Archive for November, 2023
Which Passes All Understanding
It has been nearly 12 years since I last wrote in this platform, in 2011. Looking back on those entries, it is amazing to see the distance I have traversed. My sweet father-in-law died in 2011. I endured the death of my own beloved father in 2012, and in retrospect I think I buried my grief in work, or tried to find some meaning and purpose in what I had spent most of my life focused on, that I thought I could control, my work. I would encounter things that would have caused me great anxiety, and think, “my Dad is gone. I have lived through that”, which would usually cause me to put whatever it was into perspective, but also to turn to the Lord, who had Dad with Him. Anyone who has lost a parent, at any age, no matter the type of relationship you believe you had with that parent, you become part of a group that doesn’t allow an exit. You pass through a one-way threshold that changes you. By age 52, I had been through bitter grief and disappointment. Each time I leaned into my faith, and in retrospect I could see God’s hand in my suffering, and I learned to accept that God is in control, and that is a hard thing to accept when bad things happen. On this side of the cross I will not necessarily understand His will.
Then Dad died, age 79, four years after successful treatment. He had survived his first occurrence of cancer at age 56, and then was miraculously in remission for nearly two decades. It didn’t seem real. Like many who have lost a loved one, you can forget they are no longer with you, especially when the loss is fresh. And when it hits you, the absence is excruciating. My mother decided not to have my father’s urn interred (a story for another day) and put him in the dining room of our family home. She would put his Shriner’s fez on the urn, or his horned Viking ‘helmet’, and at first every time I saw Dad’s urn I was felled by grief. I could barely look. My father, who had been with me through everything in life, who loved me unconditionally, a part of him remained, but he was not here.
At the same time, all I could think about was the resurrection when Christ comes again, which hadn’t been much of a focus before. I believe in the promise of eternal life, I knew my Dad was with the Lord, which is the interim destination. But I wanted him back with me, in the promised restored, renewed world, where every tear would be wiped from our eyes. I got to the point where I was actually trying to envision what would happen if, say, though “we know not the hour or the day”, Christ returned while I am still alive. Presumably Dad would get his resurrection body in his house, where the urn is, and I would imagine different scenarios (will he need clothes? There are still some in the closet.). The Scriptures tell us that the Lord will come and the dead in Christ will go to meet him first. They also indicate there will be some continuity between Creation as it is today, and the world to come when Christ comes back to us and brings everything back to Himself. (Jesus said, “behold, I am making all things new” not “I am making all new things”).
My mother passed away last year, and I was able to be with her when she drew her last breath. Now we kids are orphans. Mom and Dad are with the Lord, and their urns are side-by-side in the family home. Knowing they are eternally safe in Christ was an enormous comfort, but by 2022 had learned to lean into the longing for Christ’s return.
Today the number of ‘unchurched’, those with no religious faith (a/k/a “Nones”) has swelled. Our Saviour Jesus Christ has been used by sinful people for their own purposes since His Advent among us, so that continues to a besetting sin. It seems in the age of the internet, which has replaced gathering and learning about God to a DIY project, falsehoods about every member of the Trinity are amplified and spread in seconds. Those who mourn are misled by “teachings” that are found nowhere in Scripture. If it were true that “be nice” and you will go to Heaven, why did Christ die? And if Heaven is the extent of what you hope for, it leads us to treat our bodies like an old coat that is cast off, and not the temple of the Holy Spirit that will be rejoined with our souls.
More importantly, it casts life as a countdown, something to be endured until we get to something better. This misses the joy that we are not waiting to get to Heaven or the Last Day, we are living in God’s story now.
The late Reverend Tim Keller wrote a great book, “The Reason for God”, which may have come from his work establishing churches in Manhattan. I am very blessed, I was baptized, raised and confirmed in a (mainline liturgical Protestant) church body which placed great importance on the study of the Scriptures. Led by ordained, trained pastors and formed in the Christian faith, I am blessed to continue that formation as a disciple of Christ.
God gave His only Son for my redemption, and He loves me and hears me when I pray. And although those prayers are answered in accordance with His will, and I often don’t understand, and cry out, “why Lord?” it is always for my good.
May Almighty God, who reveals Himself to us, his Son Jesus Christ, our Saviour, and the Holy Spirit, the giver of Life be with you all, and grant you the peace that passes all understanding.
Purls Before Swine 