Treasures
in Heaven
(based
on Matthew 6:19-21, 28:1-10)
Shortly after American English poet A.E.
Housman died, a collection of his poems was published under the title More
Poems. The first poem in that collection
is titled, “Easter Hymn.” At the time of
his death, Housman was not a confessing Christian but rather a seeker. Listen to his words as he contends with the
risen Christ:
If in that Syrian garden, ages slain,
You sleep, and know not you are dead in vain,
Nor even in dreams behold how dark and bright
Ascends in smoke and fire by day and night
The hate you died to quench and could but fan,
Sleep well and see no morning, son of man.
But if, the grave rent and the stone rolled by,
At the right hand of majesty on high
You sit, and sitting so remember yet
Your tears, your agony and bloody sweat,
Your cross and passion and the life you gave,
Bow hither out of heaven and see and save.
(A. E.
Housman, More Poems, 1936)
Housman was saying to Christ, “If you can’t
hear this and have no idea what has happened since you died, rest on. But if you rose to the right hand of God,
remembering your cross and passion, look down from heaven and save.” That’s the thing about this Easter business
that we celebrate each year. It gets
your attention, even the attention of those who do not believe but must somehow
contend with the story of a risen Jesus Christ.
To live beyond death has been a constant
longing of humanity for as long as people have watched others grow old and die,
for as long as we have seen others die too soon from sickness or tragedy. The longing is there not just at funerals
either. It is there when we pass through
the shadow of near death and wonder, even out loud, about how much time we have
left to live.
Rev. Nadasdy tells the story of an imaginative five-year-old
boy riding by a cemetery in the car with his dad. He spotted a freshly dug grave with a mound of
dirt over it. Amazed he shouted, “Dad! Look at that! One got away!” To which his father responded, “Well, no,
little one, that one you think just got away is just freshly put down.” As the boy grows and experiences more of the
world, he will learn what we all have learned, that dogs and goldfish, even
groups and institutions, plants and trees, grandmas and grandpas, friends and
schoolmates – that everything has an expiration date; they all die, some sooner,
some later.
Together this week, as if it were happening all
over again, we all watched Jesus die a horrific death by crucifixion. His death was made sure by a dagger to the
side and a large stone to keep his body secure from scavengers. He was
dead alright. His expiration date had
come on that Friday, on the hill of Golgatha.
Yesterday it was the day of in-between, the day where we think of him
entombed, a body with no companion on a Sabbath’s rest. It was cold and dark in the sepulcher. Sadness and shock overwhelmed his followers,
even though he had told them three times and more that he would die and rise. They hid away and waited for Sunday to tend to
his broken, lifeless body.
Then, as the writers of the New Testament tell
it, He rose to life after dying, never to die again. He rose to live forever and, in so doing,
paved the way for us to do the same. Unlike
Housman we do not have to say, “If you died to see no morning, then, Jesus,
rest in peace.” We do not even say “If
you rose, Jesus, then look down and save.” For us, it is not a questionable moment. We state it as a fact, “Christ is risen!” And because he lives, we will live also.
More than anything, Easter for us Christians
means life beyond our graves. We believe
“in the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting.” That is the center of our praise this
resurrection day. Christ has paved the
way for us to live forever in His presence.
Easter means something else, too. This Jesus who came to life is the same Jesus
who said in his Sermon on the Mount that we are to lay up treasures in heaven
which cannot be destroyed. This is the
same Jesus who taught that our hearts need to be with heaven’s treasures, not
with the treasures of this life.
In other words, in the death-shattering light
of Easter, we should be able to see clearly today what matters most in our
lives. If our lifespan now extends
beyond our expiration date, then our perspective changes markedly, doesn’t it? Now what we treasure most is not our jobs or
our homes or our retirement plans or our bank accounts. It is not the riches we endeavor to store up
in treasure chests. A recession or
depression can wipe those out in a moment. What we treasure most is not even our strong
and healthy bodies. Have you noticed
that even as hard as you might work out and eat the right thing, your body is still
deteriorating as it moves toward your own expiration date? Unfortunately, there is no changing that.
How much of our lives are spent on things that
will not last? In 2018 a report of the
self-storage industry reported that Americans now pay $38 billion a year to
have someone else store their earthly “treasures.” There are 50,000 self-storage facilities in
the United States and brand spanking new one just went up on Route 51 where the
old Tambilini’s used to be (now I sound like a real Pittsburgher). We do seem still to treasure what will not
last.
So, what does matter most?
I have up on the screen a picture of gold and
precious stones – the accumulation of Midas.
But that’s not what matters. I’ll
tell you what matters. These…..
Open up the container of
pictures. And start sharing them….
These are what matter. People…the people and relationships you have
in your life. The friends and family
that you’ve gathered around you. The
places you’ve been, the experiences you’ve had. Those relationships that
you’ve built. These are the things
that matter. They will be what you take
with you into the eternal.
And the one relationship that matters the most
of all of them, is the one that we have with Jesus Christ. He loved us enough to lay down his life for
us. He is our treasure in heaven. We serve others in Christ’s name. We invest in his purposes, his causes. And most importantly, we need to invest in all
the people that he gave his life for.
In honoring that purpose, we give ourselves to
what lasts forever.
Thanks
be to God. AMEN.
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