Cemetery time with a friend
I cried in worship today. It happens sometime and is a good thing. Today it was during the newish song from Psalm 103. Even before we sang out the benefits of the Lord, before the line about saving us from the grave, I was crying.
I spent a couple of hours with a friend of mine on Thursday. He lives south of Atlanta so we decided to drive until we met ... we ended up in College Park. It was nice day, so I suggested that we find a tree in the graveyard to sit under. We did. The last time I saw him, was at his father's funeral. His dad died at 54. This was his first April 28th without him. He taught his first class at a local College (his first class as a professor) and he couldn't tell his dad about it. He hates it and there is a lot of pain on his shoulders.
I was crying because I was thinking about the grave and the cemetery and my friend. I couldn't stop crying, but I could sing. Bless his name, bless his name, bless his holy name.
After the service I prayed with two different people who have mothers or grandmothers who have just been diagnosed with cancer. I am glad I cried during worship. I am glad that it hurts me to know that death is close. I am glad that I don't just repeat those words without a real dead father in my mind. We believe that death is more than biological, but spiritual and therefore that we can partake of it while breathing, or be free of it while lying in the ground. We believe in "the resurrection of the dead and life everlasting." We believe that in the darkest patches, bones covered not with skin, but with earth ... can become bright, that a living presence will rise as our Lord Jesus did that first Resurrection day.
But my friend has a finality to face. A door has closed that will not open until the Lord returns. Maybe that is why the early Christians prayed for him to come quickly. Maybe John wanted to see his Lord again and his brothers and sisters whom had passed into the earth. The pain was thick enough to break my heart. My friend is suffering.
There was something else that happened during our time in the cemetery. His presence became bright and real to me. His father was gone and I was there listening and internally mourning with him ... but my friend was alive. My friend was a living soul who spoke and reached out, who loved me and I loved him. My friend is a husband and a pastor and a father. And all this reality was bright to my eyes. So bright it stayed with me. Every brush with death livens life somehow. Every nearness to death is like a darkened day when all the colors of leaf and blade and bark glow and shout to be noticed and valued and celebrated.
Maybe there is something about our sinful state that cannot bear eternity ... that is constantly shelling up with activity and tasks so as to miss all the livingness around us. Maybe its so bad that we need death to remain aware of the preciousness of life ... the preciousness of a moment in time. To take a reckoning of our deeds and our doings and our hearts. Christ is our eternal King and he became flesh to save us from the grave. He is the Good Shepherd as Kris preached it who will lay down his life to defend us from the preditor. The wolf is not a wolf, but Death in wolves clothing. He bares his teeth and would snatch and scatter us, would seize and harden us to be living dead, but CHRIST calls to us to follow him.
Thank you God. Blessed is He. You are our eternal king. Thank you for my friend and his life. Thank you for all the living around me. Open my eyes to what is bright and keep me from closing tight these windows of my soul.
I spent a couple of hours with a friend of mine on Thursday. He lives south of Atlanta so we decided to drive until we met ... we ended up in College Park. It was nice day, so I suggested that we find a tree in the graveyard to sit under. We did. The last time I saw him, was at his father's funeral. His dad died at 54. This was his first April 28th without him. He taught his first class at a local College (his first class as a professor) and he couldn't tell his dad about it. He hates it and there is a lot of pain on his shoulders.
I was crying because I was thinking about the grave and the cemetery and my friend. I couldn't stop crying, but I could sing. Bless his name, bless his name, bless his holy name.
After the service I prayed with two different people who have mothers or grandmothers who have just been diagnosed with cancer. I am glad I cried during worship. I am glad that it hurts me to know that death is close. I am glad that I don't just repeat those words without a real dead father in my mind. We believe that death is more than biological, but spiritual and therefore that we can partake of it while breathing, or be free of it while lying in the ground. We believe in "the resurrection of the dead and life everlasting." We believe that in the darkest patches, bones covered not with skin, but with earth ... can become bright, that a living presence will rise as our Lord Jesus did that first Resurrection day.
But my friend has a finality to face. A door has closed that will not open until the Lord returns. Maybe that is why the early Christians prayed for him to come quickly. Maybe John wanted to see his Lord again and his brothers and sisters whom had passed into the earth. The pain was thick enough to break my heart. My friend is suffering.
There was something else that happened during our time in the cemetery. His presence became bright and real to me. His father was gone and I was there listening and internally mourning with him ... but my friend was alive. My friend was a living soul who spoke and reached out, who loved me and I loved him. My friend is a husband and a pastor and a father. And all this reality was bright to my eyes. So bright it stayed with me. Every brush with death livens life somehow. Every nearness to death is like a darkened day when all the colors of leaf and blade and bark glow and shout to be noticed and valued and celebrated.
Maybe there is something about our sinful state that cannot bear eternity ... that is constantly shelling up with activity and tasks so as to miss all the livingness around us. Maybe its so bad that we need death to remain aware of the preciousness of life ... the preciousness of a moment in time. To take a reckoning of our deeds and our doings and our hearts. Christ is our eternal King and he became flesh to save us from the grave. He is the Good Shepherd as Kris preached it who will lay down his life to defend us from the preditor. The wolf is not a wolf, but Death in wolves clothing. He bares his teeth and would snatch and scatter us, would seize and harden us to be living dead, but CHRIST calls to us to follow him.
Thank you God. Blessed is He. You are our eternal king. Thank you for my friend and his life. Thank you for all the living around me. Open my eyes to what is bright and keep me from closing tight these windows of my soul.
Comments
Well spoken.
Thank you.