Investigating the Bible: Take money from husband’s rich family to join huge, luxury reunion?

By DAVID CARLSON PASTOR

A young man boarded an airplane and happened to sit next to a philosopher, famous for his intelligence and wisdom. The youth asked the gentleman: “Please sir, is it true that all of life is a paradox?” The sage thought, then he replied, “Yes and no.” Paradox is in the Bible.

Death is the harsh reality of all living beings. Family and friends who have died leave empty seats at our holiday tables. We cannot tell them the events of our lives, nor listen to their laughter. Time helps heal the heart’s wounds, but the scar of their absence remains. However, the apostle Paul wrote from prison: “For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” (Philippians 1:21; English Standard Version used throughout).

Paul wrote about death to the Thessalonians: “But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep (died), that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep.” (1 Thessalonians 4:13-14). Then he describes an amazing future for believers: “For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. Therefore encourage one another with these words.” (1 Thessalonians 4: 16-18).

From words like these, some may want no sadness at a believer’s funeral, remembering that the person is in a better place. This is a firm assurance: “For we know that if the tent that if our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.” (2 Corinthians 5:1). All very true, but our human pain is undeniable.

Others may also be helped by Paul’s example rarely mentioned in funerals. Epaphroditus was Paul’s fellow worker. The believers in Philippi heard he was very ill. Paul wrote: “Indeed he was ill, near to death. But God had mercy on him, and not only on him but on me also, lest I should have sorrow upon sorrow.” (Philippians 2:27). Paul felt sadness at the near death of his beloved coworker Epaphroditus and, if he had died, his grief would have doubled. Even “Jesus wept” at the tomb of his dead friend Lazarus, before he raised him to life. (John 11:35).

The mother of C.S. Lewis died from cancer when he was only nine years old. He had prayed fervently for God to spare her. He did not. For young Lewis, it was deep agony. He wrote: “With my mother’s death all settled happiness, all that was tranquil and reliable, disappeared from my life.” Only much later in life was he surprised by joy in his Christian faith.

Memories are some of the best comforts, like this one from the Reader’s Digest. A distinguished San Francisco judge passed away at the age of 81. Bouquets poured, including a large one from Pat Murphy, a name no one in the family recognized. At the funeral, a thin, little Irishman sat in the corner; it was Pat Murphy. When asked, he said, “I’m the city street sweeper, ma’am. For 20 years I used to wait for the Judge at the corner, and we would walk along the block together, me sweepin’. And you know, all my life I’ve been nothing but ‘Pat’ to every Tom, Dick, and Harry in town. But the Judge always called me ‘Mr. Murphy.’ Coming from a great man like him, it did something for me I’ll never forget as long as I live.”

David Carlson Pastor (yes, that is his last name, not his profession) is a Polk County resident and graduate of Bethel Theological Seminary in Minnesota (M.Div., M.Th.)