Easter, 2000

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Easter, 2000

By Charles Rush

April 23, 2000

ny of you know that I have been participating in a yearlong discussion with Ministers, Theologians, and Physicist's on The End of the World and the Ends of God. There is now a book out by that title and it contains many of the lectures by the folks in this group. John Polkinghorne, who teaches Mathematical Physics at Cambridge University, says that after a long review of the evidence for the life cycle of the universe, he is filled with despair.

In the first place, life on our planet is limited. Our sun has been in existence for about 5 billion years. Our earth itself is about 4.8 billion years old. The sun will burn hydrogen in its core and stay more or less as it is for another 5 billion years. Once core hydrogen burning ceases, (once all the hydrogen in the sun's core has been burnt to helium), the sun will begin to burn the hydrogen in the shell around the core. The core will then contract and rise in temperature, and the hydrogen burning shell will continue to eat outwards. The increased luminosity and inner temperature will cause the outer atmosphere of the sun to expand and cool so that it becomes a red giant. Here's where we come in and the news is not good. The red-giant will expand and envelop the inner planets, Mercury and Venus, at least. Eventually it will either envelop or nearly envelop Earth -- either way destroying all life on the planet, if not the planet itself By the way, the red-giant will be 2,000 times more luminous than the present Sun, even though its outer temperature will be cooler. The future looks very good for sunglasses and sunscreen. Too bad there won't be anyone around to buy them. Don't get too comfortable, about 4.5 billion years from now, we are going to be looking for new real estate somewhere in the Vega quadrant.

But wait, there's more. And it too does not look promising. At present physicists are divided on the exact the future evolution of the universe. On a cosmic scale, the history of the universe is a gigantic tug-of-war between the expansive force of the big bang, drifting the galaxies apart, and the contractive force of gravity, pulling them together. These two effects are so evenly balanced that we cannot tell which will win. Accordingly, two alternative scenarios must be considered. If expansion prevails, the galaxies now receding from each other will continue to do so forever. Within each galaxy, gravity will bring about condensation into enormous black holes, which will eventually decay into low-grade radiation through a variety of possible physical processes. On this scenario, the universe ends in a whimper. It also gets a lot colder towards the very end since we are drifting apart.

If, on the other hand, gravity prevails, the present expansion of the galaxies will be halted and reversed. What began with the big bang will end in the big crunch, as the whole universe collapses back into a singular cosmic melting pot. On this scenario, it gets increasingly warmer towards the end and our sense of time would speed up as well. I believe it was Steven Weinberg, in one of his books, who raised the question as to whether time would actually reverse itself in this collapse, a concept which is literally mind-boggling when you start to consider it seriously.

The good news is that this is not happening next week. We are talking here in terms of tens of billions of years. However, neither of these are very cheery prospects. And the question is this, is there any reason for hope? Perhaps, cosmologically speaking, our universe "is just a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing," as Shakespeare had one of his characters remark. In that case, the philosopher (and old crank) Bertrand Russell is right. He said, "Only within the scaffold of these truths, only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul's habitation henceforth be built."

The first time I heard this presentation, one of the panel leaders asked me for my reaction as a Minister. I said one word. "Mañana". We have plenty of time between now and then. It's someone else's problem. You are looking at a man who has real trouble keeping up with his dry cleaning, let alone the math that does the calculations for quantam mechanics.

But seriously, I think Professor Polkinghorne makes a good connection. He said, "I do not think that the eventual futility of the universe, over a timescale of tens of billions of years, is very different in the theological problems that it poses, from the eventual futility of ourselves, over a timescale of tens of years. Cosmic death and human death pose equivalent questions of what is God's intention for his creation. What is at issue is the faithfulness of God, the everlasting seriousness with which he regards his creatures". ¹

What we celebrate at Easter is God's faithfulness to us. Jesus showed us, by what he taught and the way that he lived and died, that the force that created our universe will bring it to a joyous fulfillment. I love the line in the Episcopal Prayer Book that says "As for me, I know that my Redeemer lives ... I shall see God. I myself shall see, and my eyes behold him who is my friend and not a stranger."

That is my profound hope and I have led a relatively charmed life. But how much more important that is for people who have endured tragedy, ignominious suffering, degrading oppression, whose lives were cut short by the accidents of war, the ravages of disease. This world is inexact in its distribution of rewards and tragedies, sometimes unjust, sometimes down right arbitrary. The profound hope of the scripture is that God will somehow redeem and complete that which was broken and destroyed in this life. Whatever else we must consider about the after-life, and that is as complex as the universe itself, this must be addressed.

What unexpected hopeful news the resurrection was when it happened. The gospels repeatedly develop a theme, particularly in Matthew, that says something like Jesus did this in order to fulfill the scriptures. They are referring to the prophets, most of the time Isaiah. Upon careful inspection, this approach seems a little forced, precisely because it is. There were no expectations that the Messiah would be resurrected. There were no expectations that the Messiah would be anything other than an ordinary man, except that he would be truly righteous, genuinely holy. Whatever happened in the resurrection was completely unexpected, completely unanticipated. The disciples had some transcendent experience of God that left them in awe. By the way, it was not unambiguous either. I like one of the last lines in Matthew. After describing a experience of the risen Jesus, Matthew says, "but some doubted."

Whatever it was, it changed the lives of this group of disciples and filled them with such courage and hope that they pledged the rest of their lives to forming communities to live out the way of Jesus and they were so thorough that today a quarter of the world's population will gather and celebrate and commit their lives again to the way of Jesus.

The hope that the disciples experienced came from outside their expectations, outside what they brought to the table. Profound hope often comes to us that way. In Saving Private Ryan , a platoon of American soldiers find themselves on a dare-devil mission far behind enemy lines. They are trying to avoid detection but they have been found. The Germans have overwhelming force. They are way outnumbered. The battle is loud, intense. They are afraid. Without ever speaking a word to each other, you could see in their faces that resignation that comes over you in despair when you realize that there is no way out of defeat and death. At just that moment of resignation, American planes fly overhead, completely unexpected. They are not out of the battle, but unbelievable joy and courage fill all the men.

Elvira Clemmons was watching her husband cut wood with a circular blade on the front of his tractor when the blade spun off. In a second it ran all the way up his leg, chest, and head, cut him open. That 90 pound woman picked up that man, put him on the front of her truck and started driving across a dirt road as fast as she could. It was a long way to a paved road, and dozens of miles to the nearest town. She started to cry as she drove. She knew there was just no way she could save her husband and she loved that man like life itself. Just as she gets to the macadam road another car drives by. She rarely sees another car on that road. The car stops. The man gets out. He is a doctor. He happens to have his bag with him. He starts working while she drives to the nearest phone. They medi-vaced that man out of there with only a pint of blood left in him by the time he got to the ER but he lived. She shows up at the ER, after driving for a couple of hours with nothing but her thoughts and fears and is told that he will be okay, after several hundred stitches are finished, she collapses on the floor, crying and laughing and crying some more. Incredible, life affirming hope.

It was incredible hope that filled the Jews after they were released from slavery in Egypt and they were crossing the Sinai. The freedom they thought they would never know was suddenly upon them, out of the blue.

That is what those women experienced that morning when they went to anoint Jesus tomb. They were in grief about the death of Jesus. They were in despair that the Romans were still in power and that goodness was crushed by loveless power again. I presume they were thinking something like "does evil always have to triumph?" "Will the world be forever the same?" It is an awful spiritual place to be.

Something happened. It filled them with hope and joy. They couldn't describe it directly so what we have is a number of stock images drawn from apocalyptic writing that can only allude to the fullness of the experience. But they came away with confidence that God was faithful, that God is going to take care of it, that at the end of the world we shall meet God who is our friend and not a stranger. Even death, we need not fear. Even death is not ultimate. God is ultimate.

So what happens when we die? How does it all end? We don't get to know until we get there. But the witness of these first disciples tells us that it is good and all will be well. Interestingly, the bible doesn't spend much time speculating on the ultimate end, although it is an interesting question.

No the focus comes back to what is immediately at hand- love, compassion, community, mercy, forgiveness. If the end is good, don't give up on love and goodness in the here and now. If it is not triumphing, don't give up. Love and goodness are our ultimate ends. We will all be healed and transformed by God's love, ultimately. So don't be afraid to grow in it here and now. Be like Jesus. I think we can get that, even if the cosmic speculation is a little over our heads.

Tony Soprano, the head of the Mafia in New Jersey on HBO's hit television show, is seeing a psychiatrist for anxiety attacks. He has the normal stresses that go with his job- worrying about laundering money, extortion, covering up murder, avoiding the FBI. Plus, he just put his mother in a nursing home and she is angry about that and is making him miserable with guilt every time she sees him. His wife is unfulfilled and frustrated. So she is buying everything she sees, redecorating every room in her house. And his teenage daughter is being a typical teenager- angry at her mother and embarrassed about her father's line of work. The psychiatrist actually does counseling and they talk about these issues. Tony finds himself thinking about his counselor during the day. She is in his dreams. She is in his sexual fantasies. He can buy any call girl in New York but he only wants his psychiatrist. He even tries to kiss her during one of their sessions. He is becoming obsessed with this woman.

The psychiatrist tells him. "Tony, you want to know why you are dreaming about me? I'm the only woman in your life that is healing you."

Tony goes home, tells his wife. She is outraged, threatened, jealous, afraid. She stays angry for a week. One night, they are lying in bed, she turns to him and says, "I'm over the psychiatrist thing. I've been thinking about it. Tony, I want to be that woman in your life. I want to heal you."

Maybe this cosmic speculation about the beginning and ending of the world is over your head, like it is over mine. But you can get this piece of the puzzle. As you celebrate with your family this weekend, remember that life is precious, and you are blessed, despite all the problems. Be a healer for someone in your life.

Amen.

¹Polkinghorne, John. The Faith of a Physicist, (Fortress Press: 1996), p. 162,163.