Storms and Death... and Hope

Yesterday there was a horrible line of storms and tornadoes across the southern USA. I found out last night that a tornado touched down on the Mississippi farm where my Dad spent his childhood and youth. One of my cousins and her husband were killed when the storm destroyed their trailer.  Beverly and Mike were good people, and Christian believers. They had moved back to the family homestead to help care for our elderly Uncle Terrell, who had a heart attack two years ago and has been in poor health.

This means I will be attending a funeral this weekend. I hate funerals. I hate death. In those sentiments I am in good company, because Jesus also hated funerals. He hated them so much that he disrupted every funeral he ever attended..... with a resurrection.

As he disrupted funerals all over Galilee, one day He will disrupt death itself. I am looking forward to the final funeral disruption and our eternal resurrection.  I will see you again, Beverly!

"When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: 'Death is swallowed up in victory.' O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?" (I Cor 15:54-55 ESV)

Cast Off Clothes Left Behind

This is the poem engraved on the tomb of C.S. Lewis' wife, Joy Davidman Lewis.

"Here the whole world (stars, water, air
And field, and forest as they were
Reflected in a single mind)
Like cast off clothes was left behind
In ashes, yet with hope that she,
Re-born from holy poverty,
In lenten lands, hereafter may
Resume them on her Easter Day."

Because of the first Easter, all who are in Christ can look forward to our own future Easter resurrection. He is Risen - He is Risen Indeed!

Hat Tip: The Gospel-Driven Church: The Easter Day to Come

Claire’s Prayers

Some beautiful thoughts from Anthony Russo on the heartfelt prayers of an elderly Alzheimer's patient - Claire’s Prayers | SBC Voices:

...There in the silence of a room full of people Claire prayed as though only Jesus could hear her. Said with a slow and careful reverence, we all heard the same childlike words of faith God was hearing,

Dear Jesus, Thank you for being my Savior. You are my Savior and I love you. Thank you for my husband and our church and our pastor. I love you Jesus. You are my Savior.

If ever I sat in a holy moment, it was that one. Claire’s once agile mind, now racked with all the altering cruelties the disease could press upon it, could not be diminished in expressing the deepest loyalties of her heart. The atheist Richard Dawkins himself would have been converted if he heard her tender sincerity.

Alzheimer’s is not the only illness inside Claire. While it is attacking her mind another is attacking her body. How much longer she has is known only by her Savior. Even so, the very thing that has made Christianity unique everywhere it has been proclaimed is no less true for Claire: Resurrection. The “living hope” as Peter calls it; just as the Lord Jesus Christ defeated the damning effects of sin and triumphed over the hopeless grave, so now we who hope in Him need no longer despair that which comes to us all.

Someday, because of Jesus Christ, Claire will have vitality in mind and body like she’s never had on earth. A glorified, sinless vitality. Eternal life. And when that day comes she will look at her Lord and say with perfect clarity, “Dear Jesus, Thank you for being my Savior. You are my Savior and I love you.”

Amen, Sister Clarie, Amen!