. AMEN.