Death, Faith and Hope

It has been a very busy time and I have been under the weather so to speak. This last week I officiated two funerals and was struck how life is so short. One was for a 27 year old lady who lost her battle with diabetes and a 39 year old man whose heart just quit. I understand why the scripture describes death as an adversary. I sat with the extended family of the 39 year old for 12 hours in the ICU waiting room as events marched to the finial decision to end life support. It was clear that some had a quite confidence of faith and others could only see loss. The parents who have now seen the early death of two of their children sat in shock and quiet strength. There is a real and tangible pain in these moments. It is where the reality of faith is demonstrated. As I preformed the first service it was clear that some of the family had faith in Christ and that tempered their sorrow with very real hope. Their conversations were not filled with platitudes but with a strong conviction that the grace of God would prevail in the deceased life. Others struggled with the reality of death and the finality of it all. The same was true of the second funeral, the family took great comfort in the diaries of their daughter where she wrote of facing death with a brutal honesty and some times dark humor, but in it all there was a deep conviction that she would see Christ her savior. Through all of this the apostle Paul’s writing took on greater significance. “Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. 3 Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.”
(Rom 5:1-5 from New International Version)