DEATH IS A LOT LIKE DYING, ISN’T IT?

This week is like weeks many of us have from time to time:  one in which several funerals are on my calendar.  One is for a saint from the church I served many years ago.  She was the organist and I imagine she is now part of the heavenly orchestra.

Attending funerals is one exercise I tend to do when I move to a new place (I’ve only moved four times in 30 years!)  It gives to me a perspective of the varying nuances of each region of the country.  Even each church in a region may have acceptable (and not acceptable) practices for funerals.  As a minister these are good things to know before leading one.

 

On an episode of the TV comedy Will and Grace, Grace goes running to Will with the dilemma of facing death.  She tells him that she’s been thinking a lot about dying because she’s afraid “that one day it may happen to her.”

Well, Grace, I’ve got good news and bad news.  The bad news is you’re right, it will happen to you one day.  The good news is you’re not alone!  One hundred percent of us are guaranteed only one thing in life: death.  Life is full of choices and most eventually have an effect on how we die, and perhaps when we die.  One important choice or lack thereof, however, determines where we end up after we “walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death.”

John Kramp, in his book Out of Their Faces and Into Their Shoes, reminds the reader that most of the evangelism methods we have learned are “based on the premise that people believed in God, worried about eternity, and lived lives filled with felt-needs.”  He goes on to say that there is a “futility of offering the answer to people who are not asking the question.”

I have been with people as one whom they loved passed on into eternity.  Many times I possessed a sense of assurance that where they now were was where all Christians aspire to be when it happens to them.  Sadly, though, I’ve been there with those who have had little to no faith journey, or I did not know them prior to the event to have foreknowledge.

 

In that episode of Will and Grace, Grace was concerned that Will, a well-to-do lawyer, had only left her a measly $1,400 in his will.  She was working on her will and wanted to leave him something, but didn’t want to do too much.  She was upset that Will was only going to leave her a small amount.  The argument waned when Will told her that was all he had fifteen years ago when he wrote the will; he had not thought about it since then.

Will is no different than any of us.  We try not to think of our own death—a very distant, future event.  Yet, like this friend of mine from long ago, death could come to any of us today.  More important than preparing for the disbursement of one’s estate (as important as that is!), is one’s preparation for life after death.  It is appointed unto everyone once to die, and then the judgment.  But, all who have placed their faith, trust and hope in Jesus Christ shall receive their heavenly reward, because He took upon Himself the judgment for our sins.

For the most part we cannot determine when or how we shall die.  But we each must decide where we will go when that moment comes.