Death and the believer
There's a God-denying look about things in this life and world. For some humans life is one long war, from the cradle to the grave; even for some of those who are devoted followers of the Christ. Their battle is not only against the hosts of spiritual wickedness in heavenly places it is against all the things that make their lives miserable. They despise the sin that so easily shames them, the sin that sometimes makes their profession of loyalty to Christ seem like hollow words when sin swaggers in with an arrogance that rises out of its almost unvarying success in their lives. But for all their weakness, they seethe with a holy hatred against their enemy and in their true Master’s name they daily plot and work toward the complete and final overthrow of the usurper.
Along with sin, these people wrestle with pain and aches, with loneliness or bewilderment, with the tormenting loss of loved ones, with cancerous lesions or twisted limbs, with days that are too long and nights that are too short or hours of darkness that never seem to come to an end in a bright new dawn—nothing but more leaden skies. There’s pulsing pain in the head or failing kidneys, swollen knuckles and joints that burn like acid, fatigue that goes beyond description; weariness that brings with it the darkness of depression and a sense of utter uselessness and unwantedness.
But there they are, these hurting people, banded together, all in the army of the Christ, battling with enemies that surround and harry them, sometimes cutting them off from their fellows. And sometimes, separated from the main body they’re caught up in the tangle of roots and hollows, ditches, bogs and boulders; feeling their strength oozing away while their enemies fight on tirelessly.
But one day (as a recent movie presented it), in the middle of what seems to be unending conflict, unexpectedly they'll find themselves completely alone, and filled with glad wonder as they walk in glorious sunshine through fields of waist-high, waving grain. They haven’t a pain or ache, not a hint of care as they walk toward people on a beautiful green hill, people with glory-filled faces, people whose faces they begin to recognize, people who are excited to see them, who welcome them back into their long lost and precious company, people they had missed for so very long. No more worries about dying because they’ve already done it—and they’ve entered paradise with all its glory, joy-filled reunions and abundant life.
Didn’t a British prime-minister, Lloyd George, many years ago, tell of the death of a Welsh miner who’d had a hard life of it, and when his friends wanted to bury him in the churchyard, they had a difficult time finding space for the grave. In the end, between the towering monuments that pressed all around it, they dug a narrow, unbricked slit in the ground, barely wide enough, and laid him to rest in it. Like thousands before him he had spent his years since boyhood in the dark, cramped, tunnels; lying flat and burrowing into the coal-face, breathing in dust and dampness, all to provide for the family. Aged before his time he died long before he was old. The friend standing over the grave, said: "Well, Davie, my boy, you've had a narrow time right through life, and you have a very narrow place in death, I’ll tell you; but never you mind, old friend, I can see a day dawning for you, when you will rise out of that narrow bed, and find plenty of room at the last. Ah! I can see it coming! I can see the day of the resurrection! I can see the dawn of immortality! There will be room, room— room, even for the poor!" And wouldn’t that be heaven for all those whose lives have been cramped and stifling? Room! Room to breathe, room to run, room to dance. Wide open spaces where a man can fill his lungs with clean air and sing and shout in the light of day and hear the echo of his joy echoing off mountains and across valleys from which the damp and the choking dust have been forever banished!
So your loved one has finished the course and you miss her beyond words. I can only guess at your devastation but I know you must, at the same time, be rejoicing for her in Christ. The enemies are past, the pain’s gone, the fears and doubts have been swallowed up, the bewilderment's a thing of former days. How could you not—even in your own pain—how could you not rejoice for her?
How joyful she must be now. She who never sought the limelight is now speechless with the pleasure she must be experiencing in the presence of her Lord and all those "celebrities" we’ve known from the Story down the years. What a crowd of questions must now be answered for her while we wrinkle our brows in digging and searching. How thrilled she must be for you, now knowing what’s ahead for you. You whom she has loved so long. "Oh, won’t he just love all this," she’ll be saying to herself. Now knowing the depths of pleasure and peace, now knowing the limitless potential for life that we can’t know on this side of death, she can hardly wait for you to make the transition so you too will experience this overflowing, teeming, life-filled life.
So there’ll be no faith crisis for you in your awful loss. The Story you’ve believed and sung and spoken about for so long and so faithfully is too much a part of you for that. You have been an inspiration all your life and you’ll be even more of an assurance and inspiration when people see your response to this trial that has now come on you.
©2004 Jim McGuiggan. All materials are free to be copied and used as long as money is not being made.
Many thanks to brother Ed Healy, for allowing me to post from his website, the abiding word.com.
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