Sin took from us the sweet breath of life and gave us bitter tears.
For Adam’s race, this is the way it has been for thousands of years.
It was the smell of the dirt.
I dug my hands into the red clay that now covered my dad’s grave and forced myself to breathe. The aroma of the freshly shoveled earth filled my nostrils, and the tears fell.
Again.
My hands pressed into the ground, the red clay covering my palms and packing into my fingernails. The ache of it all was so heavy, I wasn’t sure if I could get back up. My dad was gone from this earth, his body buried beneath the dirt.
It shouldn’t be this way.
Days earlier, when I walked in to the hospital room and saw my dad lying lifeless on a bed… when I threw myself on his cold body and wept… when I watched my mom bury her face in her hands… when I observed my dad’s skin change in the hours after his passing… when I left his silent hospital room and stepped into the bright sunshine…
It shouldn’t be this way, kept spilling from my lips.
Oh, but it is this way. For Adam’s race, this is the way it has been for thousands of years. We are born in blood and water, we live for however long the Lord has ordained, then we die and return to the dust from which Adam was made. That’s the way now. Ever since we decided that a bite of knowledge was better than the word of Life (Genesis 3:6; John 6:48,68), we have gone the way of death and decay; of dust and ashes. It didn’t begin this way. We weren’t created to die, we were created to live. But since Genesis 3, death… this awful, terrible thing… has been the way.
Sin did this, I thought as I plunged my hands into the red dirt. Sin did this. My sin. My dad’s sin. Adam’s sin. Sin did exactly what Jesus said… it steals, kills, and destroys. Sin takes from us the sweet breath of life and gives us bitter tears in return.
The first two questions from the Heidelberg Catechism ask, “What is your only comfort in life and death?” and “What do you need to know in order to live and die in the joy of this comfort?” What hope do we have? In facing the awful experience of death, what comfort could we possibly hold on to? The Heidelberg answers…
1. What is your only comfort in life and death? That I am not my own, but belong with body and soul, both in life and in death, to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ. He has fully paid for all my sins with His precious blood, and has set me free from all the power of the devil. He also preserves me in such a way that without the will of my heavenly Father not a hair can fall from my head; indeed, all things must work together for my salvation. Therefore, by His Holy Spirit He also assures me of eternal life and makes me heartily willing and ready from now on to live for Him.”
2. What do you need to know in order to live and die in the joy of this comfort? First, how great my sins and misery are; second, how I am delivered from all my sins and misery; third, how I am to be thankful to God for such deliverance.
Sin is the reason our bodies die and return to dust, why we weep and wail with grief, but thanks be to God for the confidence we have of eternal glory. We can thank God for the comfort we have in Him, while grieving the death of someone we love. We can have inner joy while outwardly weeping, because of His promise to raise all believers in glory one day. One day, there will be no more dust and ashes, no more hospital beds or graveside services. God’s people will have new hearts, new minds, and new resurrected bodies, eternally free from the curse of sin.
Maranatha (Come, Jesus).
Kristen ♥
1 Thessalonians 4:13-18
But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve as do the rest who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus. For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words.
Psalm 116:15
Precious in the sight of Yahweh is the death of His holy ones.
Comentários