Death Grip

Or...The Grip of Love!

Today, on this holiest of holy days, we start where all good sermons should begin or end or find their way to somehow—with a text from Holy Scripture:

Now I declare to you, brothers, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.

Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed— in an instant, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For the perishable must be clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality.

When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come to pass: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.”

“Where, O Death, is your sting?

Where, O Grave, is your victory?”

The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!

Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast and immovable. Always excel in the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.
–1 Corinthians 15:50-58

This is, of course, a classic Easter Sunday text. How often have we heard a preacher eloquently bellow while shaking his fist in the face of Evil, “O, Death! Where is thy sting! O Grave, where is thy victory!”

I can still feel the intensity of it all. I was a boy preacher, enamored of the powerful and eloquent men of God who came through our town and filled the pulpit in one revival service or another. They thundered these words and I imagined Satan shivering and shrinking into the shadows. I imagined the earth rumbling and quaking and the mighty stone that sealed Jesus’ tomb splitting in two.

But how many of us have paused to consider that Paul is quoting something already written somewhere else, some established saying.

He says, “It is written…”

But who wrote it? When? Where?

This might be a good time to pause this sermon and grab your Bible. (Isn’t that awesome? You can pause it, get your Bible, and come back to it. Ah, the wonders of technology!)

Now, turn in your Bible to the Old Testament book of Hosea. It is tucked right in after the book of Daniel. Hosea represents the beginning of a segment of Scripture called the minor prophets. These prophets were not minor in importance; they just wrote shorter books.

Now, read this passage with me…

I will ransom them from the power of the Grave;
I will redeem them from Death.
Where, O Death, are your plagues?
Where, O Grave, is your sting?
Hosea 13:14

So, Paul was quoting Hosea!

For context, understand that Hosea was writing in the 8th century BC; that is, 800 years before Christ.

This raises the issue of “prophecy.”

What is prophecy? Well, strictly speaking it is “the writing of history before it occurs.”

Part One: Hosea’s Ho, or the Broken-Hearted Preacher

So, Hosea is a prophet, a minister of the Most High, the God of Israel. He is also a troubled and tragic figure because he has the misfortune of being in love with and married to a serial cheater, an unfaithful wife. Her name is Gomer. Her name means “to come to an end,” and is interpreted as “fulfillment.” She was meant to be that, to fulfill Hosea’s life, to be his partner, his person.

She failed miserably—and more than once. Gomer was a woman of ill repute when Hosea married her. He was not married under false pretenses. And God was in it, or even behind it, which is hard to get your brain around…

This is the word of the LORD that came to Hosea son of Beeri in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and of Jeroboam son of Jehoash, king of Israel.

When the LORD first spoke through Hosea, He told him, “Go, take a prostitute as your wife and have children of adultery, because this land is flagrantly prostituting itself by departing from the LORD.”
Hosea 1:1,2

Was God instructing Hosea against his will? Or was God saying, “I see you have fallen for this woman, Gomer. She is a rotten apple, but you go ahead and make her your wife. See if you can make an honest woman of her.”

It looks like all is going well. She marries him, gives him a son, then a daughter, then another son. Marital bliss appears to be in the cards for Hosea!

All the while, God is filling Hosea in on what is going to happen with Israel as they grow, rebel, repent, return, rebel, etc.

God likens Israel to an adulteress whore. That is putting it bluntly, but that is also the blunt picture God paints for Hosea.

He sums it up for Hosea in this bit of poetic verse:

I will punish her for the days of the Baals
when she burned incense to them,
when she adorned herself with rings and jewelry,
and went after her lovers.
But Me she forgot…
Hosea 2:13

Part Two: Whoa, Ho! Or, God’s Redemptive Love

God sent Hosea again and again to recover and restore his unfaithful wife over the years. He would not allow Hosea to give up and lick his wounds. He would not allow him to give up on Gomer, that broken woman.

Then the LORD said to me, “Go show love to your wife again, though she is loved by another and is an adulteress. Love her as the LORD loves the Israelites, though they turn to other gods and love to offer raisin cakes to idols.”

So I bought her for fifteen shekels of silver and a homer and a lethech of barley. Then I said to her, “You must live with me for many days; you must not be promiscuous or belong to another, and I will do the same for you.”
Hosea 3:1,2

You want to talk about tenacious love? Hosea has to pay to get his wife back. He has to buy her freedom from her pimp. Whew! Man. That’s tough.

God wouldn’t let Hosea give up on Gomer and He would never give up on Israel, either.

Hosea records God’s words of restoration like this, again as poetic verse:

Therefore, behold, I will allure her
and lead her to the wilderness,
and speak to her tenderly.

There I will give back her vineyards
and make the Valley of Achor
into a gateway of hope.
There she will respond as she did
in the days of her youth,
as in the day she came up out of Egypt.

In that day,”
declares the LORD,
“you will call Me ‘my Husband,’
and no longer call Me ‘my Master.’

For I will remove from her lips the names of the Baals;
no longer will their names be invoked.

On that day I will make a covenant for them
with the beasts of the field and the birds of the air
and the creatures that crawl on the ground.
And I will abolish bow and sword
and battle in the land,
and will make them lie down in safety.

So I will betroth you to Me forever;
I will betroth you in righteousness and justice,
in loving devotion and compassion.
And I will betroth you in faithfulness,
and you will know the LORD.”

“On that day I will respond—”
declares the LORD—
“I will respond to the heavens,
and they will respond to the earth.

And the earth will respond to the grain,
to the new wine and oil,
and they will respond to Jezreel.

And I will sow her as My own in the land,
and I will have compassion on ‘No Compassion.’
I will say to those called ‘Not My People,’
‘You are My people,’
and they will say,
‘You are my God.’”
Hosea 2:14–23

Wow! Such stunning imagery! Such beautiful language.

The Valley of Achor is a troublesome place to Israel. It was there that Achan, the traitor to Joshua and to God was executed. “Achor” means “deep trouble” or “taboo.” It is the kind of place no one talks about, except in whispers. But God says to get ready because when His mercy flows and His grace restores, even Achor will be a gateway of hope.

This is the transformative power of God’s amazing grace. It is not the power of an Alcoholics Anonymous 12-step, pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps human effort and willpower program. It is the power of relentless, divine grace, the kind that does not wilt even in the face of rebellion. It is the hug of the mother who won’t let go of the rebellious son, who embraces him until his stubborn will melts and he, in tears, repents—love that breaks through the iron-barred prisons of hatred and human willfulness, love that crushes spiritual evil to cosmic powder, love that tramples unholy kingdoms to smithereens to rescue the one loved.

Part Three: This is the Power of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ!

We sing in our churches songs like, “Power in the Blood.”

But there is only power in the blood because there is no body in the tomb. There is no redemption in the shed blood of the dead. Redemption requires resurrection! Jesus must defeat the final enemy to fully free us from the chains of sin and the curse of death.

Death had a grip on humanity—a choke-hold that said, “It is appointed unto humans once to die. And after this, the judgment.”

What kind of life is that? Where is the hope? Where is the reason for life beyond the very short time we have on this dust ball? What despair! What a meager little existence, even if you live a life of consequence and accomplishment, you are just a blip on the screen of time, just a vapor. You are here for a moment and gone forever after that. What is that all about?

But God! But Jesus! But Easter! But an empty tomb! But a risen Lord!

Death has lost its grip and Paul and Hosea taunt it, “Hey, Death! Where is your sting? Hey grave, where is your finality, your victory?”

Ha! Jesus pulled the stinger out of Death and snatched the trophy from the grave. Easter is the day that shouts, “Take that, you miserable, evil, Satanic influences. Take that, you premature celebrants. Take that, you enemies of the Most High God. Take that, Enemies of my soul!”

We have let the great apostle close each of these sermons and this one will be no different. We started with Paul’s great declaration of victory over death and the grave, which he borrowed from the embattled prophet of old, the man who redeemed one woman and illustrated God’s sacrifice to redeem his people.

So, Paul, sir, if you would, please, take us home.

What then shall we say? Shall we continue in sin so that grace may increase? Certainly not! How can we who died to sin live in it any longer? Or aren’t you aware that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? We were therefore buried with Him through baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may walk in newness of life.

For if we have been united with Him like this in His death, we will certainly also be united with Him in His resurrection. We know that our old self was crucified with Him so that the body of sin might be rendered powerless, that we should no longer be slaves to sin. For anyone who has died has been freed from sin.

Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with Him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, He cannot die again; death no longer has dominion over Him. The death He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life He lives, He lives to God. So you too must count yourselves dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its desires. Do not present the parts of your body to sin as instruments of wickedness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and present the parts of your body to Him as instruments of righteousness. For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace.

What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law, but under grace? Certainly not! Do you not know that when you offer yourselves as obedient slaves, you are slaves to the one you obey, whether you are slaves to sin leading to death, or to obedience leading to righteousness? But thanks be to God that, though you once were slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were committed. You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.

I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. Just as you used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to impurity and to escalating wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to righteousness leading to holiness.

For when you were slaves to sin, you were free of obligation to righteousness. What fruit did you reap at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? The outcome of those things is death. But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the fruit you reap leads to holiness, and the outcome is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 6

Amen! Go to Hell, Satan. Jesus lives.

My name is Gene. Some call me Preacher. And this is Sunday School.