The point of Resurrection Sunday
The sting of death for the living comes after their loved ones die—if they did not reach them with God's message of Peace before the funeral.
I was thinking of my friend, Mark, the other day. I last saw him at a mutual friend’s wedding in 1990. He looked neat in a suit and tie, hair trimmed nicely, sharing quiet pleasantries with other guests. Against the buzz of wedding chatter and music from the DJ, I watched Mark and remembered.
Before the wedding, my involvement with Mark and our subset of troublemakers tapered off in the mid-80s, as we embarked on different pathways to manhood. Some years earlier all of us buddies had attended Mark’s wedding to Lisa. In the easy days before iEverything—cellphones, internet, GPS—the reception was a simple affair in a friend’s backyard with cake, beer, laughter, and a requisite toast by the Best Man:
“Lisa, hold out your right hand toward Mark, palm up. Now, Mark, place your right hand on top of Lisa’s, palm down. Good. Now, Mark, I want you to understand that this is the last time you will ever have the upper hand in this relationship!” —Best Man’s Toast
Uproarious laughter and many more toasts followed those prophetic words.
Time in a hurry
After those easy early days, time flew by like a hurricane, and life’s easiness was replaced by the ever-more-complicated tussle called “progress.” Full disclosure: I forgot about Mark, and memories of our gang’s golden days morphed into faded mental snapshots of long ago adventures. Some good, some bad.
Several decades ago I heard that Mark and his wife divorced. Rumor was that she got religion and since Mark didn’t have it, the conclusion was foreordained. At least, that’s the way I heard it. I didn’t understand “faith” in those days—at least not the kind described in the Bible. My hope was found in nothing less than what came next—and what felt best.
Calling all buddies
Wedding bells rang in 1990 for one of our pals, Dan. It was at this wedding that I once again saw Mark after so many years. We didn’t hang out together at the festivities. Mark was with a group of the Groom’s co-workers, and after nods and handshakes, we enjoyed the celebration from different rounds of eight. I never saw Mark again after that evening.
Reaching back
Some months ago Mark came to mind. I don’t know why. It was just a random thought that flittered into and out of my mind. But it happened several more times over the next few months. Finally, I decided it “meant something.”
So I Googled Mark’s employer (he worked in a family-run business and I was counting on him having stayed put over the years) looking for his business email address. Bingo, there it was. I composed a brief message and pressed send.
In the message, I told Mark that I had been thinking about him and wondering how he had been doing these many years. I did not know if he would receive my email—after all, more than 30 years had elapsed since last contact.
Several days later I received an email from one of the company's owners. He informed me that Mark had died in 2015 from cancer. The news took me by surprise, but Mark had been a heavy smoker in early adulthood. Maybe it caught up with him. I responded by thanking the owner for the update.
Then I was left to my thoughts.
A beginning but no end
Before I became a Believer in Christ (at age 38), death was just a thing. But, to be sure, it was a horrible thing—a big, dark mysterious ink blot in the Rorschach test of life. Many view death as the natural completion of the “circle of life,” and I suppose I looked at it like that, too. Back then.
When my father died of a sudden heart attack in 1993, my emotions screamed at me, “This is not natural! This is not how things should end! This is wrong!”
I had nowhere in my heart and soul to put such heavy thoughts. And I had no way to change the unchangeable outcome for my father. He was gone. No good-byes. No chance to talk to him ever again. I would never see him again. That’s how Gone he was.
Darkness then Light
In the aftermath of my father’s death, I embarked on a journey that began in darkness and ended in bright Sonlight. I was “saved” around July 1, 1995, in the only way people are ever saved.1 Immediately after this change in my life, I became obsessed with my dad’s spiritual state at the time of his death. I visited my childhood home and went through his office. I looked at his bookcase and found a bible my sister had given to him with her inscription on the flyleaf:
“Dad—I’m sure this book has a lot to offer, and may the Holy Spirit bless you as you grow for the Lord. Merry Christmas. December 25, 1975.”
I found another bible, a Harper Study Bible indicating that—at some point—my father had begun to dig into his faith in Jesus. Flipping quickly to the Book of John, I saw that Dad had penciled asterisks in the margin adjacent to verses seven and 16—the key verses that describe salvation by faith in Christ.
A palpable weight was lifted from my heart. My father was saved!
How could I not know?
With something so momentous occurring in his life, one might ask, “Ron, how is it that you didn’t know about your Dad’s new found faith in Jesus?”
The answer is that in 1975 my mind was blinded to the truth of the Gospel by the god of this age. And by my sinful nature.
And that’s how the formula has always worked:
IF (a demonic force has come to kill, steal, destroy)
THEN (gaslighting victims regarding the Gospel is a strategy)
ELSE (the Gospel will always prevail)
End IF
What about Mark?
The news of Mark’s death saddened me because my effort to reconnect was seven years too late. That’s not anywhere near missing it by a minute. Any chance I had to let Mark know of my faith in Christ was long gone before my email hit his long-vacant inbox.
As I brooded over this unfortunate timing, another thought came to me. A whisper of a shadow of a memory, long discarded, that Mark had himself come to faith in Jesus some years after his divorce. Of course, I have no way of knowing whether that is what happened.
Why is this important at Easter?
This week more pastors, teachers, overseers, elders, lay leaders, street preachers, evangelists, televangelists, iEvangelists, and novices than you can shake a stick at, have undertaken to explain the cross, the tomb, and the resurrection to anyone who will listen, read, and receive that Good News.
And it is Very Good News!
Instead of crowding into an already overcrowded field, I thought it good to look at the matter from an imminently practical and personal point of view:
“What happened to my friend who died?”
The answer to this question is pivotal:
Nothing can now be done for our friends who have died.
Maxim: Only before the fact can we affect any “good thing” regarding distributing the Truth about Jesus to a largely indifferent world with its collective mind bent in the wrong direction on almost every matter.
Our job is not to “save” people dying from a lack of Living Water. Our job is to bring them to the Living Water.
Jesus provides the Living Water. It can be found nowhere else, in no one else.
On the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.” —John 7:37-38
Closing the loop
Death is not a natural part of the “circle of life.” Death is an intruder never intended for humanity. Death is the result of disobedience, and the payment for sin (and all have sinned).
The transaction at the cross was this: Jesus, sinless, was qualified to be a proxy for all humanity. He accepted that role from His Father and took the punishment for the guilt of all sin—for all humanity—in His body on the cross.
Jesus suffered, bled, and died, giving His life for ours.
Then Jesus rose from the dead (the death He died in our place).
A person “in Christ” will rise from the dead as well.
Afterword: I am confident I will one day see my mother and father again. I hope to see Mark on that day, as well. And many others. This is the promise of the Gospel—though we die physically, we will be resurrected as Jesus was resurrected. That is the whole point of the Resurrection we celebrate at Easter.
Grab that Promise for yourself.
Jesus is the ultimate Promise Keeper.
Sometimes we plant, sometimes we water and sometimes we harvest.
Sadly sometimes we miss or pass up the opportunity altogether.
I agree, there are some I know I will see in heaven and some that I won’t know until I get there. So I keep doing what I can to get the ones in my circle to the promised eternity.
Keep the great writing up.