One day during Holy Week I had a particularly busy, hectic day and was exhausted. It was an unusually beautiful day outside as I was driving home sometime after 5pm with the windows rolled down in my car. Weather wise, it was one of those perfect, Florida spring days that felt like heaven had come to earth. As I was driving home I breathed a huge sigh and thought, “Oh, it will be nice to be home with my family.” Immediately a thought came to my mind that this is what it will be like when we die. We will have left a busy and hopefully very fruitful life in this world and on our way to heaven we will say, “Oh, it will be nice to be home with my family.” Probably part of the reason that I was thinking this way is that in the week or so leading up to Holy Week I had performed three funerals and an interment of very beloved members of our church family. Also, our church family had other deaths of those who attended Community or who were related to those in our church family. Then on the heels of all of this comes Easter! Mixed with our sadness and heaviness of saying goodbye to those we dearly love is the victory that Jesus freely gives us through His life, death, and resurrection.
Easter reminds us that Christ has defeated death for us once and for all and when we, the children of God, step through death’s door we will be back home with our heavenly family for eternity. I think we will offer a huge sigh of relief as we leave this the sin marred world and enter into paradise forever. This temporary world that we now live in is our home away from home. Peter tells us in 1 Peter 2:11, “Dear friends, I warn you as ‘temporary residents and foreigners’ to keep away from worldly desires that wage war against your very souls.” Peter reminds us to give our best in the few days that we have in this world and to live in this world as “temporary residents and foreigners.” The writer in Hebrews 11 lists the many heroes of the Old Testament who faithfully served God as long as they had breath within them. He said of them in Hebrews 11:13, “And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth.” A key to their faithfulness in this life was to live it in the light of eternity as “aliens and strangers on earth.” We dearly miss our loved ones who have gone on to eternity ahead of us. We though now are to continue their legacy of faithful ministry in this world until one day we will step through death’s door and breath a sigh of relief and be welcomed home by God, His heavenly hosts, and all of the family of God. What a glorious day that will be!
2 Comments
May 12, 2009 at 1:11 pm
Don’t you wonder sometimes that Easter time is the best time to pass on…If your family and friends believe in Christ’s resurrection, then they can be assured, and comforted, by the FACT that their loved one is not dead, just gone from here.
July 11, 2009 at 8:39 pm
Per Bobbie little note about passing at Easter. I was so pleased that she used FACT that we would know that our loved ones would be there. I feel that I am near end of my journey on this earth and yes Bobbie it is a Fact that I can be assured that I will see my loved ones again. Thanks