Smile All The Way To Tears

Have you ever had the experience of being so overwhelmed with joy that you cannot help but begin to cry?

I am writing this post while at a funeral for a loved one.  As I am watching the people walk around and say their blessings to the bereaved I am awestruck at the emotional climate.  It is not sad nor is it dark. On the contrary, I find that I am surrounded by something else entirely: joy.

It is clear that this woman was loved and enjoyed by everyone that was blessed to know her.  And yet this funeral seems utterly drenched with joy.  There are most certainly tears but they are tears of glory, tears of exultation. To be quite honest, I find that I am overcome by this and sobbing with a smile so wide.

The woman, one of my wife's aunts, was a devout Christian.  It is this singular fact about her that is the cause for the emotional milieu.  Christians alone live a life based solely upon the hope of the glory of God found in Christ Jesus.  Hope of life eternal.  Hope in the promises of God made secure by the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

Amen!  Praise be to God!

Oh that my funeral is filled with those sacred tears of joy!

Made Alive from Death in Christ

Humanity is a creature fraught with contradiction.  We exhaust our lives' resource asserting our dominance of will and strength of personhood while we exert the majority of our expertise and skill to create lives of comfort in food and security, all the time devoting the majority of our intellect to the overwhelming task of defeating death.  It is a strange phenomena inherent to the human condition: always bettering life to never face death.

In truth, it is death itself that causes the distraction of this world; that creeping villain that lurks behind every human, awaiting his victory over the strings of our life.  Humanity exalts the latest advancements in science and medicine as far as those advancements make life longer or, at least, more pleasurable for the duration.  It is a funny business to spend life concerned with death.  This explains our utter fascination with temporal distraction.

However, despite our best efforts at delusion by distraction, we cannot escape the reality of the situation, what's really going on.  The truth, the heart-wrenching truth, is that we recognize the preciousness of life.  In our hearts, down to our depths we understand that life itself is miraculous.  It is not accidental nor is it flippant.  On the contrary, life is a true treasure.

Think of an infant.  As absurd as generalities may be, there may be no human being alive, that does not realize their worth.  To feel the newness of every moment that an infant experiences is one of the true joys of human life.  Even as the infant cries for her mother does she, unconsciously to be sure, defend her own vital and inherent worth.  And this preciousness is not lost on the imbecile either, I assure you.

It would appear that with all this marvel at life there runs a parallel fascination with the ever-present prospect of death.  There is perhaps no greater irony than to live a life in diversion to death, but yet no more accurate diagnosis of the human climate and condition.  Now think of how this reality runs square into the seemingly preposterous claims of Jesus the Christ, the One who claims to be the way, the truth, the life, and the the sole manner of obtaining eternal life by His grace received through faith.

Now in Christ the human's morbid fascination with death that overtakes our lives with distraction is transformed from a life lived dead to a reborn life made alive in Christ.  In Christ we are made new by His will and in His Word through faith in His work.  Thus the human is freed to live because of their death in Christ.  No longer are we obligated to the pall of life spent dealing with death, and we are now free in Christ to actually live for apart from His life-giving presence we are merely walking dead.  While there is much more to say about this dense topic, suffice to say the work of Christ has overcome what man could not: make alive what is by nature dead!

Dead to Sin like a Tree in Winter

Towards the end of summer into fall, trees take on an interesting character.  Green chlorophyll production ceases and the process of photosynthesis closes down, as the leaves change color in preparations for the dead of winter.  As a result, by the time the snow hits the bark, the tree is void of any photosynthetic leaves and the tree goes through seemingly no energy production or cellular respiration throughout the winter months, only to begin the process of growing green, photosynthetic leaves in the spring.  In a sense, the tree is dead for the winter, unable to feel or to utilize the sun because it does not have the necessary receptors in place to do so.

Humans are much like a tree in the winter of this world, dead to the warmth of God and unable to feel His presence or receive His grace because our leaves have long blown away, leaving us cold, calloused, and dorment to the Lord.  As Paul says clearly, that before we have accessed God's grace in Christ through faith, we are "dead in our sin and trespass (Eph. 2:1-3).

This death, like a supreme dullness to God, is pervasively holistic in that it has permeated to the very depths of our beings, preventing us from receiving God or the things of God due to the fact that we have become dorment in our minds, in our hearts, and in our souls (Eph. 4:18).  And because the things of God are spiritually discerned, the fleshly, darkened, hibernating-to-death man is unable to access God (1 Cor. 2:14).

Fortunately, God has made a way for us to shed the dullness of our winter hibernations in order that we may experience the warmth of the Holy Lord.  It is by His grace that, though we were dead to Him in our sin and trespasses, He died for us in order that we may be made alive to Him (Eph. 2:4-7).  It is as if God has taken our barren limbs and caused them to grow new leaves so that we may be alive in and to Him.

In truth, we all are snow-laden trees, hibernating in the winter of this world, unable to feel the warmth of God's grace and love because our photosynthetic cells are not working.  Only through the work of the Holy Spirit, who causes us to receive God's grace, will we be able to bask in the light of the Lord and take part in the work of His Son.  Our part in this is repentance.  We recognize our state and we seek out the warmth to change it from death to life, from wintered inaction to summer blooming.  Let us then take part in the awesomeness of God in repentance and faith and, like a spring tree, shed ourselves of the snow in order to bud in Him!

The Sting of Death

Death is a mirror that reveals our mortality.  To gaze into its depths we would truly see that we are but mists of a storm, here today but swept away like the lightest of feathers that is lifted abroad by the gusts of the western wind.  We can choose to ignore the mirror and thus disregard how we like blades of grass will whither, but inevitably the prevalence of death will pervade through the shells of all our haughtiness and cut like the iciest of winter storms to the bones of man disclosing the facade of our pride and removing the masks we wear to prevent us from remembering the stark truth that death will come.

It is a sad but honest truth that some barely consider their mortality until a death strikes.  Yet at that moment the same questions that have perplexed mankind for all the centuries enter their minds just as they do our own: why? what is this life for? is this the end or is there more? These questions are sincere and important but should be understood for their roots.  Truly, the mortal coil is as tender and breakable as the slightest of threads.  Death reminds us of this fact.  Evenmore so, death presents us with a reality that many would just as soon never have to know: that ultimately, in the end, we are not in control.

As Christians, death has no victory over us, no fatal sting to destroy.  For Christians, death is but a transition from this imperfect perishable world to an imperishable perfect one in the presence of the Holy Lord Almighty.  For Christians, whose hope is firmly fixed and made secure in Christ, death is but a departure to be with the Lord, a far better state than any this world could offer (Phil. 1:23).  Yet, because of the ever-present fear of death in a world that would rather go on without it, many people think of death as a bee that is lurking around, waiting for its opportune moment to sting.

There's a classic story to this regard: a father and son are driving through the countryside on a summer's day.  It's warm and the air conditioning isn't doing its job, so the pair has the windows down.  At some point a bee flies into the cab of the truck and buzzes around.  The young boy, who is deathly allergic to bee stings, starts to panic.  The father watches the bee, pauses, and with the swiftness of a cheetah he grabs the bee and clenches it in his fist.  After some time, the boy again sees the bee and clams up in fright.  The father noticing his son's fear, holds out his palm for the son to see the stinger and says, "don't worry, I took the stinger. It can't hurt you now."

In a similar way, our Heavenly Father has taken the sting out of death through the victory won by Christ Jesus on the cross (1 Cor. 15:54-57).  Therefore, we who believe on Him shall not perish in death but have an immovable and perfect eternity with our Holy Lord by the blood of Christ Jesus.  Therefore, death should be thought of a the sweet nectar of departure from this sinful world to an arrival into the holy throne room.

And while this should excite us who believe upon the Lord for our salvation and entry in God's presence for all eternity, it should also be taken with a bit of sobriety at the responsibility we have to preach the Good News to those who are perishing and whose departure from this world is an entrance into eternal damnation.

There is an old and appropriate adage that goes like this: for some, this world is as close as they get to heaven.  For others, this world is as close as they get to hell.  Let us pray to be of the latter.  Praise be to God who has taken the power of the grave upon His own flesh to save us and bring us into His holy presence!