|
“As a father has compassion for his children,
so the Lord has compassion for those who fear him.
14For he knows how we were made;
he remembers that we are dust.
As for mortals, their days are like grass;
they flourish like a flower of the field;
for the wind passes over it, and it is gone,
and its place knows it no more.
But the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting
on those who fear him,
and his righteousness to children's children…”
–– Psalm 103:13-17
“In sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life, through our Lord Jesus Christ, we commend to almighty God, our friend, and we commit his cremains to this resting place: Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord, says the Spirit. They rest from their labors, and their works follow them.” At a graveside, by a columbarium, in a mausoleum, I have uttered these words hundreds of times aware of the tear-eroded chasm between grief and hope, and for those without a faith vocabulary to lean on, the experience at a committal service is one of dissociation, being incapable of comprehending any connection between the reality or heaviness of death with the possibility or fruition of God’s eternal promises. One may even be offended by language of life and wholeness in the presence of an urn or a casket. I have often become aware of an air of nihilism present, particularly among young mourners whose body language and countenance evoke a despair that goes beyond grief, lurching toward a conviction that all of life is useless, and that death is nothing but an offense to the living.
At the graveside, by the columbarium, in the mausoleum, I continue to speak in the language of resurrection, knowing there are those who cannot listen as grief roars in their ears and others who will not listen, presuming that the promise is empty and assuming a uselessness in life itself. I continue to speak in the language of resurrection, not because I can prove it, but because I believe it, and experience it as hope beats back doubt and love conquers despair. I continue to speak in the language of resurrection because I acknowledge that God is God and I am not, and trust that the mind of God, and the love of God, and the grace of Jesus Christ transcend life and death. “Whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.” We are dust, as the Psalmist observes, “But the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him.” I still speak in the language of resurrection because even when we cannot hear the promise, God still means the promise –– “O Love that will not let me go…”
I have often said that I think it is important for us to make friends with death, and that is not meant to be callous or facetious. You see, when I observe those mourners caught in a cloud of nihilism, I grieve, not because I think they are lost. They most definitely are not. God finds us long before we are even aware of it. No, I grieve because in giving death so much power, they miss the life that is all around them. I grieve because they have not yet grasped that death is but one element in the journey to wholeness. I grieve because pessimism has shielded their hearts from assimilating Jesus’ commitment –– “if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also.”
At the graveside, by the columbarium, in the mausoleum, I continue to speak in the language of resurrection because I trust that God’s steadfast love is more trustworthy than my doubts and Jesus’ promises are more real than my meager understanding of them.
| 
