We’ll put my Grandpa Bill in the ground today.
As we stand around his grave and wipe away tears, we’ll remember his life and celebrate his legacy. We’ll pray and laugh, reminisce and cry. And then we’ll watch as a box holding his lifeless body is planted carefully in the soil – awaiting the promised spring when the death of winter will give way to new life.
Bill waltzed into our life fifteen years ago when he swept my grandmother off her feet. Both of them had lost the spouses of their youth. Both of them loved Jesus and cherished their families. And then, as a result of God’s kindness, they committed to companionship. The way they loved and tended to one another was an oasis of grace in a parched world. Their friendship was forged through the twilight years of increasing physical difficulties, which made their devotion to one another all the more powerful.
But death is no respecter of persons. Sometimes it snatches away young people in their prime. Other times it waits patiently until the years chip away at our vitality, battering and bending the backs of even the heartiest soldiers. Either way, death doesn’t wait until love runs out. It is an intruder in our homes, shattering the shalom we seek to build. It steals away our minds and ravishes our bodies until we succumb to its cold, dark clutches.
Death is an enemy. But its success will be short-lived.
One week ago, I stood next to Grandpa Bill and read the Bible to him. For six weeks, he had been unable to speak. The stroke left him paralyzed, able to communicate only by moving his eyes or moaning softly. But as I read the Scriptures, he convulsed in tears, his mouth contorting into the best smile he could muster. I turned to the passages we had discussed so many times before.
Ephesians 1 and 2.
For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.
Revelation 21.
And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away. And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new.
Psalm 95.
For he is our God; and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand.
John 17.
Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world.
Psalm 96.
O worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness: fear before him, all the earth.
And of course, Romans 8.
There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus… But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you… For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us… Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered… in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
We laughed and cried together. Journey’s end. And that’s the way it always is. On earth, the death of a saint brings tears and laughter.
Tears for of our loss. Laughter for heaven’s gain.
Tears for our present pain. Laughter for our future hope.
Tears and laughter at the bedside of Grandpa Bill as he lay dying.
Tears and laughter at the graveside where we’ll lay him to rest.
Tears and laughter in the days to come, whenever we wish we could hold him and then realize that King Jesus has him in His warm embrace.
I hate winter funerals. It was winter when my grandfather (by blood) died. There was snow on the ground when we lowered the casket into the dirt. I still remember the contrast – the dark hole, the sunny sky. The cold snow, the warmth of Grandma’s embrace.
Today will be hard. But today doesn’t have the last word.
I will smile on the inside as the mortician folds the American flag and closes the casket. How strange—this elaborate ceremony with its morbid pomp and circumstance! How sad—the sense of finality as we watch this coffin be enclosed in an even bigger case as it is lowered gently into the ground.
And yet, we know what the future holds. We know that it doesn’t matter how tightly they close that coffin. They can encase it in bronze, ensure its security, and dump six feet of dirt on top of it. And still the casket will be no match for the power of the resurrection on the Last Day.
Those locks will be undone.
The decomposition of Bill’s old body will be reversed.
The soil that we water today with our tears will be the garden where Bill’s resurrection body springs to life.
It may be winter, but spring is coming.
Tears and laughter today. Only laughter tomorrow.
