The Conclusion

Every year I speak at many funerals.  
 Some are emotional, with many tears, grief laying on those gathered like a thick fog.
Some are functional- the prevailing mood being  “let’s just get through this and get on with life.” 
Some are celebratory occasions where people remember a wonderful person’s contribution to the world.
Sometimes  the room is full of anger especially when the person in the casket left a pile of regrets, unfinished business, or broken hearts.  As I stand to speak to those rooms full of people my singular prayer is that God will somehow use me to remind those gathered of the Hope found in Christ Jesus and the importance of living with the fact of their mortality never far from their conscious thought.

The late Stephen Covey taught that those who live most effectively always ‘begin with the end in mind.’   Knowing our mortality, and coupling that knowledge with the fear of the Lord, will most surely lead to better choices every day.  Moses prayed,  "Seventy years are given to us! Some may even reach eighty. But even the best of these years are filled with pain and trouble; soon they disappear, and we are gone." (Psalm 90:10, NLT)  "Teach us to make the most of our time, so that we may grow in wisdom." (Psalm 90:12, NLT)   That may sound like a grim depressing way to live, but in reality, those who keep the end in mind will invest their time here on earth, not just spend it, and they surely will not waste such a precious gift.

When we live ‘in step with the Spirit’ we connect this passing world with the eternal.  So, at  death,  we just step from time to eternity, entering fully into what we have already known in part. Death is less an end, for us, than a transition. When we are alive in Christ, the Bible says that the sting of death is removed,  the dark sorrow brightened by the certain hope that "the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.” (1 Corinthians 15:53-54, NIV)

Two questions beg our responses. Are  we ready to meet God? Have we left behind no unfinished business? "Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil." (Ecclesiastes 12:12-14, NIV)  Those who accept this by faith build a rich reward, anticipating the Day of justice, assured by the embrace of their Savior and their willing obedience to His will.

Here’s a word from the Word. Make it your hope. "I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God; I myself will see him with my own eyes—I, and not another. How my heart yearns within me!" (Job 19:24-27, NIV)

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When We See Christ

Life's day will soon be o'er

All storms forever past

We'll cross the great divide

To glory safe at last

We'll share the joys of heav'n

A harp a home a crown

The tempter will be banished

We'll lay our burden down

It will be worth it all

When we see Jesus

Life's trials will seem so small

When we see Christ

One glimpse of His dear face

All sorrow will erase

So bravely run the race

'Til we see Christ

Esther Kerr Rusthoi

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