thoughts on life (and death) . . .

This weekend, a very dear man from back home left us for a better land. His passing was very sudden and unexpected, and our hearts are torn by this awful loss. Just a sunny summer day with his wife and two precious children. Surfing on the beach when he suddenly suffered a brain aneurysm.

Hark, I hear the harps eternal

Ringing on the farther shore,

As I near those swollen waters,

With their deep and solemn roar.

(We sang this hymn in church this morning, and I couldn't help but think how appropriate it was as a tribute to the man whose final conscious moments were spent among the literal waves of this world.)

Immediately unconscious, he was gone by the next morning. And how do we grapple with this kind of shock?

And my soul tho’ stained with sorrow,

Fading as the light of day,

Passes swiftly o’er those waters

To that city far away.

Maybe it's just because I'm young and inexperienced that this hit me so hard. Of course there's a biblical hope and joy in the believer's death. But I always justified death because I knew it was coming. It's been ok for the sick and elderly to die because it's expected--because you know they're much better off in that happy land.

But what can be happy about a man your dad's age who leaves an absolutely beautiful family behind? This was one of the men whose smiles I grew up on. His joy and his precious family were as much pillars in the church as the Sunday morning sermon. And it's all gone just like that?

Things like this can have an incredibly sobering effect. No longer is it the "one-days" or "what-ifs" anymore but the very real and present reality of death that stares you in the face. It's a sobering wake up call for the complacent Christian; enough to shock the most lukewarm believer into a temporary fervency.

I was talking with a dear friend this afternoon, and we grappled with a lot of these issues together. She too had just lost someone dear to her. We asked what it meant to live each day as if it were our last--asked whether that type of expectancy could really be sustained over time?One thing though, is clear. Our final destination is heaven, and our earthly purposes must be sanctified by the hope of that day. Of course we're not supposed to walk around with a morbid fear of death--God forbid! Instead, as we fix our eyes on Jesus, let us ask:

Mighty Jesus, bear us over,

There to kneel before Thy throne.

May we join the saints forever

Praising Thee, and Thee alone.

Death is an utterly awful, painful thing. Our hearts are broken and the tears are not dry today. But there will be one day when we are all united before the throne of the One who could not be stopped by the throes of death and hell. Mr. Napolitano, we can't wait to see you again on that day, singing,

Hallelujah, hallelujah,

Hallelujah, praise the Lamb.

Hallelujah, hallelujah,

Glory to the Great I Am!