"The Best Place On Earth"

...where the happy are dead...

2 Corinthians 5:1-10
For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling, if indeed by putting it on we may not be found naked. For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened—not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee. So we are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, for we walk by faith, not by sight. Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.

The photo atop my blog is a picture of a cemetery beside the North Sea that Ebe and I took while we were visiting the beautiful city of St. Andrews, Scotland. I have begun to love cemeteries. Before you judge me too harshly and think that I am weird or morbid, realize you don't know the half of it. I'm a lot worse than you might think. Anyways, I love cemeteries because they point me to reality. It's not that I like being pointed to reality. I don't much like reality. Most of the time I really really really hate it. It's just that I so desperately need to be reminded of it. Cemeteries not only point to the day when I too will lie in a grave, but they point me to the ultimate reality that death is a beginning. It is not the end.

Please don't misunderstand me. By saying that death is a beginning, I am not referring to some new age, post-modern idea of reincarnation, the circle of life, or solely the lasting impact that a deceased person's life has and will leave upon the earth. The "beginning" points to the ultimate reality that one day each and every one of us will join those already in the grave in participating in the resurrection of the dead. This is good news for some and a horror to others.

It wasn't until the death of our precious firstborn son, Owen Christopher, that I really started to think about death and the afterlife as I do now. I don't know the date or time that I was converted (I believe that you are converted and then the Holy Spirit gives you the faith to believe). I grew up in a Christian home, so I was taught about heaven as a very small child. For years I believed that it would be a great place. It was a place that I one day wanted to go...it was at least better then the alternative, right? As I grew in my faith, I began to realize that salvation was not just a get out of hell free card. It's not fire insurance. Salvation is knowing the person of Christ; experiencing His sweet and tender care, the love that Puritan, Samuel Rutherford, said loved us out of hell, or loved hell away to hell, and loved death down to the grave, and loved sin away, and loved us out of the arms of the devil: Christ’s Love is a pursuing and a conquering Thing.

Heaven is the place where the consummation of all Christ's love will be experienced in a perfect, distracted, untainted, uncorrupted, fully appreciated way. His love is already perfect. It is our sin that causes us to not fully understand or appreciate it now. Heaven is the place where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God the Father. Our pastor often reminds us that the right hand is not an idle place. It is the place where things happen. It is where the action is. It is where Christ is continually interceding for us on our behalf, having already died for our sins once and for all and so never having to die again.

Heaven is where we will see the full measure of the glory that is due to Jesus. Heaven is where we will see Him face to face and never tire of looking. It is where we won't feel like we should turn our face away in shame. Heaven is where He will hold us tightly. It is where we will be convinced that He wants to hold us. Heaven is where the pain, tears, devastation, and separation will be no more. It is where we long to be because it is the only place where things actually are the way we scramble around to make them here on earth. For the people of Christ, Heaven is home.

Why is this so? Because of Christ. The point of Christianity is not peace, healing, restoration, fulfillment, or heaven. The point is Christ. If we belong to Christ, we have all these benefits. However, if we are asked to give up all for the sake of Christ, we still have Christ. He is the one who canceled the debt we owed because of the heinous sin we have committed against His perfect Father. Christ came to make all things right.

Scripture says that the last and ultimate enemy to be conquered is death. The cemetery (in my mind) is the physical representation of this enemy. It is the enemy that points to the Conqueror.

The Apostle Paul says it best in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18:
But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, 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. For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. 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.

One day all the people in all the graves in all the earth will physically rise from the ground. This boggles my mind. This is crazy! Ultimately, this is what got the apostles in so much trouble. For example, when Paul was on trial in Acts 23:6, it says, Now when Paul perceived that one part were Sadducees and the other Pharisees, he cried out in the council, “Brothers, I am a Pharisee, a son of Pharisees. It is with respect to the hope and the resurrection of the dead that I am on trial.”

Those who belong to Christ will rise to find His loving embrace. Those who do not know Christ will rise to find His displeasure. It makes me physically ache to think of my little boy's body being in the ground, but his grave points to the fact that he is away from the body and at home with the Lord. One day I too will be with him because we will both rise from the dead.

I am torn: Oh, how I long to be with Christ and my precious little little ones!! I want to be away from my body. I long for heaven. The grave reminds me of this. It produces longing for where I belong and who belongs to me. But the mere fact that Ebe and I are still in our bodies means that for now it is better to be here. People still need the salvation only found in Christ. The grave also reminds me of this. It produces urgency...sometimes, anyway.

In 1 Thessalonians 5:4-5, Paul also says that you are not in darkness, brothers, for that day (when Christ returns) to surprise you like a thief. For you are all children of light, children of the day. We are not of the night or of the darkness. I am only of the light because of Christ.

Christ the Conqueror is coming to make all things right by completely doing away with death. In my mind, this makes the cemetery (at least as a physical representation)...

The Best Place On Earth.