Discovering the Real Jesus in Monroe

(Warren Dunes State Park)

One day I am going to die. And, all the ones I love in this life will die, too. My wife, my children, my friends, my enemies – all will be gone. And you won’t be here, either. That’s a fact that is more certain than taxes. Think about this – it can be good for you.

I’m a pastor. One of the things I do is funerals. I like doing funerals. I don’t like death. I didn’t like losing my father and mother and my son David who died years ago. But I do like having an opportunity to talk about death. At a funeral I see a lot of people who have faith in God and a lot of people who have no faith in God. In that way they are different. But when it comes to death they are all the same.

Thinking and talking about death makes me feel very intense. I hate death. I did the funerals of both my mom and dad. And I cried. I wept as I held my son David in my arms. I even cried when I buried our 19-year-old cat a few years ago. I hate death. Death is an enemy. I want to see death defeated. Jesus hated death, too. When Mary came to him and told him about the death of Lazarus, Luke 11:35 says, succinctly, “Jesus wept.”

I believe that to understand the answer to “What will happen after I die?” gives you the answer to “What is the meaning of this life?” (The German philosopher Martin Heidegger talks about this in his very abstract writings.) In this regard, I find the Christian answer very hopeful. It’s this:

1. God is your Creator. You have been created by God and in the image of God.
2. God’s purpose for you is not death, but life in relationship to Him.
3. God has come to us in the form of humanity; viz., in his Son Jesus. Instead of us trying to figure out God, God has us figured out.
4. In Jesus was life. (John Chapter 1) Jesus was “the light of life.” (John Chapter [NOTE: As I have been trying to write John Chapter “Eight” by just using the number “eight,” I keep getting a smiley face when I publish it. Hmmm….)
5. Jesus conquered death in his resurrection. Theologians call the resurrection of Jesus a “proleptic” event; viz., an event that showed us the future in the present. The resurrection of Jesus is a proleptic event that reveals to us, now, our real destiny.
6. Therefore, the future for all who embrace this is: life eternal.
7. Because of this your life, and my life, are all about bringing people to Jesus, who is “the light of life,” and who generously dispenses “living water” (i.e., the Holy Spirit, who is God’s refreshing personal presence). The Holy Spirit is spoken of as a “seal,” or a guarantee, of the reality of our eternal destiny.

The resurrection of Jesus tells me that death has been defeated. I believe this. The hope this produces in me makes me want to celebrate. I can’t think of a more deserving victim. I’m glad death has gone down for the count. I still cry when a loved one dies. And yet I have been at some amazing funerals where, in the middle of the tears, there’s real, authentic, hope-filled joy.

Paul, in 1 Corinthians 15, expresses it this way:

“Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed— in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.”
“Where, O death, is your victory?

      Where, O death, is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!”

So now we weep. But hope rises in our hearts. One day we will see this clearly. And it will be an eternal celebration sans the sad tears. Pretty soon we’re all going to die. But death is not the end.

(The resurrection of Jesus can be established as a historical fact. Thus, it’s not, essentially, some philosophical idea. Read, e.g., the great British scholar N.T. Wright’s The Resurrection of the Son of God. Or see: Greg Boyd and George Eddy, The Jesus Legend: A Case for the Historical Reliability of the Synoptic Jesus Tradition. Or check out the on-line essays of William Lane Craig at reasonablefaith.org.)

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