I wrote this post last week in response to something else, but this past Saturday evening my 81-year-old father unexpectedly graduated to heaven. He is in a place that is “Better by Far” and I am grateful. We do not grieve as those who have no hope, yet we grieve. As our family walks through this week of travel, funeral services, and grief, we covet your prayers.
“You will keep in perfect and constant peace the one whose mind is steadfast [that is, committed and focused on You—in both inclination and character], Because he trusts and takes refuge in You [with hope and confident expectation]. (Isaiah 26:3 AMP)
“We weren’t created to die.” This mother, who lovingly cared for her severely disabled daughter for twenty years, faithfully prayed for a miracle, and then watched her daughter pass away, understands this deeply. She knows that when God created us it was to live in the Garden with him in covenant fellowship forever.
This covenant that original sin broke, altered more than just the place Adam and Eve were to live, more than their relationships with God, more than the hopes and dreams they didn’t know they had. God already knew what would happen, but it wasn’t until Adam and Eve were actually expelled from the most perfect, God-centered place on earth that they truly understood the consequences. Only then did they experience the harsh reality of life lived with only a faint sense of God’s presence, with exhausting toil and pain, and with the realization that every life now ends in death.
What had they done?
It no longer mattered; it was done. We weren’t created to die, yet, assuming Jesus doesn’t return before, that will be the end of each of us.
There’s another Garden where life began. The Man-Messiah knelt, praying so strenuously that he sweat blood. His friends who were supposed to be praying with him? Asleep. They had no idea. Just like Adam and Eve had no idea what their desire for knowledge would lead to, these disciples had no idea what Jesus was facing – betrayal, pain, abandonment, sorrow, agony, and deep distress. Yet, he prayed.
In that hurricane of emotions he wrestled with the Father, compliant and submitted, but in anguish. In the end, when he left that Garden, he was resolute. Adam and Eve had, in effect, said, “Not what you want, but what I want.” Jesus left that selfishness and me-centeredness – along with all the other sins in the world – on the Cross. His words , filled with unwavering purpose, still invite and challenge us today: “Not what I want, but what you, Father, want.”
He was created to die. But we were not. We were created to live an abundant life of covenant with the Father, through the atoning death of Jesus Christ, and under the leadership of the Holy Spirit. Anything less than that is immeasurably less. Jesus’s anguish in that Garden led to death on the cross, but LIFE more abundant for his children.
Yet, we die. Loved ones die. In this world, death is an industry; death is a battle to fight; death is a monster to escape. The world runs to avoid death – both the death to self Jesus calls us to, and physical death. But for the believer, death is not a monster, a battle, or a loss. It is an opportunity to cross over into a place so flowing with abundance and love that there is no more death, tears, mourning, crying or pain. Only God.
There is God. Here is God. The God whose heart was so broken in the first Garden sent Jesus to the second Garden – and then to the Cross – so that we didn’t have to wait for heaven to know the Presence of the Holy One.
Father God,
Thank you for the hope that we have in Jesus. Thank you for the great gift of your Holy Spirit, the Comforter, in times of shock and sorrow; you would not have provided for us if we didn’t need it. Thank you for your ever present help in our times of great need. Thank you for being our peace. Strengthen us as we face death and sorrow. In Jesus mighty name, AMEN.
Then Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to them, “Sit here while I go over there and pray.” He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with him, and he began to be sorrowful and troubled. Then he said to them, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.”
Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.” Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. “Couldn’t you men keep watch with me for one hour?” he asked Peter. “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”
He went away a second time and prayed, “My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done.” (Matthew 26:36-42 NIV)
“He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” (Revelation 21:4 NIV)
I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far. (Philippians 1:23 NIV)
Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope. For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. (1 Thessalonians 4:13-14 NIV)