Pioneer Christian Monthly - April, 1993

Editorial
Jeff Kingswood

One of the things every pastor must do from time to time is conduct funerals. We visit at the funeral home, sit with. the grieving family, prepare a service, and stand at the head of the casket as it is lowered into the grave. No matter how many funerals you have conducted there is always the question "Where will this soul spend eternity?" There is always the eternal dimension.

The modem funeral business tries to make the whole process seem as normal as possible. The corpse is made up and people are heard to say "Doesn't she look natural." All of this disguises the fact that of course it isn't. Death is part of this fallen world and we will all die, unless the Lord Jesus comes again first, but it isn't part of God's plan for us. Death is the fruit of disobedience. Death is the result of believing Satan's lie found in Genesis 3:4; "You will not surely die". But God keeps His promises. The penalty for disobedience was, and. is death. God cannot break His Word and so death followed Adam and Eve's disobedience. The grave became part of our earthly existence.

No matter how we dress them up, graves are unpleasant places. I have seen them neatly dug out of the soft earth with a back-hoe or blasted with dynamite out of western New Brunswick's rocky soil by a couple of Dutch farmers doing a favour for their neighhour. No matter how they are dug or dressed up they are cold inhospitable places. Sometimes spring flood waters can be heard running through them as the words of committal are read. It hurts to lower a loved one's remains into the grave even when we have the glorious hope of the resurrection.

It is one of our faith's great ironies that an empty tomb is the guarantee of our faith. The fact that the cold tomb of Jesus was empty on that long ago Easter morning is the hope of the Church. It is God's promise that the unnatural death we face for disobedience to His Law is conquered by the supernatural event of the resurrection of Jesus. God's promises cannot be broken and they are sealed for us in the resurrection of our Lord. His tomb was empty as ours will be someday.

Only the Christian can say with true hope:

When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immorality, 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. I Corinthians 15:54-56